https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4909-2116
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ABSTRACT
Drawing on in-depth interview data from 56 Americans who live in politically divided communities, this study extends the spiral of silence by theorizing a typology of political self-silencing that articulates differing types of silencing with varying motivations and implementations. Using theoretical support from the concept of networked silence, we theorize three types of self-silencing: total, when people always stay silent about politics; misrepresentative, involving lying or hiding one’s beliefs to eschew conflict; and selective, employed for highly contentious topics or aggressive discussants. We posit that people surveil not just the media, society, their community, and their reference groups in deciding whether to self-silence, as the spiral of silence suggests. Rather, they also surveil individual actors and within the context of specific conversations in making assessments about whether to speak out in an evolving, dynamic process.
Acknowledgments
This research is a project of the Center for Media Engagement’s (CME) connective democracy project, which seeks to find practical solutions to the problem of divisiveness. The connective democracy initiative is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The authors thank Casey Moore for assisting with conducting interviews, and we are appreciative of CME Director Natalie (Talia) J. Stroud and the CME team for insightful suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Political Communication Division of the American Political Science Association (APSA) at its annual conference in fall 2021 in Seattle, WA.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
2. AL (1), AZ (1), CA (5), FL (6), GA (1), HI (1), IA (1), ID (1), IL (3), IN (2), KY (1), MI (2), MT (1), NC (8), NE (1), NV (1), NY (3), OH (3), OR (3), PA (3), SC (1), TN (2), TX (2), VA (1), WA (1), WI (1)
3. Interview, via Zoom, May 14, 2020.
4. Interview, via Zoom, May 27, 2020.
5. Interview. via Zoom, May 11, 2020.
6. Interview, via Zoom, May 14, 2020.
7. Interview, via Zoom, May 12, 2020.
8. Interview, via Zoom, June 18, 2020.
9. Interview, via Zoom, June 23, 2020.
10. Interview, via Zoom, June 24, 2020.
11. Interview, via Zoom, May 14, 2020.
12. Interview, via Zoom, May 29, 2020.
13. Interview, via Zoom, on June 16, 2020.
14. Interview, via Zoom, on June 10, 2020.
15. Interview, via Zoom, May 12, 2020.
16. Interview, via Zoom, May 14, 2020.
17. Interview, via Zoom, May 8, 2020.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Gina M. Masullo
Gina M. Masullo (Ph.D., Syracuse University) is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Media, Associate Director of the Center for Media Engagement, and a Knight Faculty fellow, all at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. Her research focuses on how the digital space both connects and divides people and how that influences society, individuals, and journalism. She is the author of Online Incivility and Public Debate: Nasty Talk and The New Town Hall: Why We Engage Personally with Politicians and co-editor of Scandal in a Digital Age. She spent 20 years as a newspaper journalist before becoming a professor. Her research has been published in Communication Research, New Media & Society, and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, among other journals.
Marley Duchovnay
Marley Duchovnay (B.A., University of Delaware) is a Research Associate for the Center for Media Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. She is the co-founder of Project Divided, a civic engagement initiative focused on advocating for productive conversations across political lines. Her research has been presented to the American Political Science Association.