EOTO 2: What I Learned

I thought learning about the Spiral of Silence done by my classmate Kyra Clark was very interesting and she did an amazing job. The Spiral of Silence is a theory which states that an individual's perception of the distribution of public opinions influence that individual's willingness to express their own opinions. This concept was created by the lovely woman, Elisabeth Noelle Neumann. 

The spiral of silence is present in everyday life because, many people are afraid of speaking up due to thinking they will be judged by others. A big issue that represents the spiral of silence is domestic abuse in relationships. people believe that if they say something they may be judged by others or they just won't be believed. 

Domestic abuse is such a serious topic and isn't spoken up about enough. Around 50% of abuse cases are reported to authorities only 50% and the likelihood of it happening is 1 in 4 relationships. Women or men who do't report it believe they are trapped because they might not have the finances or might be threatened by their significant other. 

Like everything else there are pros and cons to the spiral of silence. With the spiral of silence we can determine how much the media can influence what people will and won't say. When it comes to the media, people want to fit in and follow the recent trends, so when doing studies this can really help get data for the case study. It could also make it out to be that people who speak out about their opinion are the minority if they do not see it the same way. 

I feel that the spiral of silence is a very realistic thing that explains the reason of people not speaking up. People should want to voice their opinion no matter what other people might think because, you never know if other people will have the same mindset or not unless you try. I hope one day that people can feel like they can voice their opinions without feeling like they will get "cancelled" for what they have said.