Forming a Secret Group
Chapter 3 addresses how people keep their politics a secret by detailing how CWG developed. First, it attends to how digital media is at the heart of the group’s formation, allowing members to coordinate away from disagreeable spouses and neighbors, and to discuss, engage, and grapple with politics in secret both online and offline. This chapter also focuses on the role of traditional media—what media members tended to consume as well as the unique role of the local newspaper in constructing perceptions of disagreement within their community. This chapter helps to establish the role of digital media in facilitating political secrecy and the role of traditional media in conveying to partisans whether they are in the majority or minority of their community.