Elisabeth Noelle Neumann , Spiral of Silence
Why are we getting similar to each other and Why we are losing similar daily language with each others and Why can't we break these patterns ? You can find the answers of these questions in Spiral of Silence theory.
Spiral of Silence is a theory about mass communication created by german political science expert Elisabeth Noelle Neumann
If I have to roughly explain it , theory basicly defends that our personal opinion depens on what others think.
Main Idea
When she was advocating her opinion she made step by step assumptions. First of all when people advocating some idea if they think that they are alone in this they prevent to defend or talk about it , however if they know that it will get support they speak about it with their circle. It is same thing if you write an controversial article in Steemit and if it gets upvotes you don't hesitate to talk about it.
That creates this question , How are we going to understand that our idea is legit according to society ? In 2017 we can only understand it with mass media tools. The ideas most served in media tools gets accepted slowly , however other who can't make it to media slowly gets declined.
Eventhough it isn't always the same , when you check most of the mass communication devices they all have a tendency to reserve the same opinions to us and it creates a fake allusion of every member of societies are in same idea on this topic.
According to these circumstances people don't defend their unwanted opinions with the fear of getting exluded from society and they remain silent , therefore their idea become less and less common and legit and it creates the spiral of silence at the end.
So the reason why people don't want to show their side and opinion about these topics are simple because you don't see them anywhere in your close and in media and if you don't speak about it you only empower the spiral.
Asch Experiment
Well Asch experiment is a pretty decent example of how people comply with the effect of society. In the experiment there are 4 lines and they ask the subject which one is the similar to the 4th line. Eventhough the answer was pretty obvious the people who conducted this experiment added their own people in to experiment in order to make the subject comply and after hearing everyone choosing same line the subject have a tendency to change his decision and comply with the popular opinion
Well , people tend to comply when they encounter with a group that defends opposite from his / her idea and they adapt. If a vast majority is accepting this idea I should ditch mine and accept theirs. The main reason behind this is getting exluded from society and only way to defeat Spiral of Silence effect is getting rid of this fear. Because society develops itself with fearless people who doesn't care about others opinion
ooo yes! I have heard of this idea before, I think I saw a video where actors in a waiting room did something strange (can't quite remember what action) and there was one unsuspecting participant.. The one individual looked around and eventually copied what everyone else was doing too although it was super random and there was no reason to do so.
Yeah it seems like there were no reason to do him however it may become behaivoral habit , imitating :D
Spiral of silence... Its like a conspiracy to end speech.
The concept of Elisabeth.... Is not something i can quickly grasp at first reading... Will have to go over it again to get the gist of this spiral thingy...
Your post has been resteemed to my 2800 followers
Get a free resteem using the Power Resteem Service #26
Upvote this comment if you like this service
Cant bully your own self from the mainstream ideas or behaviors of the society.
I rarely do but I guess we just do this because of our behavioral patterns horde pshychology
Interesting ideas in here! Feels very poignant based on the news these days.
Interesting subject. I wonder about the research on the emergence and spreading of ideas in groups of people. Never looked into it myself.