Spiral of Silence Theory
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, the German political scientist contributes the famous model called “Spiral of Silence”. Through this Spiral of Silence theory Neumann indirectly explains the Jews status during World War II under Nazi’s control. Here, Adolf Hitler dominated the whole society and the minority Jews became silent due to the fear of isolation or separation.
Theory
The one view dominated the public scene and others disappeared from the public awareness as its adherents became silent. In other words, people fear of separation or isolation from those around them, so they tend to keep their attitudes to themselves when they think they are in the minority. This process is called “Spiral of Silence” .
Example:
In a company, the managing director decides to increase their working hour from 8 to 10 and send e-mail to all employees. Majority of them accept this time changes and few employees are not satisfied with his decision. But they cannot or are not ready to express their thought publicly, because:
1. They may feel unsupported by the other employees.
2. Fear of isolation. The fear of isolation is the centrifugal force that accelerates the spiral of silence. Essentially, people fear becoming social isolates and thus take measures to avoid such a consequence.
3. Fear of Rejection. They may try to save their job by suppressing or avoiding personal statement in public.
4. Willingness to speak out. Individuals tend to publicly express their opinions and attitudes when they perceive their view to be dominant or on the rise. Conversely, when individuals perceive that their opinion is less popular or losing popularity, they are less likely to voice it in public. What one individual decides to do affects all of society around them.
The framework is based on a few assumptions
1. Spiral of silence theory describe as a dynamic process, the predication about public opinion in mass media which gives more coverage for the majorities in the society and gives very less coverage for minorities.
2. In this social environment, people have fear of rejection to express their opinion or views and they know well what behaviors will make a better likelihood. It’s called “fear of isolation”.
3. Being the part of minority, people lose their confidence and keep silent or mute to express their views because of the fear of isolation or they feel alone or unsupported.
4. Sometimes the minorities withdraw their expressed opinion from public debates to secure themselves from the majority.
5. Maximum numbers get more vocal space in the society and lesser numbers get less vocal space or become silent.
Criticism
1. Spiral of silence theory has both micro level and macro level explanatory process.
2. It works well during the public campaign, Senate and Parliament.
3. Spiral of silence theory helps to raise question about considering the role and responsibility of media in the society.
4. The theory is not considering the other explanation of silencing. In some cases a person may feel the majority’s idea or opinion is much better than his own view. It portraits overly the negative view of media influence to the average people.
Words & Expressions
mute：缄默的，无声的
centrifugal force：离心力
vocal space：话语空间