The power of silence? opinion contagion and the surprise of the polish 2005 parlamentary and presidential elections

Eszter Bartha; Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz

The power of silence? opinion contagion and the surprise of the polish 2005 parlamentary and presidential elections

Abstract

This paper investigates opinion contagion in collective behaviour using threshold model (Granovetter (1978), Krassa(1988)). The theoretical background is the spiral of silence concept developed by Noelle-Neumann (1974), arguing that people only assert their opinions if they perceive a minimal support from a relevant proportion of others. We apply the model to explain the dispersion between pre-elections preferences and the final results of the Polish parliamentary and presidential elections in 2005. It is shown that the minority opinions were more widely-held than was declared in opinion polls as a consequence of different distributions of the threshold values of opinion assertion.

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Category:: Articles
Type:: artykuł w czasopiśmie wyróżnionym w JCR
Published in:: Polish Sociological Review no. Nr 1=165, pages 123 - 138,
ISSN: 1231-1413
Language:: English
Publication year:: 2009
Bibliographic description:: Bartha E., Wolszczak-Derlacz J.: The power of silence? opinion contagion and the surprise of the polish 2005 parlamentary and presidential elections// Polish Sociological Review. -Vol. Nr 1=165, (2009), s.123-138
Verified by:: Gdańsk University of Technology