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Whose Conversation? Engaging the Public in Authentic Polylogue
Author(s) -
Coleman Stephen
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-923x.2004.00594.x
Subject(s) - conversation , house of commons , excellence , politics , sociology , citation , brother , media studies , supporter , government (linguistics) , library science , law , political science , history , linguistics , philosophy , communication , archaeology , parliament , computer science
According to the recently-conducted Oxford Internet Survey, most British people (61%) say that they frequently (22%) or every so often (39%) discuss politics with friends or family. But very few of them ever discuss politics with the people they elect to represent their interests and preferences. Most people (88%) have had no face-toface contact with their MP within the past year. Three-quarters claim that within the past year they have never seen their MP on television, 80% that they have not written to their MP and 84% not to have visited their MP’s web site. In a recent research exercise over two thousand people were asked to complete the following sentence: ‘I don’t feel connected to my political representative because ...’ A remarkable number of them expressed a sense that the politicians representing them came from another planet: