With people, politics and opinion growing ever more divided, communicating to a broad church is harder than ever before. As an example of these growing divisions, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, recently declared he would 'wage a war on the woke'.
With its militaristic rhetoric, the phrase shows the issues that individuals, brands and all communicators in the public sphere now face. To communicate now is to pick a side in a war, to risk waves of backlash from a polarised left or right, without the option of neutrality.
The National Trust, a well-loved and popular charity with over five million members, often finds itself at the centre of controversy in this newly polarised world. After the Trust explored its links to slavery, people threatened to cancel their membership, a polemic whipped up further by the media’s appetite for controversy.
What this shows is that it’s no longer an option for brands to sit quietly on the side-lines. In this contested snake pit, every word or act now has the potential to alienate a vast swathe of people, leading to more cautiousness in the industry than ever before.
For individuals, the toxicity and polarisation of debate has a similarly damaging effect. Every day people of colour find themselves asked the infamous question ‘where are you really from?’, so much so that the phrase received over 13,000 mentions in the last two years on social media, according to new research from Wunderman Thompson during South Asian Heritage Month.
Similarly, the UK’s new immigration policy had over 400,000 mentions on social media with largely negative sentiment in ensuing conversations, where everything from the housing crisis to NHS failures was blamed on immigration levels.
Extreme, hateful, even violent debate endangers all expression in the public sphere. Individuals and brands are drawn into this noxious online environment, where provocation is rewarded over complexity, and dangerous echo chambers eclipse frank discussion.
