Culture Of Silence

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Culture of Silence The expression “Culture of Silence “ is also referred to as conspiracy of silence. The culture of silence is that socio-cultural context which does not permit the voice of anyone who has not been accepted into the prevailing heirarchial system. It is the culture of “do what you are told, don’t explain, to yourself. In simple words, it is the deliberate or imposed action of persons in society not to disclose what he or she knows about an activity. This newly coined term means “keeping quiet/silence or activity, for example, having knowledge or witnessed a crime and keeping what we know silent. This culture of silence lives in many individuals irrespective of sex, age, colour or social class or status. With culture of silence, after long periods of time, those who have suffered such imposition of silence come to believe that they have no voice or no control What they normally do is to accept whatever happens to them beyond their power to influence culture of silence also relates to situations where individuals see warning signs of impending disasters yet they remain silent. If they did speak up those who heard, they too remain. Types of Culture of Silence The culture of silence is two-folds: 1. Voluntary – where an individual decides that they wont talk about certain issue, but they may think that it is not their business or they cannot do anything about it. 2. Involuntary – where one is threatened not to speak out on issues that affect them personally or issue that affect society. With involuntary culture of silence, persons keep silent due to act of coercion. Examples of Culture of Silence  The following are examples
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