 | How wide is the gap between the people who make all the noise in society, and the people who don't appear on our screens at all? Wondered about this after the General Election. All the noise was about coalitions, etc.; the result was a clear victory/defeat. Today, there's so much noise, and it's all focused on junior doctors, schools as academies, the EU referendum. To express the question in electoral terms, will the eventual vote reflect the apparent consensus among the noise-makers, or will it (again) reveal the existence of a significant "silent majority" that has made up its mind on grounds distinct and different from the assumptions of the "chattering classes"? Given the market penetration of social media, the relentless dissemination of news and comment, there shouldn't (sic) be a silent majority in the old-time sense of that term. We are all members of what used to be calle the chattering classes - or we could be, if we wanted to take up the opportunity represented by online access. Maybe most of us just aren't listening. Maybe we are. These are, perhaps unfortunately, interesting times. |
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