even before blogs, unpopular opinions are voiced less. both you and the researcher mentioned need to make a clear distinction between majority opinions and popular opinions. for example, popular opinion is that justin bieber is a musician. majority opinion is quite the opposite, but we never hear from them. for a more ominous example: popular opinion is that the police protect the public, but majority opinion is the opposite.
popular opinions are created by the media and peer pressure. what's more, when people see someone talking about issues in the media, they assume the loudest voices represent the most people. this is a logical fallacy. gay and jewish culture are prone to hysterical complaining, and thus they dominate public agenda and opinion. however, very few people actually care about their usual trivial issues.
texastee - 17. Mar, 04:53
better late then never :)
Hi teigan, unfortunately, this blog has been abandond by me with the end of my university thesis. Yes, the discrepancy you describe between popular opinion and majority opinion is very close to what is described in the 'spiral of silence'. Namely that opinions which are less popular or fit less well with current trends or topics on the political agenda tend to be perceived as non-existent, although they may be carried by quite a significant number of people. And because no-one speaks about it, people with that opinion are even less likely to talk about publicly. that's the spiral effect, which has been researched extensively well before blogs came about.
Communicaiton in blogs has its very own, unique effects, just think of shit storms or the streisand effect..
Born on September 20th, 1979 in Cilegon, a small city close to Jakarta, I spent most of my childhood years Indonesia.
After graduating from Jakarta International School in 1997, I moved to Germany. Here, I went from doing a 2 year course in media design to studying communication science and cultural studies the University of the Arts, Berlin.
I work as freelance designer, translator, and assistant to Dutch artist IEPE.
even before blogs, unpopular opinions are voiced less. both you and the researcher mentioned need to make a clear distinction between majority opinions and popular opinions. for example, popular opinion is that justin bieber is a musician. majority opinion is quite the opposite, but we never hear from them. for a more ominous example: popular opinion is that the police protect the public, but majority opinion is the opposite.
popular opinions are created by the media and peer pressure. what's more, when people see someone talking about issues in the media, they assume the loudest voices represent the most people. this is a logical fallacy. gay and jewish culture are prone to hysterical complaining, and thus they dominate public agenda and opinion. however, very few people actually care about their usual trivial issues.
better late then never :)
Communicaiton in blogs has its very own, unique effects, just think of shit storms or the streisand effect..