[liberationtech] [ECF] Pew Report - Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’

[Mariam Cook]

Thanks Steven, really interesting (the Pew report and your deck which I've
just read through). When I first embarked on developing PositionDial, I
believed that those most engaged politically, with the strongest opinions,
would be most interested, and pondered how to get around this, when really
a huge part of PositionDial's purpose is to engage people more widely,
especially the disengaged. However in my own research, I found it was those
in the middle, or the ones most unsure on particular issues, or lacking of
confidence who were most interested, both in 'seeing the different sides'
of issues... and working out where they stand, relatively. They represent a
marketing challenge (as it's the top engagers who naturally connect with us
and sign up....) but we hope once we reach the silent middle... our helping
them see a spectrum of information can hook them in... even if they aren't
discussing, and get them into 'playing' and 'tracking their progress' on
the issue they care about...so they are more inclined towards civic
engagement, including discussion on and offline..

I was going going to send this to the whole list but just bottled it as
don't want to come across as just self-promoting... but anyway I'm going to
register on e-democracy and keep watching your work. I'm supposed to be
head down in a massive project (which is why I've just shared an article on
twitter on procrastinating and am now emailing you! :-/) but would be great
to connect more in time.. really interested in your work and potentially
seeing if there are ways we can work together in future,

best wishes
Mariam


Mariam

Mariam Cook
Founder and CEO
T: +44 (0) 7835 758 569

Where do you stand? | Get YOUR PositionDial
<http://positiondial.com/yourpositiondial> | @PositionDial
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On 26 August 2014 22:09, Steven Clift <clift at e-democracy.org> wrote:

> Pew Report:
>
> Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’
> http://bit.ly/silentspiral
>
>
> Guardian article:
>
> Facebook and Twitter users 'more likely' to censor their views offline
> Pew study warns about ‘spiral of silence’ in US discussion of Edward
> Snowden’s NSA online surveillance revelations
> http://bit.ly/guardianselfcensor
>
>
> On a related note, from my analysis of a past Pew survey, see slides
> 17, 18, and 19 - there is huge drop off in the ideological middle of
> those who talk politics offline still willing to do it online.
>
> http://bit.ly/newvoicesslides
>
>
> My take - the "loudest voices" problem and the lack of civility
> practiced by thunderous partisans make online political discussion
> quite uninviting for many. My view is that once you frame online
> discussion as say city politics versus broader community
> life/community issues exchange you lose 98% of potential participants.
>
>
>
> Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
>   Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.org
>   Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy
>   Tel/Text: +1.612.234.7072
> ᐧ
> ᐧ
>
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