Spiral Of Silence: What Is It And What Are Its Causes?
Frequently people We hide our opinions when they are minority and controversial for fear that other people will reject us or receive some kind of punishment for doing so. This phenomenon was described by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, who called it the “spiral of silence.”
In this article we will describe What is the spiral of silence and what are the causes? of this type of social pressure. We will also make a brief description of some of the most frequent criticisms of the Noelle-Neumann theory.
German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann proposed in his book The spiral of silence. Public opinion: our social skin the concept of “spiral of silence”, which is used to describe the tendency that people show not to publicly express their opinions when we are aware that they are not the majority.
According to this author, for a majority opinion to be capable of promoting a spiral of silence must contain an ethical component In this way, there would hardly be social pressure of this type about whether or not pineapple is an acceptable ingredient for pizza, although there would be about the morality of abortion or the death penalty.
The spiral of silence theory is based on a series of related hypotheses.
Causes of this phenomenon
Noelle-Neumann stated that the spiral of silence is mainly due to two types of fear: the fear of being socially isolated and the fear of even more significant consequences. The intensity of these fears can vary due to different factors, which influences the degree of resistance to showing a divergent opinion.
In the first case, People tend to be afraid of being rejected by others in response to the expression of unpopular views. This could be the case of an Economics student who sympathizes with communism and avoids expressing it to her teachers and classmates, who are mostly neoliberal in tendency.
However, sometimes giving our opinion can entail even greater risks than the decrease in acceptance by our environment; For example, a person who opposes the methods or objectives of his or her superiors in front of his or her coworkers runs the risk of being fired.
The spiral of silence is generated when the person who has a divergent opinion listens to others fervently defending the majority point of view, and is reinforced again each time this happens again. Thus, we feel less free to express a minority opinion the more popular the dominant one is.
The mass media are a fundamental tool in the development of spirals of silence. This is not only because they reflect majority points of view, but also because they influence a large number of people; and since they can generate majority opinions, they also create the corresponding spirals of silence.
Noelle-Neumann’s approaches imply that people have an intuitive ability to identify what the dominant opinion is on a given topic. It is important to keep in mind that the success of these personal hypotheses may vary depending on the person and the specific situation.
Criticisms of this theory
Criticisms have been raised against different aspects of the spiral of silence theory that call into question its theoretical validity and explanatory capacity. In any case, and despite its defects, the concept proposed by Noelle-Neumann is useful for conceptualizing some aspects of reality.
In this sense, the concept of the “noisy minority,” who can be as influential as a majority The spiral of silence, therefore, is not immutable nor does it affect all people or groups equally; Likewise, a minority opinion can become a majority opinion, even in a short period of time.
Besides the rise of the internet has led to a decrease in the weight of the mass media in public opinion. Networks greatly facilitate the dissemination of minority opinions, as well as data (real or false) that support them and that call into question the points of view defended by the status quo.
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1991). The theory of public opinion: The concept of the Spiral of Silence. In JA Anderson (Ed.), Communication Yearbook 14, 256-287. Newbury Park, California: Sage.
