The Spiral of Silence

The spir­al of silence is an influ­en­tial media theory.

The fear of guilt by asso­ci­ation is so power­ful that indi­vidu­als would con­sider sup­port­ing a cause they strongly dis­agree with — from fear of social isolation. 

However, this can also be a breed­ing ground for pop­u­lism when it deeply polar­ises society.

So, what’s going on here?

The Spiral of Silence for Fear of Isolation

The Spiral of Silence

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s well-doc­u­mented the­ory on the spir­al of silence (1974) explains why the fear of isol­a­tion due to peer exclu­sion will pres­sure pub­lics to silence their opinions.

Rather than risk­ing social isol­a­tion, many choose silence over express­ing their genu­ine opinions.

“To the indi­vidu­al, not isol­at­ing him­self is more import­ant than his own judge­ment. […] This is the point where the indi­vidu­al is vul­ner­able; this is where social groups can pun­ish him for fail­ing to toe the line.”
— Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

As the dom­in­ant coali­tion gets to stand unop­posed, they push the con­fines of what’s accept­able down a nar­row­er and nar­row­er fun­nel (see also the opin­ion cor­ridor).

“The smart way to keep people pass­ive and obed­i­ent is to strictly lim­it the spec­trum of accept­able opin­ion, but allow very lively debate with­in that spec­trum — even encour­age the more crit­ic­al and dis­sid­ent views. That gives people the sense that there’s free think­ing going on, while all the time the pre­sup­pos­i­tions of the sys­tem are being rein­forced by the lim­its put on the range of the debate.”
— Noam Chomsky

Read also: The Spiral of Silence

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How Silence Promotes Populism

The spir­al of silence can lead to unwanted effects, in this case — populism:

Group A is opposed to pop­u­lism and against allow­ing pop­u­lists to par­ti­cip­ate in demo­crat­ic con­texts (extreme pos­i­tion).

Group B is opposed to pop­u­lism and against allow­ing author­it­ies to impose lim­its on free speech (non-extreme pos­i­tion).

First, vocal lead­ers of both groups enter into debate.

Group B lead­ers accuse Group A of impos­ing lim­its on free speech, which might lead to fas­cism, but this can­’t stick since Group A holds anti-pop­u­list pos­i­tions across the board.

Group A lead­ers accuse Group A not of want­ing to safe­guard free speech but of being pop­u­list sup­port­ers. This unity cre­ates a false dicho­tomy that sticks.

Group B see its vocal lead­ers being pub­licly outed as pop­u­lists, a label that Group B fears. So they enter a state of cog­nit­ive dis­son­ance (1957) and silence mor­al con­vic­tion to avoid becom­ing social out­casts.

As this beha­viour spir­als, Group A even­tu­ally frac­tion­ates into two vocal groups, one inside the spir­al of silence (rel­at­ive extreme pos­i­tion) and one out­side (rel­at­ive non-extreme pos­i­tion).

The res­ult: The mar­gin for “error” dimin­ishes while the group of “silenced” people stead­ily grows.

The sig­ni­fic­ant issue here is that Group A tends to assume mor­al superi­or­ity (by adopt­ing a more robust pos­i­tion), which allows them to resort to pro hom­inem argu­ments (also known as an hon­our by asso­ci­ation and the logic­al inverse of ad hom­inem argu­ments).

Deep into the spir­al of silence, the remain­ing vocal group might be widely unsup­por­ted — and might also be com­pletely unaware of this weak­ness due to their unchecked superi­or­ity complex. 

Also, they might be wield­ing a dis­pro­por­tion­ate influ­ence on minorities.

At this point, the play­ing field is open­ing up for a vocal lead­er ready to claim that pop­u­list pos­i­tion that, iron­ic­ally, a major­ity opposed from the start. 

Resorting to pre­vi­ously suc­cess­ful argu­ments of mor­al superi­or­ity does­n’t affect a pop­u­list leader.

And, as the vocal minor­ity finally asks for broad sup­port to com­bat the emer­ging pop­u­lists, there aren’t enough people left to heed their call. 

The Antidote for Populism

The anti­dote for the spir­al of silence is to allow for dif­fer­ences in thoughts, opin­ions, and expres­sions of free speech.

Alas, the anti­dote for pop­u­lism is also to allow for dif­fer­ences in thoughts, opin­ions, and expres­sions of free speech.