The Spiral of Silence
The spiral of silence is a topic that caught my interest, not solely because of its context in current day society, but because the fact that I have never heard about it once in my life before.
From what I understood from the presentation, is that the spiral of silence is essentially when somebody censors themselves. Whether this be on social media or (moreso) in a group of people, an individual or a small group will not express their opinion out of fear of beratement. When I looked it up outside of the presentation the example given was that in a company, the managing director decides to increase their working hours from 8 to 10 and sends an email to all employees. The majority of them accept this time change but a few employees are not satisfies with the decision. They cannot or will not express their thoughts publicly however, because they do not feel supported, or fear that they will be punished.
The reason I found this so interesting, is because it relates to my other blog post about protect dissent and cancel culture. When a group of people become very outspoken about their beliefs, that's healthy. The problem ensues when that group of people makes it seem like any other opinions are invalid. This creates to spiral of silence. The spiral of silence has been seen taking place in our current day political conversation, where its getting to the point that social media companies are not allowing people to say their own opinions. This, combined with the bullying of people who have a different opinion, has lead
to self-censoring out of fear. People will not say anything on twitter that they agree with out of fear of being banned, or say anything in a specific group because they'll be called a bad person. This political geography has become such a toxic environment, I would argue that the spiral of silence, to an extent, has taken control of everyone-no matter their political beliefs- out of fear of losing friendships or jobs.
to self-censoring out of fear. People will not say anything on twitter that they agree with out of fear of being banned, or say anything in a specific group because they'll be called a bad person. This political geography has become such a toxic environment, I would argue that the spiral of silence, to an extent, has taken control of everyone-no matter their political beliefs- out of fear of losing friendships or jobs.
The spiral of silence is real, but the extent is dependent on the environment that one is in. Nobody wants to be ostracized, so everyone just avoids the issues to save face. That is not a healthy way to talk about anything, you should be able to trust and be open with your friends and loved ones. Sadly, I'm not sure that this will change unless everyone is more open about their thoughts on things.
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