Media in Washington, DC—print, radio, television and cyberspace—have competing interests and economic influences from corporate, regional, national, global and other organizations. The residents of the District of Columbia have little media dedicated to serving their interests, media that fully inform them of issues that may affect their lives and social well-being. The local media with the widest reach are owned by conglomerates. Competing for air time and press space, the city's interests lose out to international, national, regional, state and revenue-generating priorities of corporations.

One medium, the District of Columbia's website, may meet the needs of its constituents. Using a theoretical framework drawing from social capital and uses and gratification theories, the research examines how the residents are currently using the city's website and how the elected officials view its utility in communicating with their constituents. A mixed method approach of surveys for quantitative analysis and interviews and textual analysis for qualitative analysis was used to obtain an in-depth understanding of what features the residents and city leaders consider helpful. Cross tabulations, correlations and regression analyses were performed to ascertain relationships between the reported helpfulness of web pages and civic engagement.

Results indicate that residents are more oriented to the government enterprise and self-service features than the communitarian features. This study recommends that the instruments used to measure web helpfulness should include advance technology and social media forums. Moreover, leadership from the top to the neighborhood should promote the website as a means to keep abreast of issues that affect the city and its residents, thus, enabling them to become fully engaged and informed citizens.