传播理论 沉默的螺旋 文化研究 培养理论.docxVIP

沉默的螺旋the spiral of scienceChapter Outline (7th Edition)From the Instructors Manual.Introduction. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann claims that people’s assessment of the political climate and forecast of future trends are early, reliable indicators of what will happen in an election.Noelle-Neumann’s spiral of silence explains the growth and spread of public opinion, which is a powerful force.She defines public opinion as “attitudes one can express in public without isolating oneself.”The spiral of silence refers to the increasing pressure people feel to conceal their views when they think they are in the minority.A quasi-statistical organ sensing the climate of opinion. Noelle-Neumann emphasizes the human ability to discern the climate of public opinion accurately.When swings in opinion occur, they are sensed everywhere at the same time. She believes that assessing the present or future public mood is a natural human activity.Judging public opinion is exhausting, but the information allows one to avoid the greater strain of becoming isolated with an unpopular opinion.Fear of isolation: the engine that drives the spiral of silence Fear of isolation is the centrifugal force that accelerates the spiral of silence. Noelle-Neumann draws heavily on Solomon Asch’s work.Asch found that most people would conform to a group opinion to avoid isolation.Stanley Milgram demonstrated cross-cultural support for Asch’s work.Noelle-Neumann rejects the hypothesis that people conform out of a desire to identify with a winner.Only criminals or moral heroes disregard what society thinks.The powerful role of the mass media. Noelle-Neumann believes that the media accelerate the muting of the minority in the spiral of silence.She argues that pluralistic ignorance, a condition when people have a mistaken idea of what the public opinion’s really is, results from the media giving a disproportionate mix of viewpoints relative to their actual strength in society. Television is particularly influential be