POPULARITY IN A FREEFALL: MEASURING A SPIRAL OF SILENCE AT THE END OF THE BUSH PRESIDENCY

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This study measures a spiral of silence in the context of actual opinion change during President George Bush's popularity decline in one of his political strongholds. Willingness of voters to publicly express their opinions about Bush were analyzed over three pre-election surveys (N = 1,800) sponsored by a prominent local newspaper in Orange County, California. Respondents were asked whether or not they would be willing to be reinterviewed by a reporter and have their names and views published in the paper. The hypothesis that Bush supporters would be less willing than others to agree to be reinterviewed during the period in which the president's ratings were dropping sharply is supported. This trend was most in evidence at the beginning of the presidential campaign, when Bush's ratings were in the steepest decline. These findings indicate the importance of actual opinion shifts in spiral of silence research, and suggest several issues for future research on opinion change.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: