Spiral Of Silence Theory

It is said that Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann used this theory to indirectly explain the status of the Jews during World War II. The Jews were under the control of the Nazis. Adolf Hitler dominated the whole society and mistreated the Jews. And since the Jews were the minority group, they remained silent since they feared that they would be separated or isolated. This explains the theory by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann.
MAIN TENETS OF THE THEORY
The spiral of silence theory has four main tenets:
1. People are threatened with isolation by the society, therefore there must be unity in the society established on mutual values and goals.
2. People fear being socially isolated.
3. People use the media and their interpersonal relationships such as families to keep up with the general agreement in the society.
4. People speak out or do not speak out depending on whether their views are regarded as majority or minority.
CHARACTERISTICS

Dashti, Hamed H. Al-Abdullah and Hasan A. Johar. The aim of the study was to find out if the theory of spiral of silence applies to women on social media regarding their online participation on Twitter as compared to face-to-face. Social media provides women a platform to raise their voices, to talk about issues they would not be able to talk about personally in front of people. Women in the Arab states do not voice out their opinions a lot and hence do not use social media as much as other women for example women in the US. To find out if the spiral of silence truly applies to women when using social media, a survey was conducted using questionnaires. The main hypothesis being tested was: Female students who are not active in social networks such as Twitter are more likely to behave in accordance with the spiral of silence when participating face-to-face in political discourse about local issues if their views oppose the majority