The Spiral of Silence and the Social Nature of Man

Ever since it was first presented at a psychology conference in 1972 (Noelle-Neumann, 1972) and shortly thereafter in the Journal of Communication, the spiral of silence theory has attracted considerable attention in the social sciences. Nevertheless, the theory has often been misunderstood. Many of these misconceptions derive from the first article describing the theory, which was published in the Journal of Communication in 1974 and seems to have left its mark on how the theory is perceived to this day (Noelle-Neumann, 1974).