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Executive Summary

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on April 25, 2008 at 7:17:13 am
 
Executive Summary
 
 
 
The spiral of Silence is a subject that needs to be talked about. The more we research, the more we will discover what the silence is really all about. In our research, we found that many sought to uncover something new or relating to the spiral of silence, only to come up with partial support of the theory. Besides that, fear of isolation and media influences were the biggest factors, but they did not shed new light on the outstanding reasons why the spiral of silence is apart of our world.
            Theories set out to see how their subjects would react. Some looked at perception and how different situations may change people’s answers (Gonzenbach 1992), (Katz 1992). Gonzenbach used a video and put a completely fake approval rating on the screen that an audience thought was their real approval. It worked, yet only partially with the theory. Some subjects conformed to the number on the screen due to the threat of public review, not the spiral of silence. With the Katz study, they wanted to see if the minority group of a situation would be less likely to speak up. The participants were asked via phone if they would share their political opinions publicly. The findings didn’t show a difference between the majority and minority.
            Some studies wanted to see if the spiral of silence was consistent over different areas. In the (Detenber 2004) study, two identical phone surveys using controversial issues were used with Singapore, and The United States. They wanted to see if the subjects would talk about these issues in public. These findings were also inconclusive not knowing why all participants made their decisions, but many stated fear of isolation. Another study saw The United States and Taiwan testing willingness to speak out in different cultures (Huang 2005). In a telephone survey, Taiwan did have a spiral of Silence with fear of Isolation being the main reason. The Untied states however did not.
            Media was looked at to see how much influence it has on its viewers. Many studies looked at how we are involved in media and found how media is always affecting us (Shanahan 2004), (Perry 2000), (Jeffres 1999). Media has an effect, but none were completely successful in seeing what the true effect of the Spiral of Silence was.
            In the theory of Spiral of Silence, the studies have hit a grey area, where it is not clear if it is the spiral of silence or other forces contributing. Many of our studies came up with only partial support. In the Glynn study, they looked at many meta- analyses of published and unpublished surveys looking at willingness to speak out with support (Glynn 1997). Those findings were inconclusive. Another study looked at how we use the theory (Hayes 2007). Subjects who were set up in the spiral of silence used avoidance, expressed uncertainty, and avoiding the question to get away from expressing their opinion. Another study looked at prediction of the spiral of Silence (Gonzenbach 2000), seeing if they could control it. Some studies stated that fear of isolation and media influences are huge factors of Spiral of Silence; yet most of our sources called out for more research to be done. The problem lies with the research, asking the right questions and unlocking that which is so hard to understand; studying the silence.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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