Talking on 'sunshine in North Korea': A test of the spiral of silence as a theory of powerful mass media

Abstract

According to the spiral of silence theory, mass media play an important role in generating opinion climates, which in turn influence political outspokenness among the public. Analyzing survey data on a controversial policy issue in South Korea, we explored this role in detail, examining whether media coverage of the issue had influenced people's perceptions of public opinion. We also looked into whether individuals' willingness to speak out on the issue was a function of perceived public opinion. Our data supported the idea that mass media may play a role as an information source from which people gauge public opinion. We found that respondents who perceived favorable media coverage tended to see public opinion as supportive of the policy, whereas those who perceived unfavorable coverage were more likely to infer negative public opinion. We also found that perceived public support for one's own opinion was related to greater willingness to speak out in public. Nonetheless, our data indicated that mass media played a relatively minor role in shaping perceptions of public opinion. Projection of personal opinions onto other people played a much larger role, and a large number of our respondents, both supporters and opponents of the policy, perceived themselves to be in the majority. Consequently, those who were in the minority, i.e., the opponents, were not less willing to voice their views than their counterparts. We discussed several critical issues that may raise questions about the spiral of silence.