One of the foremost political scientist in Germany, Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann conceived the “spiral of silence” in her book titled “The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion-Our Social Skin.” Noelle-Neumann was the president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research from 1978 to 1980 (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, 2007).

Together with Erich Peter Neumann, her husband, Noelle-Neumann founded the “Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach,” which is one of the best known and most prestigious polling organizations in Germany today (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, 2007).

“Observations made in one context (the mass media) spread to another and encourage people either to proclaim their views or to swallow them and keep quiet until in a spiraling process, the one view dominated the public scene and the other disappeared from public awareness as its adherents became mute. This is the process that can be called the spiral of silence,” Noelle-Neumann wrote (Baran & Davis, 1995).

Spiral of Silence

Spiral of Silence is a theory of media and public opinion that is regarded as another type of agenda setting theory but one that is focused on macro-level rather than on micro-level consequences (Baran & Davis, 1995). It is concerned with the interplay between four elements: mass media, individual expressions of opinions, social relations and interpersonal communications, and perceptions that individuals have the surrounding “climate of opinion” in their own social environment (McQuail, 2005).

According to Littlejohn, the spiral of silence occurs when individuals who perceive that their opinion is popular express it, whereas those who do not think their opinion is popular remain quiet. This process occurs in a spiral, so that one side of an issue ends up with much publicity and the other side with little (2002).

Littlejohn’s thesis rests on two premises: that people know which opinion is prevalent and which are not and that people adjust their expressions of opinion to these perceptions. In political elections, for example, people usually perceive quite accurately the prevailing opinion about issues and candidates, and they likely to express their preferences when they are shared by others (2002).

However, other factors enter into the decision to express one’s opinion: young people are more expressive than older ones; educated individuals will speak up more than uneducated ones; men are generally more willing to disclose their opinions than women (Littlejohn, 2002).

The spiral of silence seems to be caused by fear of isolation. It is not just a matter of wanting to be on the winning side, but it is an attempt to avoid being isolated from one social group. Threats of criticism from others were found to be powerful forces in silencing individuals (Littlejohn, 2002).

Baran and Davis wrote that Noelle-Neumann argued that her perspective involves “a return to the concept of powerful mass media (1995), to which Elihu Katz argued “that they are an updated version of mass society (1995). According to McQuail, the spiral of silence is a close neighbor of the mass society theory and involves a similar, somewhat pessimistic, view of the quality of social relations (2005,).

Fear of Isolation

Griffin defined fear of isolation as the engine that drives or the centrifugal force that accelerates the spiral of silence (2007).

Baran and Davis explained that because of people’s fear of isolation or separation from around them, they tend to keep their attitudes to themselves when they think they are in the minority (1995).

Baran and Davis further explained that the media, because of some factors, tend to present one, or at most two, sides of an issue to the exclusion of others, which further encourages those people to keep quiet and makes it even tougher for media to uncover and to register that opposite viewpoint, which are often ignored, marginalized, and trivialized (1995, p. 236).

Katz, in an essay critical of the spiral of silence, summarized Noelle-Neumann’s thinking that individuals have opinions, but because of fear of isolation, they will not express their opinion if they perceive themselves supported by others. Holders of the minority viewpoint are willing to speak out if they feel that they are supported by the media dominant tendency (Baran & Davis, 1995, p. 238-239).

Overcoming the Silence

There are exceptions to the spiral of silence because there are groups and individuals who do not fear isolation and who will express their opinion no matter what the consequences (Littlejohn 2002).

Noelle-Neumann described two types of groups and individuals who form a vocal minority that remains at the top of the spiral of silence in defiance of threats of isolation: the hardcore nonconformists and the avant-garde (Griffin, 2007).

Hard core nonconformists resist the pressure to be silent because they have been overpowered and relegated to a completely defensive position in public, because they have nothing to lose by speaking out, and because they cling to the past and regard isolation as the price to pay (Griffin, 2007).

Avant-garde, which includes artists, reformers, and intellectuals, form the vanguard of new ideas who seek public approval or response, even though it may be negative, and who are convinced that will get positive feedback in the future, and who hold minority ideas that are ahead of times (Griffin, 2007).

Main Assumptions

Spiral of silence assumes that (1) society threatens deviant individuals with fear of isolation, (2) groups and individuals experience fear of isolation continuously, (3) fr of isolation causes individuals to try to assess the climate of opinion at all times, and (4) far of isolation affects their behavior in public, especially their willingness or not to express opinions openly (McQuail, 2005)