The Spiral of Silence

In the context of Public Opinion, we started talking about the Spiral of Silence which was proposed by a German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1974. Spiral of silence refers to the tendence of people to remain silent when they feel that their views are in opposition to the majority opinion. The theory says that they remain silent for a few reasons:

• Fear of isolation when the group or public realizes that the individual has a different opinion from the status quo.

• Fear of reprisal or isolation, in the sense that voicing said opinion might lead to a negative consequences.

This theory relies on the idea that we all possess a sort of intuitive way of knowing what the common opinion is. The spiral is created or reinforced when someone in the perceived opinion majority speaks out in a confident way in support of the majority opinion. As a consequence, the minority begins to be more and more distanced from a place where they are comfortable to voice their opinion and begin to experience fear of isolation or reprisal.

In other words, the Spiral of Silence happens when:

• Individuals hold an opinion but fail to express it.

• Perception of minority viewpoint

• Self censorship to say what we really think

The ones that feel that are the leaders or holders of a mayority, form a social group and punish the ones that do not think the same way. As a consequenc, everyone wants to be part of the mayority and be part of that social group.

The key is the perception. That is, if we feel we are a minority we censor ourselves so we create an Spiral of Silence. The Emperor´s New Clothes is a good example of the Spiral of Silence and it also shows how to end with it or how to break it.

#publicopinion #spiralofsilence #society #marketresearch #radio #advertisingboom