Spiral of Silence

                                               Spiral of Silence

                                Spiral of Silence theory was originally proposed by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1974, Spiral of silence is the term meant to refer to the tendency of people to remain silent when they feel that their views are in opposition to the majority view on a subject. The theory posits that they remain silent for a few reasons. For example, the fear of being in isolation if they voiced their opinion which is different than the opinion that majority of people hold. The major fear that they have is being out casted or thrown out of the society or losing their jobs if they voiced their opinion which differs and that their different opinion may lead to more lethal negative reaction or consequences from the people. Spiral of Silence in simple term means one being so completely lost in the spiral because of his fear of stating his opinion or views which may not be liked or accepted by people. The spiral is created or reinforced when someone in the perceived opinion majority speaks out confidently in support of the majority opinion, hence the minority begins to be more and more distanced from a place where they are comfortable to voice their opinion and begin to experience the aforementioned fears.

                         The closer an individual thinks that their opinion resides to the held majority opinion, the more likely they are to be willing to voice it in public discourse. A few other important tenets to mention; this theory rests strongly on the idea that the opinion must have a distinct moral component (i.e. abortion), because obviously, no one will experience the spiral of silence trying to talk out what toppings to get on their pizza with roommates.

                             The theory has some weaknesses as well and two of the most notable are those of the vocal minority and the internet. People on Internet, even if in less minority, voicing their opinion are hard to go miss. Second, the vocal minority – you know those people, they may be the only one who thinks that cats need the right to vote, but they won’t shut up about it and are seemingly outside of the effects of the Spiral of Silence.