EOTO 2: What I Learned

For our second EOTO presentations I learned a lot of different theories and their implications. The one that stuck with me the most was the Spiral of Silence, which was presented by Alex Bouvier. The Spiral of Silence was invented by Elisabeth-Noelle Nuemann in 1974. It is the idea of people censoring their opinions in fear of consequences of their words. 

A diagram was shared that showed that if the opinion aligns with the public’s opinion overall, individuals are more likely to speak out. As the opinion shifts from the majority, willingness to speak decreases, or spirals down. 

The part that really got me is that everyone does it almost subconsciously. This is in part because of the Quasi-Statistical Organ or sixth sense of filtering what we should and shouldn’t say. We don’t want to offend our families, friends, peers, teachers, followers on social media, so we censor ourselves and therefore, train our future selves on how to speak. 

Furthermore, the censoring of social media was briefly addressed. Specifically, the events surrounding January 6th and President Trump getting banned from multiple social media platforms. A private company like Twitter has the power to ban the President from publicly speaking. It’s an interesting dynamic. What more will be censored, in a country that prides itself on the First Amendment and freedom of speech. 

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I know it’s a bizarre idea of sharing various opinions based on the people we are surrounded by, however, during this presentation, I couldn’t help but think about the occurrences when things resurfaced. In this day and age nothing is ever deleted. If you put something out there, it is still somewhere in a cloud. Or you don’t know if someone is screenshotting what you’re posting/saying or recording you. While I think censorship is bad and something that shouldn’t be considered lightly, I think censorship and this concept of Spiral of Silence will hopefully make people more aware of what they say, either in public or on social media.


To learn more here is a short video explaing the Spiral of Silence Theory.




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