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The Spiral of Silence Theory: A Critical Analysis in the Communitarian Context
Olujimi Olusola Kayode
Lagos State University
School of Communication
Lagos, Nigeria.
Tel. 23408033534894
and
Sunday Adekunle Akinjogbin
Lagos State University
School of Communication
Lagos, Nigeria.
Tel. 23408053500849
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The Spiral of Silence: A Critical Analysis.
The theory of spiral of silence is a somewhat more controversial theory of media and public
opinion which can be regarded as a form of agenda-setting but one that is focused on Macro-
level rather than micro-level consequences.
The most important of all the research works that preceded the emergence of the agenda-setting
theory is that of Bernard Cohen in 1963, which examined the relationship between the press and
foreign policy, and in which he made the observation that became the foundation of agenda-
setting research which is that the media are significantly more than disseminators of information
and opinion. The media may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think,
but they are most successful in telling people what to think about. (Cohen, 1963)
Cohen created a blueprint for agenda setting research when he suggested that the world might
look different to different people depending on the media they accessed since each media type
may have provided people with a different map of the world.
Building on this, McCombs and Shaw (1977) posit a strong relationship between the topics
emphasized in the media and the salience of these topics in minds of the audience. Their
contribution to the formulation of the agenda setting theory owes a great deal to their
development of the use of survey and content analysis combined to test the theory.
However, agenda setting research has been much extended since McCombs and Shaw with the
development of corresponding theories of agenda building focusing on the relationship between
the media and their sources (Lang & Lang, 1981; Gandy, 1982) and studies which explore
intervening variables in the agenda setting process such as time, availability of media, and
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patterns of media use. It is this further extension of the agenda setting theories that Elizabeth
Noelle-Neumann’s theory (1974, 1984, 1991 as cited in Free Books Online, 2011) of spiral of
silence emerged.
In the words of its originator Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann: “observations made in one context the
mass media spread to another and encouraged 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 a spiral of silence’.
Like agenda setting, the spiral of silence seeks to account for shifts and changes in public
opinion by re-conceptualizing the media effects traditions. Noelle-Neumann states that,
“according to the social-psychological mechanism here called ‘the spiral of silence’, the media
have to be seen to be creating public opinion; they provide the environmental pressure to which
people respond with alacrity or with acquiescence, or with silence”.
The media are seen as major sources of reference for information about the distribution of
opinion. They are more and more alike, saying the same things about the same things. A
prevailing climate of opinion is created which encourages and structures a common perception
and tends to discourage different and perhaps deviant interpretations or opinions. In a situation
such as this, it is hypothesized that people tend only to express opinions that are seen to be
prevailing, for fear of ridicule or isolation. Thus there appears to be increasing support for the
dominant view, giving rise to a ‘spiral of silence’ as more and more minority or deviant voices
fall silent, and people yield to the majority view. Implicit in this is that people decide whether to
remain silent on the basis of the distribution of opinions as reported in the media; they are
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sensitive to the levels of support for their own opinions – Noelle-Neumann calls this the “quasi-
statistical sense’. ( Newbold, 2005)
Noelle-Neumann begins by proposing that individual have a strong need to connect to a social
collective and that cohesiveness within that collective must be constantly ensured. She bases
some of this reasoning on the experiments done in social psychology which demonstrates that
individuals will not express opinions and behavior in ways that they know are wrong in order to
avoid social censure (disapproval) and criticism and to remain part of the crowd. She notes that
this force is one driven by fear of ostracism (exclusion) and fear of isolation, not by desire to be
part of the winning team or on the bandwagon. (Littlejohn, 2002)
She develops several ideas relevant to an individual’s assessment of public opinion. First she
proposed that individuals have a natural ability to judge the climate of public opinion. She calls
this the quasi-statistical sense and finds evidence for this ability in both the willingness of
individuals to make prediction about public opinions and the uncanny accuracy of many of those
predictions. However she acknowledges that assessments of opinions are not always accurate.
She blames much of this pluralistic ignorance on the mass media.
She argues that media presentations influence individual assessments of public opinions because
the media are ubiquitous and continuous (i.e. they are everywhere in terms of both time and
space and cannot be avoided by the individual), and positions presented by media are consonant
(i.e. various media sources present essentially the same image of a given topic).
She identifies six parts of a working journalist’ everyday living as factors that produce media
consonance:
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1. The concurring assumptions and experiences held by all journalists at all levels and in all
fields about the public’s criteria for acceptance of their work in terms of both style and
content.
2. Journalist’ common tendency to confirm their own opinions, to demonstrate that theirs is
the proper interpretation, and to confirm that predictions have indeed been correct.
3. Their dependence on common sources, such as the relatively few wire and news video
services.
4. Their “reciprocal influence in building up frames of reference;” newspaper people watch
what’s on the television news, television news programs monitor on one another, and
broadcast news people search the newspapers for consensus and information.
5. Their striving for acceptance from colleagues and superiors.
6. Journalists’ relative uniformity of views as a result of demographic, professional and
attitudinal attributes shared by them.
This view of media effects suggests that two different social processes, one macro-level and one
micro-level, are operating simultaneously to produce effects.
At the macro-level, audience members, because of their desire to be accepted may choose to
remain silent when confronted with what they perceive to be prevailing counter opinion.
At the micro-level, journalists, because of the dynamics of their newsgathering function and their
need to be accepted, present a restricted selection of news, further forcing into silence those in
the audience who wish to avoid isolation. These media images also influence an individual’s
sense of prevailing public opinion and sometimes lead to an inaccurate reading of the public
climate.
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Combining these two factors, fear of isolation and the assessment of public opinion, results in the
key idea of spiral of silence theory, which assumes that because individuals fear isolation, when
they believe prevailing opinion is opposed to their opinion or is moving in a direction away from
their opinion, those individuals will not be willing to speak out. (Free Books Online, 2011)
Noelle-Neumann also argues for the dominating effect of mass media upon the public. Elihu
Katz et al (2002) has made the following statement regarding the relationship between spiral of
silence theory and the media: “Central to Noelle-Neumann's thesis is the notion that the media
have come to substitute for reference groups. It is strongly implicit in the Noelle-Neumann
papers that people decide whether or not to be silent on the basis of the distribution of opinion
reported (often incorrectly) by the media.”
The spiral of silence states that, in the formation of climates of opinion in the public sphere, there
is the interplay of four elements: mass media, interpersonal communication and social relations,
individual expressions of opinion, and the perceptions which individuals have of the surrounding
climates of opinion in their own social environment.
The main assumptions of the theory are as follows:
1. Society threatens deviant individuals with isolation.
2. Individuals experience fear of isolation continuously.
3. This fear isolation causes individuals ton try to assess the climate of opinion at all times
4. The results of this estimate affect their behavior in public, especially their willingness or
not to express opinions openly
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In brief, the theory proposes that in order to avoid isolation on important public issues support,
many people are guided by what they think to be the dominant or declining opinions in their
environment. People tend to conceal their views if they feel they are in a minority and are more
willing to express them if they think they are dominant. The result is that those views which are
perceived to be dominant gain even more ground and alternatives retreat still further. This is the
spiraling effect referred to. (McQuail, 2010)
Extensions of spiral of silence theory
Extensions of spiral of silence theory have been developed in two major areas.
First, some scholars have developed theoretical predictions regarding the group that people
consider when assessing prevailing opinion. Specifically it has been suggested that individuals
do not look so much to overall societal opinions as to the opinions as to the opinions of relevant
reference groups. Researchers have found out that perceived reference group opinions had a
larger effect on opinion expression than perceived societal opinions. In contrast to this some
scholars have found out that individuals were more comfortable expressing dissenting opinions
within a valued reference group.
Second area of development from the theory has involved further explication of the
characteristics of those who are silenced –and those who still speak out- in the face of contrary
public and reference group opinion.
Neumann had originally posited that the spiral of silence effect would not be as strong for highly
educated and affluent portions of the population and that a hard core of individuals would always
be willing to speak. However, researchers have identified many other additional variables which
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affect the willingness to speak out in the face of contrary public sentiment. These include
strength and certainty of opinion, political interest and extremity, the obtrusiveness of the issue
and an individual’s level of self-efficacy.
Summary of spiral of silence according to Elihu Katz et al (1983 and 2002)
1. Individuals have opinions.
2. Fearing isolation, individuals will not express their opinions if they perceive themselves
unsupported by others.
3. A “quasi-statistical sense” is employed by individuals to scan the environment for signs
of support.
4. Mass media constitute the major source of reference for information about the
distribution of opinion and thus the climate of support/nonsupport.
5. So do other reference groups…
6. The media tend to speak in one voice, almost monopolistically.
7. The media tend to distort the distribution of opinion in society, biased as they are by the
…views of journalists.
8. Perceiving themselves unsupported, groups of individuals-who may, at times, even
constitute a majority-will lose confidence and withdraw from public debate, thus
speeding the demise of their position through the self-fulfilling spiral of silence. They
may not change their own minds, but they stop recruitment of others and abandon the
fight.
9. Society is manipulated and impoverished thereby.
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In the spiral of silence, as evident from the discussion so far, the motivating variable is fear
of isolation or ridicule although for agenda setting it is need for orientation that motivates,
with people striving to locate and orientate themselves within society. As McCombs and
Weaver (1985) state, ‘people may simply be curious about what is going on around them in
society; fear of isolation is not always the motivating drive behind information seeking or
usage.
Several observations should be evident upon consideration of the spiral of silence theory:
1. The theory takes for granted that the media are seen as reporters of public opinion.
2. The social psychological themes in the theory are culturally and historically specific, in
this case, to Nazi Germany and implicitly Western European.
3. The individualistic views of the audience, do not deal with the influence of group
memberships most often found in communalistic cultures.
4. Social settings of media consumption are not effectively examined or addressed, for
instance, the role of the family or the ethnic group in political and opinion socialization is
ignored.
5. The theory is not sensitive to the complexity of media content, especially in the context
of how people make meanings of such content either in support or even in deviance or in
opposition.
6. Following from the last point, the media may actually lead to discontent rather than
consensus because social and political agendas cannot be left to the dimension of
information or opinion only, but also has to do with sentiments and emotions.
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7. The theory fail to explain situations of rapid political change, such as being seen in the
middle east and the Arab world today, where in spite of state controlled media which may
have been setting the agendas for the people and influencing dominant or prevailing
public opinion, these revolutions still occur.
Critique of the Spiral of Silence Theory
Spiral of silence theory is not based on the paradigm of unlimited media effects. At least three
mediating factors limit the theoretical assumptions.
First, an unpopular view probably always will have a number of “hardcore” supporters willing to
express the view despite social sanction. These are called the loud minority as against the silent
majority. This may occur because the minority view’s supporters relish deviance or at least
depend on it to demarcate their proposed reforms; or because the advocates of the minority view
hold secure and influential social positions; or because they have decided to bide their time until
the majority’s exponents become so accustomed to dominance that they are unable to defend
their view effectively (Noelle-Neumann, 1984).
Second, the spiral of silence is attenuated by an individual’s position in society. Men, younger
people, and individuals from upper social classes are more likely to engage in the clash of ideas.
A minority view thus could trigger the spiral of silence in its favor by achieving popularity
among the young or well-educated (Noelle-Neumann, 1984).
Third, willingness to speak may be affected more by assessment of the prevailing opinion in
social groups most important to an individual than by perception of the opinion climate in
society at large. (Oshagan, 1996)
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For example, Jeffres, Guowei, & Atkin (2009) argue for the role of an individual’s
embeddedness in community groups (and the diversity of opinion within those groups) as factors
more important than national opinion overall in determining willingness to speak. In an earlier
study, Jeffres et al (2009) found that willingness to express an opinion about the O.J. Simpson
trial correlated not with the variables Noelle-Neumann identified but rather with the racial
characteristics of subject and interviewer, and with the media outlet each subject was told would
carry his or her opinion.
Spiral of silence theory benefits most obviously from its Occam’s razor approach to social
theory: the explanation is parsimonious and intellectually accessible, yet it remains amenable to
more nuanced investigation into which individual characteristics suggest more or less
willingness to speak in the face of contrary public opinion.
Because the phenomenon described occurs over a lengthy period of time, for practical reasons
the theory must be evaluated piecemeal. Links that have received strong empirical support are
the propositions that individuals assess the public mood (often quite perceptively) and that the
news media influence this evaluation of where majority and minority opinions lie (Eveland,
McLeod, & Signorielli, 1995; Glynn & McLeod, 1997; Price & Allen, 1990; Rhee, 1996 as cited
in Free Books Online, 2011).
Noelle-Neumann’s observations about the power of the news media also provide an empirically
grounded and mentally accessible foundation for a critique of homogeneity among journalists
and the corporate ownership of news organizations, though scholars disagree on whether that
relative uniformity runs in a liberal or conservative direction. Roberts and Klibanoff’s (2006) as
cited in Free Books Online, 2011, history of civil rights coverage supports Noelle-Neumann’s
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view of journalistic liberalism, while Salmon and Moh (1992) as cited in Free Books Online,
2011, suggest a critique in the direction of corporate-media conservatism.
However, the theory’s crucial link, that members of society actually respond to their
majority/minority assessments by adjusting their willingness to express opinions, has received
only lukewarm support. Salmon and Neuwirth (1990) as cited in Free Books Online, 2011, found
such evidence in their study. But Price and Allen (1990) determined that the literature as a whole
did not support this view, and Salmon and Kline (1984) as cited in Free Books Online, 2011,
argue that it is rare for an individual to hold an opinion for which public support is entirely
absent, undermining the spiral’s significance.
Any particular spiraling effect also is subject to alternative explanations.
Jeffres et al. (2009) criticize spiral of silence theory for ignoring the role of norms for
interpersonal communication, suggesting that politeness, rather than fear, drives many decisions
to remain silent.
Salmon and Moh (1992) as cited in Free Books Online, 2011, note that personal involvement
with an issue, knowledge about the question, the nature of the issue, and the mode by which one
is asked to express a view have been found to be more important influences than
majority/minority perception, and they summarize the literature on contexts outside Noelle-
Neumann’s Germany as finding “a ‘modest’ degree of reluctance, rather than a consuming fear,
about publicly expressing a minority opinion on most issues”. Glynn, Hayes, and Shanahan
(1997) conclude that future research should focus on real-world demonstrations of unwillingness
to speak, rather than analogs in hypothetical survey questions.
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Spiral of silence theory also is vulnerable to the criticism that it ignores the growing numbers of
people who avoid consuming news products and for whom political and public debates are of
little significance. For example, Jeffres et al. (2009) raise this question in the context of “tuned
out” young people who, despite the fervor surrounding Barack Obama in the 2008 election, see
neither the news media nor national public opinion as matters of any concern to them.
Katz (2002) also criticized Noelle-Neumann's lack of discussion regarding an individual's
participation in reference groups. There remains a delicate balance between reference groups and
mass communication. While a person may feel the effects of the spiral of silence in the face of
mass media messages that are different than one's personal beliefs, being a member of a
reference group with shared values may counter the silencing effect. Katz further pointed out that
both Gerbner and Noelle-Neumann agreed that the "media are active agents of false
consciousness, constraining people to misperceive their environment and their own place in it".
The western orientation of the spiral of silence theory is most perceptible in the fact that its
assumptions may have over-emphasized the power of the media in shaping and influencing
public opinion and the public sphere. This power of the media remains contentious depending on
the shifting paradigms of media research.
Besides, the fear of isolation or ridicule which underpins the spiral silence in itself is based on
individualism a sociological perspective that seems to be more relevant in the western culture.
The African culture is much more communal in nature and the growing literature of development
communication and research efforts based on the communitarian paradigm seem to directly
contradict the importance given to the individual especially at the expense of the community.
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African societies are communal in nature and individualism does not hold sway, at least, not as it
does in the West. Interpersonal communication and the social context of groups in mass
communication cannot be undervalued even as the media seemed to have become pervasive.
Communitarianism emphasizes the social ties that connect people in contrast to the concept of
libertarian individualism and it also indicates that the power of the media to inform or persuade
or encourage majority opinion is much reduced by the inability to influence large, captive
audiences and by the ready availability of alternative sources of ideas and knowledge such as
those that are interpersonal and communitarian and which are perceived to be more credible. In
the same vein, individuals can and do oppose and are deviant against figures of authority
especially where they do not belong to the sphere of influence that such individual subscribe to.
(Moemeka, 1998 and 2000)
In conclusion, it is pertinent to note that the media effects paradigm in which the spiral of silence
theory is situated and in which audience and power of media to exert influence have been studied
has proven to be a difficult research terrain where several issues have been contentious especially
as they relate to effects and power of the media, despite the vast resources and energies which
have been expended in research and in providing clear answers. (Watson, 2003)
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