Title
A Spiral of Silence for Some: Attitude Certainty and the Expression of Political Minority Opinions
Abstract
Spiral of silence theory does not assume a simple relationship between opinion climate and opinion expression. In fact, the notion of hardcore individuals (who express their opinions regardless of the climate) embraces the idea that there are some people for whom this relationship does not hold true. However, this idea has not been put to a direct empirical test. In this article, the authors propose that attitude certainty is a key variable in identifying the hardcore. Data from three surveys demonstrate that the climate of opinion only determines opinion expression when individuals hold their attitudes with low or moderate attitude certainty. For individuals with high attitude certainty, no such effect can be found. Thus, there is a spiral of silence only for some but not for all members of the public.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1177/0093650210362685
COMMUNICATION RESEARCH
Keywords
Field
DocType
spiral of silence,opinion climate,opinion expression,attitude certainty
Spiral of silence,Social psychology,Certainty,Psychology,Politics,Empirical research
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
37.0
6.0
0093-6502
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
17
1.82
2
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jörg Matthes14414.80
kimberly rios morrison2171.82
Christian Schemer3184.13