How Authoritarian Social Contexts Inform Individuals’ Opinion Perception and Expression

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Introduction

In public debates surrounding controversial issues, news reports, and perceived public opinion are particularly crucial. Public opinion models, such as the spiral of silence, indicate that people form impressions of public opinion through exposure to news reports in the media. Although perhaps inaccurate at times, perceptions of public opinion affect whether people are willing to participate in public debate and express their opinions in public (Taylor, 1982). Over the years, studies have vigorously used diverse theories and methodologies in attempting to disentangle the process by which people assess the climate of public opinion through news coverage (e.g., exemplar effect and base rate information, Brosius & Bathelt, 1994, Gibson & Zillmann, 1994; persuasive press inference, Gunther, 1998). However, these studies do not consider all possible ways in which social contexts may be operationalized. Specifically, the press system in a society often affects news coverage and audiences’ judgments of news slant (Chia, Yong, Wong, & Koh, 2007; Giner-Sorolla & Chaiken, 1994). How people account for social context when relating news reports to public sentiment deserves further examinations.