Spiral Of Silence Theory Analysis

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Our major concern to study in this chapter is “spiral of silence” theory. The ideology of this theory is “if a person believes that their opinion is not shared or believed by the majority group they will more likely either express the opinion that majority does hold or remain silent”. 3.1 Theory: Spiral of Silence This is a theory in the field of mass communication, which was introduced by Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1974 and he used it to describe the process of public opinion formation as per the standards of Mass Communication. Noelle-Neumann refers to the theory in his own words as the process an individual experiences regularly when “individual may and can perceive that the views which he holds are losing grounds; the more this appears to be so, the more uncertain in his own views he will become of himself and his views, and the less he will be likely to express his opinion”. The lack of self-certainty in …show more content…

Thereby, the opinion of the public is then identified, by the silenced individual in the community as the opinion that is generally acceptable to the public on the speaking grounds and can be voiced openly with no fear. Later on, Noelle-Neumann goes on to say that the individual who has the opposing opinion will then eventually experience the feelings of social isolation or a "danger of social isolation if their views are publicly or openly expressed, they risk being socially isolated from the majority groups in the society". Noelle-Neumann claims upon the ideas and suggestions by classical writers of public opinion to attribute/explain this concept/reaction by individuals who have lost their speeches to public opinions. Noelle-Neumann came up with results and developed five hypotheses on which to test the spiral of silence theory. As their study continued, hypotheses were formulated and were entirely based on prominent theories and core elements of opinions in public.

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