Spiral of Silence: Fear of Isolation and Willingness to Speak Out

This entry presents a review of spiral of silence studies that examine the influence of perceived opinion climates on individuals' political outspokenness. The entry first reexamines Noelle‐Neumann's conceptualizations of the key variables in the spiral of silence theory. Also examined is how the key variables have been conceptualized and operationalized in previous studies. Finally, this entry addresses several conceptual and methodological issues in testing the spiral of silence, and discusses a few aspects of the theory that have been underresearched in previous studies.