Mundane political culture
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
Within what Merelman (1998) calls 'mundane political culture', conversation about politics is not uncommon. There is evidence that citizens talk about politics within the private sphere of family and friends far more frequently than they would ever do so in public places (Beck 1991). Deliberation in public is widely conceived as potentially conflictual, embarrassing and even stigmatising (Eliasoph 1998; Noelle-Neumann 1993). Critics of the notion that political conversation can be deliberative, such as Schudson (1995)) argue that the nonpurposive, casual and entertaining nature of conversation is qualitatively different from deliberation.
