Sprial of Silence

Article: Obama's Spiral of Silence by Wynton Hall
http://townhall.com/columnists/WyntonHall/2008/10/31/obamas_spiral_of_silence

This article discusses how the spiral-of-silence was thought to play a part in the Obama/McCain campaign. Writer Wynton Hall wrote that in October of 2008, the polls show that America was favoring Obama by a larger number. Hall wrote that this favoring and lack of coverage of McCain could be the result of the spiral-of-silence; meaning that conservatives, knowing they were in the minority, could have kept away from polls. Hall says that "if the Spiral of Silence thesis is accurate, this means that the lopsided liberal coverage—not Mr. Obama’s race—will have been responsible for silencing support for Senator McCain in national polls." He goes on throughout the article to discuss the origin of the sprial-of-silence. It was created by a German political scientist named Elisabeth Noelle-Neuman in the 1970s. Even though we know who won the campaign, this article shows us how the spiral-of-silence was thought to play a role in our most recent election, one which many of us had a lot of interest in. Also, I chose this article because it fully supports what we've read about and learned about in class regarding the spiral-of-silence. The article gives us background information about this theory and gives us other examples of how it played a role in elections/opinion polls. It supports our reading by saying that those who in the minority of opinion "tend to clam up for fear of social isolation or being ostracized by the majority."

Rachel Horensky