Citizens express political ideas privately yet avoid public political engagement

Evidence

To discover how, where, and why Americans create this culture of avoidance, the author accompanied suburban volunteers, activists, and recreation club members for two and a half years, listening to them talk — and avoid talking — about the wider world, both within their groups and in their encounters with government, the media, and corporate authorities. Unlike interview-based studies of political participation, civic culture, and public opinion, Avoiding politics shows how citizens create and express ideas in everyday life, contrasting their compassionate, curious, and open-minded private conversations with their mysterious lack of publicly voiced political engagement. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the book’s core empirical method: observing everyday talk over longitudinal fieldwork rather than one-off interviews.
• XREF: connects to: People voice political opinions privately but suppress them in group settings.; Political expression is switched on and off by group context rather than individual belief — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 97; Civic volunteers suppress political worry publicly despite private obsession with it — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 285 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• People voice political opinions privately but suppress them in group settings. #corroborates (0.95)
• Civic volunteers suppress political worry publicly despite private obsession with it #exemplifies (0.92) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 285
• Activists privately voice broad political concerns but publicly frame motives narrowly #exemplifies (0.92) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 80
• Political expression is switched on and off by group context rather than individual belief #corroborates (0.90) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 97
• Volunteers suppress principled political talk because it seems unseemly #exemplifies (0.90) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 276
• Citizens express narrower ideas as their audience grows wider #expands (0.88) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 32