[attitudinal] people tend to overestimate the effect media will have on others, [behavioral] thus they will take an action to limit the effect (lecture notes)

Terms (OSEPS): Ostensible audience, Social distance, Experts, Pluralistic ignorance, Spiral of silence

this is the expected or intended audience; however, those not in this audience may take action for their concern of it’s effect on the target group  [def. of ostensible - stated or appearing to be true, but not necessarily]

distance between a person and  a ostensible audience, e.g., the ostensible being the youth, brutes, or others. This could have something to do with socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or age.

the idea that the experts are not effected by the media, so they are the first to judge potential effects on others; they typically fear the effects the most

believing the majority opinion is minority and vice versa; a situation where a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but assume (incorrectly) that most others accept it (it is based on the bias that when a controversial idea is framed a particular way by the media, you are the only one with the certain belief, and the rest are being influenced by the media’s notion); “For instance, pluralistic ignorance may lead a student to drink alcohol excessively because she believes that everyone else does that, while in reality everyone else also wish they could avoid binge drinking, but no one expresses that due to the fear of being ostracized“ (wikipedia).

people silence themselves based on the increasing social norm, i.e., if someone feel they are in the minority they are less likely to express their opinion for fear of reprisal form the majority; those on one side of an issue express their opinions with more and more volume and confidence, while those on the other side of the issue tend to fall silent. Three characteristics of journalism that plays a role in the spiral of silence: (1) ubiquity: you’re not interested but media is everywhere, (2) cumulation: specifics reports get replayed across the media. Print, online, NY Time story put in different blogs. move across media, (3) consonance: those reports share a similar take on a special issue. they cover the stories in the same ways (Kathy Nguyen)

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