The Spiral of Silence-Is it Ruining Democracy?

 Blog #10

The Spiral of Silence-Is it Ruining Democracy?

Spiral of Silence?

The spiral of silence is a concept of the unintentional silencing of differing opinions. This means that
when people believe or know that those around them will not agree with their opinion. This effect can be amplified when it comes to political opinions, if someone that holds one political ideology is surrounded by a group with a different political ideology, they will tend to stay quite, in other words, they buy into the spiral of silence.

This Effects Democracy?

Of course this effects democracy. For democracies to not only to thrive, but also to simply survive, citizens must share their view points with one another in order to merge and share public opinion. When people share differing opinions it forces the other to think more deeply and critically about their own opinions. Regardless of whether or not this changes either party's opinion, they have now been forced to think more critically about why they have the opinion or ideology they do, and they had to defend it. 

The social demand to conform is one of the heaviest societal weights. This stems directly from the fear of rejection. However, without dissent of opinion, the marketplace of ideas in which democracy lives on, ceases to exist. Without various ideas being shared, there is no marketplace for these ideas, without the marketplace, people lose the ability to learn from differing viewpoints which forces out the ability to effectively engage with the democratic system. 

Increase in the Spiral of Silence

Everyone talks about the pros and cons to social media and its effects on today's society. This will discuss negatives. Sure, social media has made younger people more engaged with political issues on their social media accounts and has made news more accessible to younger generations that do not watch the news via television or streaming, but this does not make it automatically beneficial. Social media is just another space in which people succumb to the notion of the spiral of silence. Whatever opinion is more widespread on a social media platform first will become the prevailing opinion that is shared. Many will log onto one of their social media accounts such as Instagram, go to the "story" feature and see the same graphic about a certain news topic posted over, and over, and over, and over, and so forth, again, and agin, and again. When a person sees something like that, if they do not agree with the opinion shared, they will not speak out. This is just another channel for the spiral of silence to grow in our society.

Breaking the Spiral

Stop self-censorship. This is easier said than done, however, the spiral cannot be broken without a
reduction in self-censorship. When an individual stands up for what they believe in when it opposes the consensus in whatever forum this takes place in, it helps others that agree with them to feel safe to speak their own minds as well. In addition to simply speaking up, making this easier to do would be to encourage our society to change its perception on when people speak out on their opinions.