The Spiral of Silence

The Spiral of Silence theory is one of the most extensively researched theories in the field of communication psychology. It states that people’s willingness to express their opinions on controversial public issues is affected by their unconscious perception of those opinions as being either popular or unpopular. What that basically means is that people remain silent when they feel that their views on a subject are in opposition to the majority view. They keep quiet because they fear isolation or negative consequences. 

The Spiral of Silence theory was developed by a German survey and communication researcher named Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in the 1960's.

She conducted research during the 1965 German federal election campaign with a series of surveys designed to track the political opinions throughout the campaign. For months, the voters’ remained practically unchanged in the two major parties, the governing Christian Democratic Union–Christian Social Union (CDU-CSU) and the opposing Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP). 

In the final few weeks of the campaign, however, the situation suddenly changed, with survey findings showing a last-minute swing in favor of the CDU-CSU, which caused them to win the election. While voters’ intentions remained unchanged over the course of many months, their expectations of the outcome of the election shifted dramatically at the last second.

So, how could the voters have remained constant for so long while expectations as to who would win changed so dramatically? Noelle-Neumann suspected that a visit to Germany by Queen Elizabeth II accompanied by the Christian Democratic German chancellor may have created a favor among supporters of the CDU. This could have prompted them to publicly voice their political opinions. 

As a result, supporters of the SDP may have wrongly concluded that their opponents’ opinions were more popular than their own and that therefore the CDU would win. SDP supporters were accordingly discouraged from publicly articulating their own views, reinforcing the impression that the CDU was more popular and therefore more likely to be victorious, hence the spiraling silence of the minority opinion.

Most people have a natural and mostly unconscious fear of social isolation that prompts them to constantly monitor the behavior of others for signs of approval or disapproval. To avoid isolation or judgment, people tend to stop themselves from publicly stating their views on controversial matters when they perceive that doing so would attract signs of disapproval. 

On the other side, those who sense that their opinions will be met with approval tend to voice them without fear. This starts the spiraling process, with the dominant opinion becoming louder and more self-confident while the other opinion becomes increasingly silent. 

This theory relies on the idea that in a given situation we all possess a sort of intuitive way of knowing what the prevailing opinion happens to be. This intuition is called the “quasi-statistical organ” and was named by Noelle-Neumann. Our “sixth sense” helps us gauge the environment and the opinions of others. It helps us understand what other people are thinking and provides an idea of the prevailing dominant opinion. 

Interestingly enough, the spiral of silence occurs only in controversial issues that have a strong moral component. This is because a person’s fear of isolation gets triggered by the belief that others will consider them not mistaken– but morally bad.

As demonstrated by the 1965 German federal election and other examples, the actual popularity of an opinion does not necessarily determine whether it will eventually predominate over opposing views. An opinion can be dominant in public discourse even if a majority of the population actually disagrees with it, provided that most people falsely believe that the view is unpopular and refrain from expressing it for fear of being isolated.

The Spiral of Silence theory also indirectly explains how the Holocaust occurred during World War II. Adolf Hitler dominated the entire society and the minority Jews became silent due to the fear of isolation.
 

The theory, fortunately, does have some weaknesses, such as the vocal minority, the internet, and the context of the it. The internet seemingly levels the playing field, because a minority opinion won’t be felt as a minority opinion because it could be voiced in an area where it would be more popular. Secondly, there is a group that appears to be outside of the effects of the Spiral of Silence: the vocal minority. They are a small group of people that openly declare their beliefs but have little effect on voting patterns or social behavior. Finally, a spiral of silence holds sway over only a society for only a limited period because public opinion is limited by two factors: time and space.

Unfortunately because of the invention of the internet, mass media was also born. Mass media has an incredible influence on our minds because almost everything that we know comes from information that we consume through media. This leads mass media to mold our perception and opinions by feeding us propaganda. In fact, it uses words like ‘most’ and ‘lots’ in order to dictate our perception of the majority opinion. It gives more coverage for the majorities in the society and gives less coverage for minorities.

On the brighter side, the spiral of silence theory helps to raise questions about considering the role and responsibility of media in society. This theory attempts to describe collective opinion formation and societal decision making regarding issues that are controversial. It also strengthens the idea that isolation is a weapon used by society to punish people who refuse to conform.

For information about the spiral of silence theory, I looked at this website, this article, this ScienceABC post, and this Britannica article.