Spiral of Silence by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

Abstract

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (19 December 1916 – 25 March 2010) was a German political scientist. Her most famous contribution is the model of the spiral of silence, detailed in The Spiral of Silence : Public Opinion – Our Social Skin. The model is an explanation of how perceived public opinion can influence individual opinions or actions. This study is about her background and some details about the spiral of silence, and it also describe the application of this theory.

Body

Elisabeth Noelle was born to Ernst and Eve Noelle in 1916. First Elisabeth went to several schools in Berlin and then switched to the prestigious Salem Castle School, which she also left one year later. She earned her Abitur in 1935 in Gottingen and then studied philosophy, history, journalism, and American studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, and the Konigsberg Albertina University. When she visited Obersalzberg, she by chance had an encounter with Adolf Hitler, which she later called “one of the most intensive and strangest experiences in her life”. She stayed in the USA from 1937 to 1938 and studied at the University of Missouri.

In 1940 she received her Phd concentrating on public opinion research in the USA. In 1940 she briefly worked for the Nazi newspaper Das Reich. She was fired when she exchanged unfavorable photos of Franklin D. Roosevelt for better looking ones. She then worked for the Frankfurter Zeitung until it was banned in 1943. In 1947 she and her first husband Erich Peter Neumann founded a public opinion research organization—the Institut fur Demoskopie Allensbach, which today is one of the best known and most prestigious polling organizations in Germany. From 1964 to 1983 she held a protectorate at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.

Noelle-Neumann was the president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research from 1978 to 1980 and worked as a guest professor at the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1991. For her marriage, she was married to the Christian Democratic politician Erich Peter Neumann (1912–1973) from 1946 until his death. She was married to the physicist Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (1911–2000) from 1979 until his death. She said in spite of her scientific point of view she believed in angels and predestination in an interview of the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

The spiral of silence is the most famous theory by her on political science and mass communication field. The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority. In another words, it says that when you feel like you are the small part of a group on a topic, you might be quiet and silence to show your voice; when you feel like you are the majority part of a group on a topic, you might be glad to show your opinion. Also it says that the public or medium are more focus on those majority part and ignore the minority part.

So the minority voice getting smaller and smaller, the majority voice getting bigger and bigger, it growing form a spiral pattern. What we can see from her words is interesting ,because her definition on public opinion is very unique. She thought the pressure of public opinion as a herd. Thus, although public opinion in her is defined as a controversial , people still can be expressed in public opinion and will not be isolated. Her theory in Japan, the United States, the Netherlands, South Korea, the Philippines, Mexico, have been tested, the results are not fully consistent with its theoretical assumptions.

A very important reason is that people in different parts have very different degree of herd psychology. Then let us talk about what is the spiral of silence theory. Because we only can directly observe the public in a small part of the group (often through the media), that means the media occupy an important position in deciding what is the mainstream opinion. With the mainstream opinion in the media and their proportion getting bigger, those people who holding minority views are hard to express their point of view.

Conversely, if a person feels his position is accepted by the public, he will become more willing to express himself. This theory assumes that people always judge what is public opinion, and they are often judged by the media. Theory also assuming that we have an inherent fear of being isolated, and we know that which kind of opinions can lead to isolated groups. This theory also explains why there still have someone try to put forward different views of the minority groups, because there are always have some people who were not so strong fear of isolation, and these people can be called the social point of view of the Challenger.

Theory further proposed the minority is a necessary condition for social progress, while the majority of obedience is a necessary condition for social stability, so both of them are the product of evolution. The hypothesis theoretical basis from psychology, mass communication and sociology. There are three key concepts of the theory: the fear of isolation, opinion climate, and quasi-sensory statistics.

1. The fear of isolation: From a psychological view, not to be isolated is one of the strongest driving force to cause of human social behaviour , for fear to be an isolated individual people will change their actions;
2. Opinion climate: The environment of the views distribution, including the existing opinions and possible future opinions;
3. Quasi-sensory statistics: Everyone has a quasi-sensory statistics ability, this ability is used to judge the situation of “opinion climate”, determine what kinds of behaviour and ideas will be allowed or not accepted in the environment, also includes what kind of opinions and behaviour is strengthen or weaken .

Specifically, the “spiral of silence” is such a phenomenon: for a controversial topic, people will form on their side “views of climate,” and to judge will their own views are a majority opinion.

When people feel their views are majority or in an advantage part, they will tend to express such views bold; when they find their own views are belonging to minority or in a disadvantage part, they may be keep quiet in public time in order to prevent themselves to be isolated. Then the more people who remain silent, the more feel that their view is not acceptable, in this way, more and more of them tend to remain silent. Repeated this several times, the status of advantage views become more powerful, and the voice of disadvantage views of people more vulnerable.

After such a cycle, it makes a process like a more and more loudly, while the other more and more silent spiral down. One thing I want to emphasize is the opinions climate part. I think it is very interesting and also can reflect our daily lives. There are two main sources of opinion climate: first, the group views of the environment you stand. Neumann said she was inspired by one of her female students when she proposed this theory. One day in the morning she met a female students who wear a Christlich Demokratische Party badge, and hen she met her again in the afternoon, the female students have the badge removed, because only few people wearing the Christian Democratic Party’s badges, wearing such a badge is “horrible. ” The second source comes from mass communication. Mass media plays a huge role in shaping the opinion climate, because it is a professional media organizations, which use advanced means of communication technology and industry to the general public community, and has large-scale information production and dissemination activities. Thus, the mass media has a certain authority, and the content of communication is open.

With the development of modern communication technologies, the dissemination of information almost everywhere. People observe the views in an environment, mainly based on the mass media. They usually think that the views on mass media are the views behalf on the majority of people think presently. People like to express their views in public to useing the words and ideas which are often repeated by the media; on the other hand, when the views are inconsistent with the mass media, people are not normally open expression on public.

Neumann’s contribution also lies in her survey methods. Based on her over 40 years surveys experience, she improved lot of investigation methods. During the investigations of the election intentions, fear of isolation, she creative use multiple methods, like the field survey (cross-sectional surveys), panel studies, journalists interviews, and media content analysis. Her research used holistic approach that involves content analysis, audience surveys, and study the behaviour of communicators and communication.

Her research was important for public opinion and political communication. In the past ten years, only few people study in these field. Spiral of silence theory is not few simple concepts, we highlight the concepts is try to analyse her deep thought. Her theory itself has a multi-level structure reflects the comprehensiveness of her knowledge. Also I want to talk about why I choose this theory is based on my future career. I want to work in the mass media field which means I have to know how to control the public voice and try to lead their ideas to the part which I want.

So the spiral of silence is a very good theory for those people who work in media position to know and understand. In any case, the spiral of silence theory provides us a perspective to consider the issue: the formation of public opinion is not necessarily based the “public rational discussion”, it may be just a strong convergence of views as the result. And we need to note that the things strong opinion emphasized is not always the truth. When the public opinion in the minority and majority are different ,the public may be bent a few to the superior views.

Also because of the pressure people will agree the opinion on the surface, but in fact in their heart they still stick to their own point of view. Some of which may express the public views in public and keep in heart has an inconsistent own opinions. This will lead to public opinion is unanimous on the surface, not the real identity. Therefore, I think when the media guide public opinion, we must first respect the public, have a profound understanding of public opinion, also need to take into account the minority opinion, provide more choices.

In this case, we will built a better public environment. And that is the reason why I choose this theory.

Conclusion

In fact, I believe that Neumann’s study results in the dissemination, the overall point of view, is a scientific theoretical system. Her concept of mass media effects and public opinion survey methods are learning communication research with the international trend of consistent, especially after 1980s, her research in some areas has led the world’s new trend of Communication Studies. Her theory itself is a neutral theory, the problem is how to reasonably use it and for what purpose.

Notes

1. Markus Clauer: Zwischen Prognose und Macht. Zum Tode von Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. In: Die Rheinpfalz. 26 March 2010.
2. Anderson, 1996: 214; Miller, 2005: 277.
3. Wikipedia,at http://zh. wikipedia. org/zh-cn/%E6%B2%89%E9%BB%98%E7%9A%84%E8%9E%BA%E6%97%8B
4. Background,at http://gurukul. ucc. american. edu/radiowave/noelle/noelle. htm
5. Xiuqin Weng, Study of Public Opinion and the combination of mass communication – Noelle-Neumann and her spiral of silence theory, Taiwan, public: Research News,p79,Jan,1990