Noelle-Neumann's spiral theory starts with the assumption that social belonging is more important than the perceived ability to express one’s own judgment. A sense of fear or insecurity about one’s own capacity to make judgements can arise from holding non-dominant opinions. This is because people grasp the general sense of public opinion in their immediate social environment and express themselves based off of the (pseudo)probabilities their ideas, or variations of them, will be accepted. We get a sense of what opinions are dominant by observation of how confidently and frequently they are spoken, what persons of authority are saying them, people’s positive reactions to these ideas, and so on. If one finds no social circumstances which they can voice their opinions, then they are thought to fall into a “spiral of silence.” In sum: “public opinion is the opinion which can be voiced in public without fear of sanctions and upon which action in public can be based” (Noelle-Neumann 44).

            Despite spiral theory’s apparently politically-neutral explanation of public opinion, Christopher Simpson argues that it remains laden with troublesome political assumptions that can be traced back to her years as a Nazi sympathizer. He conducts an archaeology of Noelle-Neumann’s writings and finds that her early work shamelessly peddled anti-Semitic tropes; she offered sketchy timelines of her affiliation and alleged breaks with Nazi publishers; and the ideology in her early writings informed her communication theory. In brief, the core of her ideology largely remained intact, albeit was presented in a tempered form that fit within the post-WWII intellectual and political contexts. Simpson argues that her book The Spiral of Silence textually performs her thesis, given her flagrant avoidance of discussing the German public’s own spiral of silence during the Nazi reign. Furthermore, he contests that her communication and social theory presume public opinion acts as a cohesive “social skin” that thrives on conformity and actively resists foreign intrusion. She remains pessimistic throughout her corpus that true democracy can thrive because she conceives the polis as fundamentally unsophisticated and lacking in the mental capacity for healthy democratic participation. Therefore, while her intellectual work appears to be well distanced from her early political involvement, it echoes ideological sentiments and avoids addressing the effects of her experience with Nazi collaboration.

            The question is, given that her unsavory political engagement may well have informed her theory, does this diminish the intellectual quality of her ideas? In Glynn et al.’s (1995) survey of public opinion perspectives that focus on the perception of others’ opinions, they argue that the “spiral of silence” comes the closest to having theoretical merit. Despite its incapacity to account for mediating variables of broader society affecting opinion, it describes a process that can help explain behavior. The authors also point out its proven heuristic value that has stimulated many extensions and revisions of her work. Moreover, several other scholars have conceptualized similar effects based on the same assumptions. While the theory as she conceived it lies on shaky empirical grounds, it has still proven productive for communication theory. I don’t think Simpson would disagree with this assertion. While the rationale that led Noelle-Neumann to these theoretical conclusions are, at best, suspect and, at worst, inspired from fascist ideology, the model continues to demonstrate explanatory power. A Google scholar search of the last few years evinces that scholarship is still frequently informed by this theory and its offshoots.

            The remaining question I have is whether work drawing on this theory has grown suspect in some scholarly circles. The release of Heidegger’s “black notebooks” has surely led to some scholar’s distancing themselves from his work, most notably with the chair of the Heidegger Society stepping down after reading some passages. While his work continues to stimulate scholarship, his name is now tinged with his Nazi involvement. Given that identity and experience are increasingly seen as inextricably tied up with one’s scholarship, the current impulse, I sense, is to discount the thinking of some scholars based on their background. I find it hard to justify this conflation of ontology and opinion. I’d be curious to explore these intellectual politics with focus on how authors’ works become tainted in the discipline because of their political ties, even when their ideas have been appropriated by others and can be used to understand differently or resist the authors original political sentiments (the progressive utility of Derrida, for instance, who's work is significantly indebted to Heidegger).

Works Cited

Glynn, Carroll J., Ronald E. Ostman, and Daniel G. McDonald. "Opinions, perception, and

 social reality." Public opinion and the communication of consent (1995): 249-277.

Noelle‐Neumann, Elisabeth. "The spiral of silence a theory of public opinion." Journal of

communication 24.2 (1974): 43-51.

Simpson, Christopher. "Elisabeth Noelle‐Neumann's “spiral of silence” and the historical context

 of communication theory." Journal of Communication 46.3 (1996): 149-171.