Introduction

That 20th-century mantra, ‘only connect’ is about many things but, ultimately, it has to be about communication – at least initially.

The paradox of current communication

Ironically, in a period headlined an ‘age of communication’, in an ‘increasingly interconnected world’ (Edwards et al, 2019), ‘bringing us together’, where innovation has been breathtaking in scale and pace, we’re still talking about the problem of connecting. Why? I’m suggesting that at its heart is the increasing 21st-century aspiration to connect on inclusive and equal terms and that our communication systems are failing to do this and may actually be obstructing it. This is the starting point for our examination of reconnection as key to renewing formal politics. Generally speaking, ‘we’ – the majority – don't own the means of communication and may be unable to change that, but we can rethink how we might challenge this in future.

This draws us back to the issue at this book's heart: the growing gap between our personal and formal politics, specifically between our need to communicate and the prevailing politics of communication.

The technological leap

At one level, the capacity for human communication is unparalleled. In a world of laptops and smartphones, mass intercontinental travel, Zoom and Teams, most of us have an unprecedented capacity to be in touch with each other.