The Spiral of Silence

New Perspectives on Communication and Public Opinion

Wolfgang Donsbach, Charles T. Salmon, Yariv Tsfati, Wolfgang Donsbach, Charles T. Salmon, Yariv Tsfati

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136447846
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Since its original articulation in the early 1970s, the 'spiral of silence' theory has become one of the most studied theories of communication and public opinion. It has been tested in varied sociopolitical contexts, with different issues and across communication systems around the world. Attracting the interest of scholars from communication, political science, sociology, public opinion and psychology, it has become both the subject of tempestuous academic debate as well as a mainstay in courses on communication theory globally.

Reflecting substantial new thinking, this collection provides a comprehensive examination of the spiral of silence theory, offering a synthesis of prior research as well as a solid platform for future study. It addresses various ideological and methodological criticisms of the theory, links the theory with allied areas of scholarship, and provides analyses of empirical tests. Contributors join together to present a breadth of disciplinary and international perspectives. As a distinctive and innovative examination of this influential theory, this volume serves as a key resource for future research and scholarship in communicaiton, public opinion, and political science.

1 The Legacy of Spiral of Silence Theory An Introduction

Wolfgang Donsbach, Yariv Tsfati and Charles T. Salmon

DOI: 10.4324/9780203125007-1

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann passed away on March 25, 2010, at the age of 93. Her death ended a highly visible career as a social scientist, an entrepreneur, a political consultant, and a journalist not only in Germany but internationally as well. She was a professor of communications (at the University of Mainz) and one of the first to introduce empirical methods to German communication research. She was the owner of the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, an economically successful and methodologically innovative survey and marketing research firm. She was a political consultant who, from the very beginning of post-war Germany, supplied evidence on the Germans' public opinion to the chancellors from Adenauer to Kohl and Merkel. And she was a journalist, in her first career during the Third Reich, and afterwards as what she called a “survey research correspondent” (demoskopischer Korrespondent). But her name will primarily be remembered, at least among academics, as a theorist and specifically as the author of the spiral of silence theory.

There have been many controversial discussions in publications, at conferences and in seminars about this theory. But there is certainly accordance, even among the most ferocious critics of this theory, that it has been one of the most influential of all theories developed in communication research and political communication over the last half century. “influential” can, of course, mean very many different things. What makes a theory influential? We believe that there are five criteria: recognition, acceptance, integration, evidence, and practical relevance. How does the spiral of silence theory fare on each of them? This book's objective is to address this question. Each of the chapters will speak to at least one of these aspects from different perspectives and with different results. Here we will explain these dimensions, summarize the issues and the evidence, and link them with the chapters that follow.

Recognition

Statistical Evidence

One measure of a theory's recognition by a field is the number of times it is cited, with the caveat that recognition does not necessarily imply acceptance. Indeed, a review of the spiral of silence 20 years ago concluded that the theory was spawning as many critiques as empirical studies (Salmon & Moh, 1992). As of the time of writing the present chapter, Google Scholar showed that Noelle-Neumann's most cited journal article in English (Noelle-Neumann, 1974) has been cited more than 700 times, while her English language book (Noelle-Neumann, 1984) had been cited more than 1,200 times. To put these figures in an order-of-magnitude context, Google Scholar at the same time listed more than 40,000 citations for Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations, more than 4,000 citations for McCombs and Shaw's (1972) seminal journal article on agenda setting, and more than 400 citations for Ball-Rokeach's and DeFleur's (1976) original article on media dependency theory.

To get a better sense of the impact of the spiral of silence within and outside the discipline of communication research, we examined a sample of 500 works citing Noelle-Neumann (1974) in Google Scholar. Examining the national, disciplinary, and intellectual identity of the authors citing Noelle-Neumann is telling when one wishes to discuss the impact of spiral of silence theory. Of the 142 communication journal articles citing “spiral” in our sample of 500 items (that included in addition books, dissertations, conference papers, and journal articles from other disciplines), 66 (47%) were empirical quantitative papers, while the rest did not include quantitative data. Only 41 (29%) were published in traditional political communication and public opinion outlets, such as Public Opinion Quarterly, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, and Political Communication. Very many of the articles citing Noelle-Neumann's 1974 Journal of Communication article and appearing in general communication journals such as Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, or Communication Research dealt with media effects in the political context.

But this is not to say in any way that “spiral” is only useful for political communication scholars. Out of the 142 citations to Noelle-Neumann in communication journals in our sample, 11 appeared in health communication journals, 3 in Science Communication, and 3 in the Journal of Media and Religion. The spiral of silence was also cited in Strategic Communication, Media Psychology, Media, War & Conflict, and Visual Communication Quarterly. Despite its reputation as an “administrative” theory (i.e. one that is of a practical value for influencing the political and social process), “spiral” has also been cited by journals highlighting critical, cultural, and rhetorical traditions such as Critical Studies in Media Communication, Media Culture & Society, Communication Culture & Critique, Discourse & Society, and Quarterly Journal of Speech. Together, these references accounted for 11% of the citings to the theory in communication journals in our sample.

In terms of geographic reach, the 555 authors and coauthors of our sample of 500 citing items originate from 32 countries (based on their affiliation at the time of publication). Most authors citing the spiral of silence (63%) are North American (333 out of the 555 authors are affiliated with U.S. institutions). European scholars account for 23% of citations. Eight percent of the citations came from authors based in Australia and New Zealand, 3% came from Asia, 2% came from the Middle East, 1% from Central or South America, and only 2 citations from Africa. This distribution is quite similar to the global distribution of authors publishing in major journals in the discipline at large (Lauf, 2005). In any case, as far as one can tell from an examination of citation patterns, spiral of silence is much more than a German theory; only 17 (about 3%) of the articles citing spiral of silence were authored by scholars affiliated with German institutions.

Reasons for the Theory's Recognition

Why has the spiral of silence theory received such varied recognition in the field? We see mainly four reasons: Noelle-Neumann's publication strategy, the role of the theory within a historic paradigm change in the field, the theory's relationship to other theories, and its provocative character.

First, Noelle-Neumann practiced something that, in the 1970s and 80s, was highly uncommon for German and other European scholars whose first language was not English: she published her work almost simultaneously in her own language and in English, the only way one could (and still can) get recognition beyond the boundaries of one's own culture.

Her book on the theory first appeared in 1980. With Piper Publishing she chose not a primarily academic publisher but one who was known for offering serious non-fiction publications for a broader intellectual audience. Given her at that time well-established connections with the University of Chicago (where she taught as a visiting professor), she managed to get the English translation out already in 1984 as hardcover and 2 years later as paperback edition with the prestigious University of Chicago Press. Although later translated into 11 languages, it is this English language publication that brought recognition to the spiral of silence theory. She followed up on the book publication with two further English language articles in widely read publications, thus increasing awareness of her theory, although the tone of the academic discussions had already turned somehow controversial (Noelle-Neumann, 1985, 1991).

Noelle-Neumann's decision to seek international outlets for disseminating her ideas and findings early on was motivated by academic professionalism and strategy. Being well connected in international associations of the field like the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), or the International Association for Mass Communication Research (IAMCR, today called Media and Communication Research), it was quite normal for her to think globally. Her peers were not restricted to the (then still small) community of German communication researchers. She traveled to conferences and talked to scholars all over the world, and therefore it was very normal for her to also address these international colleagues in her publications, which meant she needed to publish in English. Given the strong beliefs she had about the validity of her theory, it is probably also fair to say that she employed the English language publications as a strategy to get attention for her theory, recognition, and reputation. Second, as mentioned above, Noelle-Neumann's challenged the then-dominant paradigm of minimal media effects. As Denis McQuail writes in his chapter in this book, Noelle-Neumann not only “provided the slogan for the banner of paradigm change with the title of her article ‘Return to the concept of powerful mass media’ but offered theory and methods for investigating the posited effects.” The spiral of silence theory, agenda setting, and cultivation, although very different in terms of reasoning and complexity, were well received by the field that had struggled for so long with results from media effects research that were, first, running against the researchers' intuitive assumptions, and, second, made the whole field somehow socially less relevant.

This identity crisis of communications as a field (Donsbach, 2006) and particularly its media effects research certainly contributed to the early awareness that the spiral of silence theory received among communication scholars. In her original articulation of the theory, Noelle-Neumann (1973) described mass media as ubiquitous and consonant, and media content as reflecting the political leanings of journalists who, as a group, were more liberal than the average citizen. She juxtaposed this view of mass media with the individual's inter personal communication behavior in social settings (speaking up or being silent).

This points to a third reason for the awareness that the theory received, namely that it combines interpersonal communication with mass communication, macro and micro levels of analysis, content and audiences, sociology, and psychology. The theory offers insights for journalism scholars interested in media bias as well as for media psychologists interested in media effects, for cognitive psychologists concerned with individual perception, and for social psychologists interested in collective conformity. It carries important normative implications, but also offers hardcore statistical evidence, and practical relevance for the conduct and publication of public opinion polls. It is relevant for scholars studying communication and elections but also for those focusing on deliberative democracy. The fact that Noelle-Neumann highlighted the role of the spiral of silence in the transition from theories of limited effects back to theories of powerful media makes it a useful citation for scholars working on the history of communication research as well.

A fourth reason for attention to the spiral of silence theory is likely attributable to controversial publicity surrounding Noelle-Neumann herself and in particular her writings from the 1930s and 40s while studying in the United States, completing her dissertation at the University of Berlin, and working for the newspaper Das Reich during World War II. This controversy stems from a line of criticism (e.g., Bogart, 1991; Simpson, 1996) that concluded that the impetus for the spiral of silence theory arose from Noelle-Neumann's work and insights during the Nazi era rather than from her work and insights as a social scientist and pollster in post-war Germany. Critic Leo Bogart (1991) accused Noelle-Neumann of supporting Nazi ideology and exhorted the scholarly community to shun and hence “silence” the spiral of silence theory. Christopher Simpson (1997) set up a Web-based archive to make Noelle-Neumann's most controversial writings from 1935 to 1945 a matter of public record, raising questions about her involvement in Nazi propaganda efforts. These criticisms and a subsequent high-profile termination of Noelle-Neumann's visiting professorship at the University of Chicago directed further attention, albeit negative, to her and to her research. The criticisms rarely, if ever, focused on contemporary scientific merits of the theory itself, but rather raised a series of critical questions about Noelle-Neumann's beliefs, responsibility, and writings as a citizen, student, journalist, and researcher living and working in the Nazi era and regime, and ultimately authoring a theory in which fear of one's environment—rather than enlightenment or empowerment—is viewed as the motivation for opinion expression versus silence. Criticisms and defenses of Noelle-Neumann's early professional career and writings have been aired and debated in academic conferences (most notably, the 1997 convention of the International Communication Association), the popular press (e.g., Honan, 1997; Miner, 1991), and the pages of scholarly journals (e.g., Bogart, 1991; Kepplinger, 1997; Simpson, 1997).

Acceptance

The spiral of silence theory is a bold theory. It claims to have roots in at least six more or less separate fields and it presents a provocation in at least four ways. Let us start with the intellectual roots.

Intellectual Roots

The first tradition to which Noelle-Neumann traced her theory's tradition back is descriptions of public opinion, if not with the term itself with the phenomenon, in political philosophy and literature. Already in her 1980 (in German) and 1984 (in English) book she spent several chapters presenting evidence for the claim that what she sees as public opinion (i.e., the socio-psychological phenomenon) had always been there, be it in the writings of political thinkers like Aristotle, Locke, and Hume or writers like the 18th-century Frenchman Choderlos de Laclos or the 20th-century Swiss novelist Max Frisch. Others who had dealt with public opinion, predominantly German sociologist Jürgen Habermas in his “Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” (1962/1989), would just have dropped the ball by neglecting the socio-psychological side (that had been there for centuries) and reducing public opinion to its role of a social institution juxtaposed to government.

The second root is theories of social perception. As Noelle-Neumann's theory claims that people have...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Contributors
• 1 The Legacy of Spiral of Silence Theory An Introduction
• 2 Public Opinion and Social Control
• Part I Overview, Evidence, Methods
• 3 Paradigm Shifts in the Study of Media Effects
• 4 Three Contexts of the Spiral of Silence Theory
• 5 Methodological Conundrums in Spiral Of Silence Research
• 6 Speaking in Spirals An Updated Meta-Analysis of the Spiral of Silence
• Part II Media Fragmentation, Internet, and Public Opinion
• 7 Normative Implications of the Spiral of Silence Hearing the Other Side in the 21st Century
• 8 Media and Public Opinion in a Fragmented Society
• 9 Public Opinion Expression in Online Environments
• 10 Linking Social Network Analysis to the Spiral of Silence, Coorientation, and Political Discussion The Intersection of Political Perceptions and Political Communication
• Part III Allied Research Traditions
• 11 Social Norms, Spirals of Silence and Framing Theory An Argument for Considering Cross-Cultural Differences in Media Effects Research
• 12 The Intersection of Third-Person Effect and Spiral of Silence
• 13 Pluralistic Ignorance and the Spiral of Silence Meet Mutual Lessons
• 14 Opinion Leadership and Public Opinion Where Weak/Strong Media Paradigms Converge
• 15 Vernacular Rhetoric, Considered Public Opinion, and Modes of Publicity
• Part IV Intercultural Contexts
• 16 World Public Opinion
• 17 Cultural Orientation and The Spiral Of Silence
• 18 The Kuuki Theory and the Spiral of Silence
• A Personal Tribute
• 19 Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and the Mysteries of Solitude
• Author Index
• Subject Index