Inside the Spiral: Hostile Media, Minority Perception, and Willingness to Speak Out on a Weblog

• In Event: Computer-Mediated Communication

Abstract

This study was an attempt to take a snapshot at the psychological process of spiral of silence. In an experiment conducted with college students, a Weblog-embedded news article from a media source incongruent with one’s political alignment, as opposed to a congruent media source, triggered hostile perception of tenor of the media, which in turn led to presumed influence of the news article on others. The presumed influence on others became a basis for assessing online climate of opinion, which affected perception of self as a minority against the online climate of opinion. The media source factor, in conjunction with user comments factor manipulated at the two levels of agreeable and disagreeable comments, also generated different levels of minority perception both online and offline, of which the latter increased rather than decreased willingness to speak out. These findings were discussed under the dual-influence framework encompassing mediated and interpersonal communications as a psychological mechanism of spiral of silence.

Authors

• Gi Woong Yun, Bowling Green State U

• Sung-Yeon Park, Bowling Green State U

• Sooyoung Lee, Sogang U