What Do We Fear Of? Expected Sanctions for Expressing Minority Opinions in Offline and Online Communication

• In Event: Top 4 Student Papers in Communication and Technology

Abstract

The current research investigates the expectation of sanctions as a promising construct for explaining why people’s willingness to express a minority opinion varies between face-to-face and computer-mediated communication. Drawing on the spiral of silence theory, we propose that confronted with a hostile opinion climate, individuals develop expectations about how their social surrounding would punish them, should they express a minority opinion. People’s willingness to pronounce a minority opinion is suggested to be a function of contextual factors such as the communication channel (e.g., face-to-face vs. computer-mediated communication) and the corresponding expected sanctions. Based on qualitative interviews (N = 12), we first identified seven different sanctions individuals expect from other people in various social situations. A subsequent experimental study (N = 365) showed that the expectation of being personally attacked, for instance, can explain why people are more willing to voice a deviant opinion in offline rather than in online environments.

Author

• German Neubaum, U of Duisburg-Essen