COMM250 Study Guide for Final Exam Spiral of Silence Theory Elisabeth Noelle Neuman 1974 What is the goal purpose of SST To Predict how perceived public opinon can influence individual opinion expression To explain how a dominant public opinion develops based on people s perceptions of what others think It directly related to speech freedom which is the cornerstone of our democracy What assumptions guide SST Society threatens deviant individuals with isolation fear of isolation is pervasive o When people agree on a common set of values then fear of isolation decreases o When there is a difference in values fear of isolation sets This fear of isolation causes individuals to try to assess the climate of opinion at all times through o Personal observation often distorted and inaccurate because of pluralistic ignorance or mixing their own direct perceptions and the perceptions filtered through the eyes of the media into an indivisible whole that seems to derive from their own thoughts and experiences o Media indirectly effects people people seek out the media to confirm or disconfirm their observations their observations and then interpret their own observations through the media Public behavior is affected by public opinion assessment o Public opinion attitudes and behaviors expressed in public to avoid isolation determines whether these values have equal conviction across the populations What are SST s concepts public opinion the silent minority the hard core a quasi statistical sense pluralistic ignorance dual climate of opinion ubiquity cumulativeness consonance etc Public opinion 1984 attitudes and behaviors in public to avoid isolation Noelle Neumann o Three types of public legal social and social psychological concerns of people o In areas of controversy or change public opinions are those one can express without running the danger of isolating oneself The hard core person or group s at the end of the spiral willing to speak out at any cost o Aka silent minority that rises up and defies any threats of isolation by making majority voice less powerful o Not affected by social pressure or isolation o Hold strong and unchanged opinion o Instrumental in changing public opinion and straying away from narrow minded view o Remains committed to the past retaining the old values while suffering the isolation of the present Noelle Neumann 1984 Quasi statistical sense personal estimation of the strength of opposing sides on public issue o Able to do this by listening to the views of others and incorporating that knowledge into their own view points o Example At dinner discussing how to discipline children Carol s quasi statistical sense makes her believe that she is the only person at her table that opposes time outs Carol sees that she is outnumbered on the topic and able to assess the public opinion on the subject Pluralistic ignorance mistake observation of how most people feel o People mix their own direct perceptions and the perceptions filtered through the eyes of the media into an indivisible whole that seems to derive from their own thoughts and experiences o Assuming you are the minority and the vast majority of everyone else has the opposing view Dual climate of opinion and the way the media report on the issue The Media s Influence Three Characteristics o Ubiquity the belief that media is everywhere difference between the population s perception of a public issue Social media smartphones TVs computers etc People trust the media and seek information from it Media is usually the public opinion o Cumulativeness the belief that media repeats themselves across programs and Read story in newspaper hear on radio then see on 7 o clock news that across time night Reciprocal influence in building up frames of reference Noelle Neumann 1984 Can be problematic when the original source is wrong and four types of media newspaper radio TV and internet rely on that source thus suggesting that conformity of voice influences what info gets released to the public to help form an opinion o Consonance the belief that all media is similar in attitudes beliefs and values Usually produced from a tendency of news people to confirm their own thoughts and opinions making it look like those opinions were emanating from the public Fear of Isolation and the Solomon Asch studies 1951 Solomon Asch social psychologist in the 50s conducted an experiment more than fifty times with 8 10 research participants to study their behavior and opinion of plain evidence o Experiment asked subjects out of choices 1 2 3 which line was the closest to this one o After going around the room the fixed participants who were told to say 1 all named line 1 as the one equal to the example line o The other subjects began to name line 1 as the correct response as well o Asch discovered that among the fifty experiments conducted several times they named the incorrect response to agree with the rest of the subjects o Asch believed that individuals frequently feel great pressure to agree with others even though the others are incorrect thus fearing isolation What is the explanation in the theory In other words how does the spiral of silence work People who believe they hold a minority viewpoint in a public issue will not speak it and those who believe they hold a majority viewpoint will be more encouraged to speak Those in the minority will be less assertive thus leading to a downward spiral of communication What role does the media play in the spiral of silence Media is everywhere newspapers Internet TV radio etc People seek media for information and opinions Focuses on majority of views thus underestimating the minority views How does SST test its explanations What is the train test How is it used The SST tests its explanations with the train test Train test clear testable and replicable assessment of the extent to which people will speak out o Example question used in test Suppose that you have a five hour train ride ahead of you and a person sits next to you and starts to discuss the problems of food safety Would you talk or not talk about the topic to the person o The question was repeated several times with various topics ranging from nuclear power plants to abortion to racial segregation The test showed that there are a number of factors that help determine whether a person will voice an opinion Supporters with a dominant opinion are more willing to voice an opinion than those in minority opinion Due to fear of isolation people
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