The Theory of Public Opinion: The Concept of the Spiral of Silence

This chapter describes the spiral of silence, a theory first introduced in 1972 and published as a book in 1980. It argues that public opinion did not appear first in the eighteenth century, but has existed in all human societies for thousands of years as a force exerted on governments and individuals, creating and maintaining the consensus necessary for society's functioning. The word public in the concept of "public opinion" is to be interpreted in the sense of "public eye," "visible to all," and thus as social control. Opinion refers to publicly visible and audible expressions of opinion as well as public behavior regarding value-laden issues. Its power derives from our social nature, from the willingness of society to threaten isolation in reaction to forbidden opinions and behaviors, and from the individual's fear of isolation. This fear causes individuals to register continually any changes in society's approval by means of a "quasi-statistical sense," and to voice agreement upon increase in approval and to remain silent upon decrease, thus contributing to further decline in the popularity of the originally held opinion. The pressure of public opinion is a source of constant conflict for governments in weighing measures in order to win public support. Individuals also experience ongoing conflict between their individual inclinations and convictions and the social demands to conform. This chapter discusses the consequences of public opinion for the classical theory of democracy and for an understanding of mass media effects. The chapter also provides hypotheses and methods for testing them, and presents the example of public opinion concerning nuclear energy.