Blog Post #8

 EOTO Reaction #2

The second round of EOTO presentations, I got to hear a very informative presentation on the spiral of silence. I thought it was incredibly interesting and challenged me to think about a new concept I hadn't heard of before but could instantly put into practice. 

To start, the Spiral of Silence was created by Elizabeth Noel Newman, the theory outlines how "people's willingness to express their opinions on controversial public issues is affected by their largely unconscious perception of those opinions as being either popular or unpopular." It's a highly prevalent issue, especially in today's political climate. We saw it with the election this past November, the republican party won with huge margins while it was not an entirely projected win. Most polling and media coverage was in favor of the democratic candidate, conversations among peers and communities were overwhelmingly in favor of Harris, but that was because of the spiral of silence.

When people feel judged for their opinions, when they are made to feel stupid, or uneducated about a topic because they disagree with the louder group they tend to keep their mouths shut. The election of 2024 was the American people's way of saying we are tired of being quiet and we are tired of being shut down.

This is just one example of the spiral of silence in action, there's also much smaller scale examples like being the odd one out in a friend group when it comes to liking something. I know that right now, I hate Wicked, and like everything to do with it; but I haven't said anything about it, or when it's brought up I just nod my head because I just don't feel like dealing with people pressuring me to like it. 

The spiral of silence is a reality whether or not we want to admit it, but people are much less likely to actually voice their opinions now due to fear of isolation, having their opinions not get recognized as valid, inability to handle criticism, and fear of judgement or embarrassment. We are silencing ourselves to conform to the norm, and we must stop.