Blog #8- EOTO: Spiral of Silence

This week in class we did another Each One Teach One presentation. My group was assigned theories. I was personally assigned the Spiral of Silence. I was familiar with several of the theories such as, gatekeeping, agenda-setting, and confirmation bias, so I decided to choose one that I wasn’t informed on. The spiral of silence theory was proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle- Neumann in 1974. I learned that the spiral of silence theory explains the growth and spread of public opinion. It is people’s willingness to express their opinions on controversial public issues. It explains how they are affected by their largely unconscious perception of those opinions as being popular or unpopular. The perception that your opinion is considered unpopular tends to discourage you to express it. While if you have the perception that your opinion will be popular you tend to have the opposite mindset. Because of this, the theory shows that a social group of society might isolate themselves or exclude members due to their personal opinions on a matter. This then stipulates that individuals have a fear of isolation. So, they would rather follow the popular opinion or the “norm” so that they are not left out. People constantly monitor the behavior of others to find a sign of approval or disapproval. This then affects their personal beliefs and opinions. The concept is interpreted from a social-psychological perspective as a state of consciousness in which individuals are aware that their actions are “seen by all” or “heard by all,” requiring that they constantly monitor not only their own actions but also the reactions of others in their environment.

There are many effects of the spiral of silence theory. In today’s day and age, it has gotten easier to apply this theory. With the media today, we are exposed to a wide variety of different media stories. This theory has an effect on public opinions. It triggers a “spiraling” process that reveals the majority opinion of society. When voicing your opinion, you could be faced with social isolation, so this limits people. researchers such as Ho et. al (2013) have found that those with more media exposure are more likely to voice their opinion in public (pp. 123-124). Once again, this is a reasonable assumption, as exposure to different types of information on a given issue will encourage vigorous debate. The media chooses to report on the majority group’s opinions and activities because they are money-driven. What about the people that do not have a lot of media exposure?

The internet (a.k.a. interwebs, series of tubes – thanks, Al) seemingly levels the playing field, where a minority opinion won’t be felt by the individual as a minority opinion and might be voiced in that arena whereas the individual would have not been so vocal in another place of public discourse. There are outlets that disprove this theory. For example, politics. Most right-sided people will follow Fox News because their opinions are the same or similar. Left-sided people will follow CNN because of the same reason. A right-sided person most likely would not voice their beliefs on a page that makes their opinions feel minority to theirs.

In conclusion, the spiral of silence is an important theory to know and understand. It helps us realize why we work the way we do. Why we express certain beliefs and not others, and also why we are so scared so social isolation and what it can do to us.