Overview
- Conceptualizes trivialization and presents its key enablers
- Explores the implications of trivialization in public opinion and avenues for improvement
- Discusses a new paradigm and its promises to discourse and beyond
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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On Trivialization
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Front Matter
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Opinions and Their Public
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Front Matter
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Approaching Complexity
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Front Matter
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Shifting Cultures
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Centering on public discourse and its fundamental lapses, this book takes a unique look at key barriers to social and political advancement in the information age. Public discourse is replete with confident, easy to manage claims, intuitions, and other shortcuts; outstanding of these is trivialization, the trend to distill multifaceted dilemmas to binary choices, neglect the big picture, gloss over alternatives, or filter reality through a lens of convenience—leaving little room for nuance and hence debate. Far from superficial, such lapses are symptoms of deeper, intrinsically connected shortcomings inviting further attention. Focusing primarily on industrialized democracies, the authors take their readers on a transdisciplinary journey into the world of trivialization, engaging as they do so the intricate issues borne of a modern environment both enabled and constrained by technology. Ultimately, the authors elaborate upon the emerging counterweights to conventional worldviews and the paradigmatic alternatives that promise to help open new avenues for progress.
Reviews
“This is an important book that should be read by anyone concerned about the current state of political discourse in the industrialized democracies. Further, it adds significantly to the scholarly debates in its field. Readers will no doubt tend to ask themselves what we can learn from history, whether we can modify academic approaches to critical thinking to handle complexity and contingency and avoid ‘incredible certitude.’ We should all learn to listen and to ask: ‘how do you know.’” (Fred Fletcher, Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies and Political Science, York University, Canada)
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Oldrich Bubak is a scholar and author focusing on society, politics, and technology. He is currently at McMaster University, Canada, where he conducts research in comparative public policy.
Henry Jacek is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy at McMaster University, Canada. His teaching and research has focused on the organization of political life and the establishment and implementation of public policies.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Trivialization and Public Opinion
Book Subtitle: Slogans, Substance, and Styles of Thought in the Age of Complexity
Authors: Oldrich Bubak, Henry Jacek
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17925-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-17924-3Published: 14 June 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-17927-4Published: 14 August 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-17925-0Published: 31 May 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 271
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: Knowledge - Discourse, Sociology of Culture, Media Sociology, Governance and Government, Public Policy