ABSTRACT
The spiral of silence – what a powerful metaphor! It strikes us by a kind of intuitive truth and also by the heuristic image it suggests. People usually consider public opinion as a trademark of democracy, a stock exchange of ideas resulting from thousands of debates and dialogues in which numerous individuals participate. We could easily apply to it what Tocqueville (1957) wrote about liberty: “At all times what so strongly attached the hearts of some men to it are its very charms, its own spell independent of its benefits; it is the pleasure of being able to speak, act and breathe without any constraint under the sole government of God and the laws” (p. 26).
