Analysis of the Applicability of “the Spiral of Silence” in Weibo

The spiral of silence” theory was first funded by Professor Elizabeth Noelle Neumann in 1972. This theory indicates that, if a person feels that his opinion is belonging to minority, he is less likely to express it, because he is afraid of being retaliated or isolated by majority. This theory assumes that people are always estimating what the public opinion is, and they often judge it through the media. The theory also assumes that we have an inherent fear of isolation and that we know what perspectives can lead us to isolation by majority. This theory also explains why there are always such minority groups in the society and they dare to raise different opinions. With the flash development of the Internet, more and more self media have broken the old pattern of mass media as the information publisher. So it is a big question whether “the spiral of silence” theory is still applicable to the Internet environment. This paper, from the perspective of the basic hypothesis and core theory of “the spiral of silence”, focuses on whether the theory is applicable to the communicative behavior in We-Media.


Introduction and Literature Review
When first learning about "the spiral of silence", I was told that this theory was applicable in the traditional mass communication environment. I wondered if this theory is still working in the new media era. When I use Weibo, a very similar social network in China as Facebook, I find a lot of details are much similar to the characteristics of "the spiral of silence" theory. So I decide to study this theory's applicability in Weibo platform. I will give a brief introduction to the theory, including its origin, the social background and the contents of the theory. Then I implement a comparison in both traditional mass communication environment and Weibo environment, and try to find out what have been changed and what have not. Finally, the conclusion is drawn. Although there are still some characteristics of the "spiral of silence" theory in Weibo communication activities, its premise and application conditions have changed due to the different environment. Therefore, the theory of "the spiral of silence" is not suitable for Weibo platform.
The problem involved in this article is the application of the "spiral of silence" theory in the new media environment. On this issue, the current mainstream opinion in the academic world is that the theory is still generally applicable to the new media environment of the Internet. During the research, the following papers or academic reports were mainly referenced.
Ma Xueqing mentioned in the article "The Spiral of Silence in the differences between the traditional mass communication environment and the network communication environment" that the theory ignores "hard-cores", which makes it unable to explain why abnormal thoughts spread rapidly.
In his article "Whether the Spiral of Silence Will Disappear on the Internet", Liu Hailong believes that due to information has an increasingly greater impact on people's production and life, the Internet, as one of the communication channels has gradually become an integral part of our lives. The "spiral of silence" theory "does not exist in cyberspace in isolation, but has complicated interactions with public opinion mechanisms in our real life".
Zhu Haiqing concluded in his article "The Spiral of Silence in Weibo Spread": "The anonymity and decentralization of Weibo has reduced the pressure on individuals directly, and the role of opinion leaders has been relatively dispersed. However, it can be seen that new media platforms such as Weibo have not diminished the role of the "spiral of silence". The so-called "free exchange of opinions" may still be a game for a handful of people, and it still needs a great and long term effort to create a "free market for opinions".

The Proposal of the Theory
In 1947, Professor Elizabeth Noelle Neumann founded the first public opinion evaluation institution in West Germany after the World War II, and began to use the public opinion research methods which she learned in the United States to study the behavior of the West German people in voting. As a result, she found that many things that happened during the general election could not be explained by the theory www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjer she learned in America. So she decided to hunt a new research method. In 1972, when she attended the first Tokyo International Conference on Psychology, she put forward the theory of the "spiral of silence".
In that year, she used her own theory to study the West German election, and the results showed that her assumptions were consistent with the real situation of this election. In 1990, Neumann published "the theory of public opinion: the concept of the spiral of silence" to supplement the concept of the spiral of silence. She assured that the fear of loneliness, the observation of public opinion and the estimation of different political forces determine whether people express their own opinions or reserve their opinions.

The Social Background of the Theory
When the theory of "the spiral of silence" was put forward, the social low-level threshold, and every blogger (individual) can speak freely by it. So inferior opinions and non-mainstream ideas can also be freely expressed. The Weibo platform not only gives primacy to every blogger the right to integrate into the whole process of information dissemination, but also limits the traditional mass medias' exclusive right of discourse power.

Hierarchical Pattern in Weibo Communication Activities
As the existence of Weibo, it has simulated the real authority structure: the distinction between Weibo "V" (means VIP) and ordinary account is to distinguish all the Weibo users according to the pattern of elite groups and ordinary groups in our actual life Weibo "Vs" are often the elites and experts in a certain field in the daily life. They have much higher authorities and discourse powers than the ordinary users. Weibo gives these people special titles, which makes them gain the same privilege of discourse power, and play the role of guiding public opinion.
These Weibo accounts are equivalent to the information superiors, opinion leaders and mass medias (generally certified as Weibo "Vs" in the platform) in traditional mass communication. In contrast, the ordinary accountsbelong to common people. These Weibo bloggers usually offer their favorite, support articles and opinions or share their life and experiences. But they rarely express their own views and opinions.
The managers of Weibo are ranking with the top ones in this power structure. They have the rights to seal the account and delete the blog, which similarly implement the same power as the government departments that instruct and manipulate the public opinion in the real society.

Existence of Opinion Leaders in Weibo Communication Activities
Take Sina Weibo as an example, stars, experts and even well-known grassroots bloggers all have a large number of fans, and their original blogs, forwarding, comments and other behaviors have attracted so much attention. As much more important communication nodes in Weibo communication activities, their words on Weibo can make the events which they are concerned about be forwarded in a large amount, spread widely, and finally form the public opinion. In this sense, these well-known Weibo bloggers can be regarded as opinion leaders in traditional mass communication activities.

Existence of Group Pressure in Micro-Blog Communication Activities
"Group pressure" is an important condition of "the spiral of silence". We can find this kind of "group pressure" from the tags and the attached functions of Weibo. These additional functions are similar to a label that identifies the nature of a group, and the label owned by the members in the group is actually an implicit norm. In micro-groups, there are various or potential or explicit rules of behavior and language norms, etc. If the members of the group do not want to be isolated and marginalized by other members, they can only try to adapt to this specification. If most members of the micro-group support the same opinion, the dissenters will suffer from fierce pressure, which is in accordance with the pressure shared from the actual group. In addition, most users will pay attention to their real friends and relatives.