Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

Bio: Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Spiral of silence & Judicial opinion. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 21 publications receiving 1834 citations.

The spiral of silence: Public opinion, our social skin

Abstract: In this work, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann examines public opinion as a form of social control in which individuals, almost instinctively sensing the opinions of those around them, shape their behaviour to prevailing attitudes about what is acceptable. For the second edition, Noelle-Neumann has added three new chapters: the first discusses new discoveries in the history of public opinion; the second continues the author's efforts to construct a comprehensive theory of public opinion, addressing criticisms and defences of her "spiral of silence" theory that have appeared since 1980; the third offers a concise and updated summary of the book's arguments.

Alle, nicht jeder : Einführung in die Methoden der Demoskopie

Abstract: Allein mit der Beobachtungsgabe konnen wir die soziale Wi- lichkeit nicht wahrnehmen. Wir mussen uns mit Geraten aus- sten, die unsere naturlichen Fahigkeiten verstarken, so wie es fur die Beobachtung der Natur langst geschehen ist. Umfragen sind ein solches Hilfsmittel, seit dem Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts muhsam methodisch entwickelt, mit eigen- tigen Verzogerungen, gegen beharrliche Widerstande. Die empirische Tradition der Erforschung von Meinungen und Einstellungen begann - recht bescheiden - in Deutschland, schrieb der Pionier der modernen Sozialforschung Paul 1 Lazarsfeld. Aber die Tradition der deutschen Umfragen des 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhunderts war vollig abgerissen und so gut wie vergessen, als nach 1945 Bevolkerungsumfragen in Deutschland wieder aufkamen. Man hielt sie fur eine ameri- nische Erfindung. Das neue Beobachtungsinstrument wurde kaum mit Freude begrusst, nicht als Fortschritt menschlicher Erkenntnismogli- keiten gepriesen. Es weckte Unbehagen. Man wunderte sich, warum plotzlich uberall Umfrageergebnisse erschienen, in Z- tungen und im Rundfunk, in den politischen Reden ebenso wie in den Geschaftspapieren der Firmen. Zeitweise dachte man, es sei eine Mode. Heute sind Umfragen aus dem politischen und dem Wi- schaftsleben und aus vielen anderen Bereichen nicht mehr w- zudenken. Doch das Misstrauen in der Offentlichkeit ist gebl- be

Culture and cognition

Abstract: Recent work in cognitive psychology and social cognition bears heavily on concerns of sociologists of culture. Cognitive research confirms views of culture as fragmented; clarifies the roles of institutions and agency; and illuminates supraindividual aspects of culture. Individuals experience culture as disparate bits of information and as schematic structures that organize that information. Culture carried by institutions, networks, and social movements diffuses, activates, and selects among available schemata. Implications for the study of identity, collective memory, social classification, and logics of action are developed.

Social Identity, Self-Categorization, and the Communication of Group Norms

Abstract: We articulate the role of norms within the social identity perspective as a basis for theorizing a number of manifestly communicative phenomena We describe how group norms are cognitively represented as context-dependent prototypes that capture the distinctive properties of groups The same process that governs the psychological salience of different prototypes, and thus generates group normative behavior, can be used to understand the formation, perception, and diffusion of norms, and also how some group members, for example, leaders, have more normative influence than others We illustrate this process across a number of phenomena and make suggestions for future interfaces between the social identity perspective and communication research We believe that the social identity approach represents a truly integrative force for the communication discipline

Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm.

Abstract: Four studies examined the relation between college students' own attitudes toward alcohol use and their estimates of the attitudes of their peers. All studies found widespread evidence of pluralistic ignorance: Students believed that they were more uncomfortable with campus alcohol practices than was the average student. Study 2 demonstrated this perceived self-other difference also with respect to one's friends. Study 3 traced attitudes toward drinking over the course of a semester and found gender differences in response to perceived deviance: Male students shifted their attitudes over time in the direction of what they mistakenly believed to be the norm, whereas female students showed no such attitude change. Study 4 found that students' perceived deviance correlated with various measures of campus alienation, even though that deviance was illusory. The implications of these results for general issues of norm estimation and responses to perceived deviance are discussed.

The Evolution of Agenda-Setting Research: Twenty-Five Years in the Marketplace of Ideas

Abstract: Communication scholars frequently invoke the concept of a marketplace of ideas during discussions about speechmaking, the diversity of media content and voices, and related First Amendment issues. They invoke it less often during intramural discussions of how specific concepts and perspectives, or our research agendas as a whole, have evolved over the years. Yet communication research does operate in a marketplace of ideas that is the quintessential laissez-faire market. The role of our journals is to create a market for the ideas advanced by members of the field. Individual scholars pick and choose topics at will-idiosyncratically and whimsically, some critics say-and publish at irregular intervals. Research teams, to the extent that they exist in communication research, usually arise spontaneously and have short life spans. Institutionalized focused research programs are rare. The communication research marketplace is a volatile arena, a situation fostered by the rapidly changing nature of communication itself during the past 50 years. Under these circumstances the continuing and growing vitality of agenda-setting research is remarkable. As a theoretical perspective, it has had a rich 25-year history since McCombs and Shaw’s (1972) opening gambit during the 1968 presidential elect ion. Philosopher of science James Conant (1951) noted that the hallmark o f a successful theory is its fruitfulness in continually generating new questions and identifying new avenues of scholarly inquiry. The fruitfulness of the agenda-setting metaphor is documented by three features: (a) the steady historical growth of its literature, (b> its ability to integrate a number of communication research subfields under a single theoretical um-