HAMPTON, K., RAINIE, L., LU, W., DWYER, M., SHIN, I., & PURCELL, K. (2014, August 14). Mining PEW: #4 Social Media and the 'Spiral of Silence' Retrieved December 2, 2015, from http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2014/08/PI_Social-networks-and-debate_082614.pdf
Pages: 43
Total: 137/150
Summary: As the internet has gained a fast paced momentum, many have concluded that not allowing usage of technology hinders people's freedom to feel overt and comfortable about their opinions. For many years, people have agued that the usage of internet allows people who often stay in the "shadows" to have a voice. As a result, people would ideally become vocal about their opinions and perspectives on multiple issues. In this article the contrary is mentioned. It argues that even though an online discussion is available such as Facebook or Twitter, a majority of people still choose to not participate; thus, we coin the term 'Spiral of Silence.' It is the notion that even though we have additional methods of communication that would allow ourselves to voice our thoughts on multiple subject, we choose not to due to several factors. The article addresses these issues and is centered around one important public issue: Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations of widespread government surveillance of Americans’ phone and email records. Below you will find additional findings in retrospect on how comfortable people felt communicating their viewpoints:
1. 86% of Americans were willing to have an in-person conversation about the surveillance program, but just 42% of Facebook and Twitter users were willing to post about it on those platforms.
2. Of the 14% of Americans unwilling to discuss the Snowden-NSA story in person with others, only 0.3% were willing to post about it on social media.
3. At work, those who felt their coworkers agreed with their opinion were about three times more likely to say they would join a workplace conversation about the Snowden-NSA situation.
4. Overall, the findings indicate that in the Snowden case, social media did not provide new forums for those who might otherwise remain silent to express their opinions and debate issues.
Additional:
I guess I can figure out why this might be. However, it's also been shown that, in class, students who may have something to say but are too shy to say it utilize online fora to great advantage. So there's that.
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