The Personal Attitude And Opinion Expression In Network Communication Environment:the Review And Revision Of ’The Theory Of Silent Spiral’

’The Theory of Silent Spiral’ put forward by German scholar Noelle-Neuman is one of the most famous communication theories for those who are familiar with psychology, mass communication, and sociology. To explain the content she holds, three key conceptions were established:’The fear of isolation’,’The climate of opinion’and’Quasi-statistical sense’.’The fear of isolation’shows actions that people change because of the isolation from others;’The climate of opinion’shows the opinion distribution in the environment we live in including current opinions and future possible opinions.’The Quasi-statistical Sense’means that all can evaluate the power of group who opposes them. People can accept other’s opinions as their own opinions and knowledge. She also disclosed the concepts of’Hardcores’and’Avant-gardes’. They paid for their confidence, which means, they tried to oppose the dominant side, and directly face those holding different opinions in order to insist their own ways. As a result, compared with the majorities, they are not afraid of standing in weak opinion side. It’s likely that they are least influenced by silent process.This research is not only designed to apply’The Theory of Silent Spiral’into modern society to compare the current and the past research results, but also examine and reset the past theory before applying it. The research mainly focuses on the actions of expressing opinions on the Internet, and observes the formation process of public opinions in the Internet environment and how the formation of public opinions influences other’s’opinion expression. It’s a very effective method to observe the relationship between the formation of public opinions and opinions expression in Internet boards. Ever since Noelle-Neuman put forward this theory, there are hardly any researches on the opinions in this space.There are still some real things on the Internet. The fundamental reason for this is that there are real men in the real society behind various faceless masks. Many of us hold a completely different opinion that the current Internet is an open world every one can participate in. Any one on the Internet is equal. The most obvious example is that in Internet boards, all visitors can express their messages and opinions about things. As most senders and receivers are faceless, and online users can hardly form close relationship, many communications can be regarded seen as public opinion expression. The character of faceless online feature provides people some sense of security, which then encourages them to express their own opinions on the Internet even there are different dominant opinions. Eventually, it’s more likely that the’Hardcores’and’Avant-gardes’definition will emerge.In this research, some problems related to’The Theory of Silent Spiral’are addressed First,’The Theory of Silent Spiral’ could only explain one-way part between majorities and minorities (majority-opinion expression, minority-silence), but fail to explain two-way part between two groups (both majority and minority-opinion expression or silence). Also it failed to explain the interaction relations between majorities and minorities. Second, in her research, she collected offline people’s opinion through the way of questionnaires. The silent spiral phenomenon, however, cannot be well explained by the way of questionnaires. As a result, in this research, online people’s opinion was collected by content analysis. Third, when she was researching this theory, she took politics, selection examples as research topics. In this research, different with her choice, some hot issues in the society were selected.The research results show that:first, as time goes by, both the majority opinions and the minority opinions show the tendency to express their own opinions which are useful for them. Although they realize the existence of the other party, they continue to express their own opinions to overcome the pressure of the other party. Second, the majorities and the minorities can both bring positive influence mutually. As time goes by, if a variable is stronger (weaker), the other variable is also stronger (weaker). Third, in research examples, the expression of the majority opinions and the minority opinions change forms similarly. As time goes by. the two groups show the disparity that supports their own opinions. The both parties showed the’Adaptation’or’Resistance’form of’V’ type or’W type. Generally speaking, it shows’V’ type is more’superiority pattern’, and’W’ type is ’conflict pattern’and’extreme superiority pattern’The main concepts of’Theory of Silent Spiral’are challenged as the social circumstances are continuously changed. Therefore, minior opinion expression should be examined carefully not to mention the relationships between and major and minor, the effect of media, etc. It is also important to consider’Hardcore’and’Avant-garde’as the most important factors in’Theory of Silent Spiral’. This research is based on issues in Korea, if necessary, it needs to be studied with cases of other countries including groups, cultures, cross-cultural communication, and international communication.