Extending the Spiral of Silence: Theorizing a Typology of Political Self-Silencing

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interview data from 56 Americans who live in politically divided communities, this study extends the spiral of silence by theorizing a typology of political self-silencing that articulates differing types of silencing with varying motivations and implementations. Using theoretical support from the concept of networked silence, we theorize three types of self-silencing: total, when people always stay silent about politics; misrepresentative, involving lying or hiding one’s beliefs to eschew conflict; and selective, employed for highly contentious topics or aggressive discussants. We posit that people surveil not just the media, society, their community, and their reference groups in deciding whether to self-silence, as the spiral of silence suggests. Rather, they also surveil individual actors and within the context of specific conversations in making assessments about whether to speak out in an evolving, dynamic process.

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