“It’s Going to be Out There For a Long Time”: The Influence of Message Persistence on Users’ Political Opinion Expression in Social Media

In light of the growing politicization of social media, the spiral of silence theory and its predictions on the conditions under which individuals express political opinions have gained increasing scholarly attention. This study contributes to this line of research by identifying the influence of a central characteristic of social media: message persistence. It was expected that high technical durability of political messages reduces users’ propensity to voice their opinion, moderating the silence effect. A pre-registered experiment ( N = 772) revealed a small-to-medium persistence effect in three out of four topical contexts. While perceived congruence with the opinion climate was not associated with the likelihood of opinion expression, the latter could be explained by a mental cost-benefit calculus that was shaped by message persistence. Theoretical implications are discussed referring to (a) a situational approach regarding silencing processes on social media and (b) its connection to a behavioral calculus of human communication.

"It’s Going to be Out There For a Long Time": The Influence of Message Persistence on Users’ Political Opinion Expression in Social Media

In light of the growing politicization of social media, the spiral of silence theory and its predictions on the conditions under which individuals express political opinions have gained increasing scholarly attention. This study contributes to this line of research by identifying the influence of a central characteristic of social media: message persistence. It was expected that high technical durability of political messages reduces users’ propensity to voice their opinion, moderating the silence effect. A pre-registered experiment (N = 772) revealed a small-to-medium persistence effect in three out of four topical contexts. While perceived congruence with the opinion climate was not associated with the likelihood of opinion expression, the latter could be explained by a mental cost-benefit calculus that was shaped by message persistence. Theoretical implications are discussed referring to (a) a situational approach regarding silencing processes on social media and (b) its connection to a behavioral calculus of human communication.

THE IMPLICATION FORMATIVE POTENTIAL RECEPTIVE AND SEMANTIC POTENTIAL OF SILENCE IN MODERN LITERARY AND MEDICAL DISCOURSE

The article aims to analyse the receptive and semantic potential of silence based on the novel “Critical Condition” (2002) by the contemporary Canadian-American physician, writer Peter Clement. The research methodology is based on the application of modern literary studies in the fields of narratology, receptive aesthetics and literary hermeneutics. The theoretical significance of the research consists in the disclosure of the narrative category of silence in the modern American literary and medical discourse. The results of the study will improve the content of training courses in the world literature and form a methodological basis for the development of special courses, theme-based seminars and academic syllabi. In the course of the study, it was found that silence within the analysed literary work symbolizes the epistemological and communicative crisis of language. The author’s intentions and receptive resource of silence in the text have been analysed. The leading role of facial expressions as a means of exteriorizing the silence effect in the “doctor — patient” communicative situation has been observed. The patient’s silence in the novel is associated with the author’s rethinking of the phenomena of illness and disability, thus stimulating the reader to embrace the active position of co-creation and receptive cooperation by filling-in the narrative “gaps” of the text. Further research is needed to study the role of the reader’s reception in constructing the silence in the “doctor — patient”communicative situation, as exemplified by the literary and medical discourse of the US prose.

“Feminazis,” “libtards,” “snowflakes,” and “racists”: Trolling and the Spiral of Silence effect in women, LGBTQIA communities, and disability populations before and after the 2016 election

Using a Qualtrics survey of 338 Twitter and Facebook users, the authors explore the effect that the 2016 U.S. presidential election had on people’s political posts both before and after the election and whether or not people actually experienced harassment and threats during the election cycle. If trolling causes people—particularly women, LGBTQIA community members, and people who identify with a disability—to censor themselves because they feel their opinion is in the minority or that they will be attacked for speaking, then it would follow that trolling is changing our digital public sphere, which is affecting our political conversations.

Students’ Spiraling Silence and Willingness to Communicate about Religion in the United States: An Exploration of the Media’s Role in Stigmatizing Religion

The spiral of silence effect describes individuals’ tendency to silence minority opinions, whilst using the media to gauge majority opinion. While the spiral of silence effect has been explored in controversial political contexts, the phenomenon has not been scrutinized in its relation to religious communication. The current study applies this concept to further the current understanding of communication as it applies to religion. A questionnaire was distributed electronically to 94 students at a large university in the southeastern United States. Using survey methods, this paper finds that religiosity is positively correlated to willingness to communicate about religion. This paper also finds that media exposure is not related to either willingness to communicate about religion or religiosity.