Powerful Mass Media

Chapter 29 is a very interesting topic because the concept of the Spiral of silence is a matter that is very real in todays society. People tend to clam up if they are in the minority. I think that the media plays a powerful role in dominating information and opinions, whether it's print or electronic form. An interesting theory is that of pluralistic ignorance which I think occurs more frequently than we think. Pluralistic ignorance is defined as "people's mistaken idea that everyone thinks like they do" (p. 374) due to the fact that the media does not offer the differing viewpoints in proportion to reality of opinions. Noelle-Neumann believes that written word's power to change attitudes could be limited by selective exposure with the abundance of newspapers, magazines and current event material that are available because they could avoid contrary beliefs. But TV itself is extremely powerful, it has an omniscent presence that repeats messages from certain point-of-views and is much harder to escape. This is something I can completely agree with, I do believe that television media is given much more power with its selective exposure of issues. Noelle-Neumann believes the media goes one step beyond agenda setting: "The media in general and television in particular not only tell us what to think about but aslo provide the sanctioned view of what everyone else is thinking" (375).