Article Critique
The spiral of silence: examining how cultural predispositions, news attention, and opinion congruency relate to opinion
“The spiral of silence: examining how cultural predispositions, news attention, and opinion congruency relate to opinion” expression by Shirley S. Ho, Vivian Hsueh-Hua Chen and Clarice C. Sim which was published in 2012. The purpose of the study was to examine new descriptive predictors behind the spiral of silence theory, for this purpose authors used the issue of legalization of same-sex marriage in Singapore. The aim of the authors was to explore new descriptive predictors of the spiral of silence theory by examining the potential main effects of fear of isolation, cultural predispositions, issue salience, news attention, and opinion congruency on individuals’ willingness to express their own view and to offer a foundation for their own stance, using the controversial topic of legalizing same-sex marriage in Singapore as the background. Second, they aimed to examine the possible meddling effects of cultural tendencies and news attention on individuals’ outspokenness.
As established by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann that the media publicizes opinions that are mainstream and people adjust their opinions according to their perceptions to avoid being isolated. Individuals who perceive their own opinion as being accepted will express it, whilst those who think themselves as being a minority, suppress their views. Individual’s outspokenness tends to varies depending on the climates of the opinion (i.e. hostile vs. friendly climates). The outcome variable in the spiral of silence theory can generally be classified into two groups first being the opinion avoidance strategies and second the opinion engagement strategies. Following this approach authors projected 7 hypotheses proposing how fear of isolation, power distance and saving face will be negatively associated with individuals’ willingness to express their opinion and to offer a...