Political Outspokenness: Factors Working against the Spiral of Silence

Abstract

Tested here is the argument that political outspokenness is affected not only by one's perception of the climate of opinion and one's gender, age, education and income, as Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann argues, but also by one's interest in politics and level of self-efficacy, the obtrusiveness of the issue, extent of media use, and by certainty of views held. A 1987 survey of 624 individuals in Austin, Texas, suggests that people may not be as helpless in the face of public opinion as Noelle-Neumann's “Spiral of Silence” theory would hold, and that there are certain conditions under which it is possible to buck the spiral to express opinions.