What does it take to be an informed citizen? How can we understand what is happening to us?
Public political communication has become much more sophisticated. How to Go Viral and Reach Millions Top Persuasion Secrets from Social Media Superstars, Jesus, Shakespeare, Oprah, and Even Donald Trump, Joseph Romm This book outlines eight steps to consistently generate viral online content. Know your audience, Make an emotional connection, build sharing into your campaign, Get audience to create user generated content, Make content useful enough to share, share content at right time, Use powerful visuals, Share content with powerful influencers.
Personal political communication has become more difficult. It is hard for citizens to come to a meeting of the minds. This of course is nothing new. You can hear the tension in the living theater of Williamsburg, Virginia. The tension came with the original settlers of what we call North America. This tension is outlined in a book by Colin Woodard, American Nations. He names eleven nations who play roles the tensions in American Political life: First Nation, The Midlands, New France, Yankeedom, New Netherland, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater, Deep South, El Norte, The Far West, The Left Coast.
No matter how we understand the origins of the tensions in American political life we still find ourselves choosing to be silent about how our country is being governed. People we thought we knew seem to be living in other worlds. They seem like strangers to us. Malcolm Gladwell offers some insight to this struggle in Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know. The book begins and ends with the story of Sandra Bland, the African American woman, found dead in her cell after being arrested by a white patrolmen after their encounter escalated into a confrontation. Her death wrote Gladwell “is what happens when a society does not know how to talk to strangers.” Gladwell’s warning is to be careful and not misread people, mistaking their intentions or drawing erroneous conclusion from their demeanors and believing their false claims of innocence.
Many of us live with the feeling that something in our common life has changed and not for the better. In the first part of his book, The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties Paul Collier suggests that the rifts that are tearing us apart are rooted in anxieties that are geographic, educational and moral. A new educated class of people have emerged at the top of the economic latter because they have mastered the new skills of our emerging digital age. There has been a loss of meaningful jobs for the white working class and for those trying to find their first jobs. Both resent the elite skillful class emerging and clustering in several cities in order to support the new industries born of these skills. This leads to broken cities and people wondering if the residents of new cities where the new educated class cluster and that are often the seat of government care about the people in the cities and country around them. If moral means caring about our communities and the people who live in them, the new economic person does not seem to care. These are the roots of the anxieties that must be addressed if we are to realize the promises of our democracy for all people.
Here are some tools that can help you amplify your Voice for the Common Good.
