Spiral Of Silence Theory

Submitted By clicheee
Words: 430
Pages: 2

In this week, we studied “Spiral of Silence Theory”, which was proposed firstly by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann who founds humans are afraid of isolation and rejection. Spiral of Silence Theory means people prefer to keep silent especially when they feel they may have opposite opinions with others’. The first reason of people to keep silent is that they are afraid their divergent opinions will incur isolations. For example, most of students in the discussion sections don’t like answer or ask questions because they are afraid that teacher or other classmates will laugh at themselves because of their idiot questions. Even though teachers encourage students to speak out their opinions, they still want to be silent to avoid any isolations. Therefore, people who don’t have the awareness that they actually in the majority will become quieter. They don’t speak out, don’t tell others what they think and are always quiet. Also, they are afraid of rejection. When they request something or ask a question, they are really scared that anyone will refuse what they said. People will be embarrassed and lost confidence gradually. The second reason is that “Fear of reprisal or more extreme isolation, in the sense that voicing said opinion might lead to a negative consequence beyond that of mere isolation (loss of a job, status, etc.)” (Davie, G. n.d. Spiral of Silence.). The reprisal is much more ridiculous than isolation or rejection because the reprisal exerts the worst influence on people’s mental and physical health. Although people have fear on ridicule or rejection, reprisal and extreme isolation is more serious. Just like what Davie mentioned in his blog, losing a job or status are the results