Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
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{{Infobox Scientist
|image = Replace this image female.svg <!-- only free-content images are allowed for depicting living people - see [[WP:NONFREE]] -->
|image_width = 150px |
| name = Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1916|12|19|mf=y}}
| birth_place = {{flagicon|German Empire}} [[Berlin]], [[German Empire]]
| death_date =
| death_place =
| residence = [[Germany]]
| citizenship =
| field = [[Political science]]
| work_institution =
| alma_mater = [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität]]
| doctoral_advisor = Emil Dovifat
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = [[spiral of silence]], Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach
| prizes = [[Bundesverdienstkreuz|Great Cross of Merit]]'' in [[1976]]
| religion = [[Christian]]
| footnotes =
}}
'''Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann''' (born [[December 19]], [[1916]]) is a [[Germany|German]] [[political scientist]]. Her most famous contribution is the model of the [[spiral of silence]], detailed in ''The Spiral of Silence : Public Opinion - Our Social Skin''. The model is an explanation of how perceived [[public opinion]] can influence individual opinions or actions.
She earned her [[Abitur]] in 1935 in [[University of Göttingen|Göttingen]] and then studied [[philosophy]], [[history]], [[journalism]], and [[American studies]] at the [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Friedrich Wilhelm University]], the [[Königsberg Albertina University]], and the [[University of Missouri]]. She stayed in the USA from 1937 to 1938. In 1940 she received her [[Phd]] concentrating on public opinion research in the USA.
In 1940 she briefly worked for the [[Nazism|Nazi]] newspaper ''[[Das Reich (newspaper)|Das Reich]]''. On [[June 8]], [[1941]] ''Das Reich'' published Noelle-Neumann's article entitled "Who Informs America?" in which she propagated the myth that a [[Jew]]ish syndicate ran the American media. She wrote, "Jews write in the paper, own them, have virtually monopolized the advertising agencies and can therefore open and shut the gates of advertising income as they wish." She was fired when she exchanged unfavourable photos of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] for better looking ones. She then worked for the ''[[Frankfurter Zeitung]]'' until it was banned in 1943.
In 1947 she and her first husband Erich Peter Neumann founded a [[opinion poll|public opinion research]] organization – the ''[[Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach]]'', which today is one of the best known and most prestigious polling organizations in Germany.
From 1964 to 1983 she held a professorate at the [[Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz]].
Noelle-Neumann was the president of the [[World Association for Public Opinion Research]] from [[1978]] to [[1980]] and worked as a guest [[professor]] at the [[University of Chicago]] from 1978 to [[1991]].
== Award ==
* [[1976]] [[Bundesverdienstkreuz]] - ''Great Cross of Merit''
In 1991, [[Leo Bogart]] launched a ferocious attack on German public opinion research and political advisor Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann.
He made her the center of controversy while she was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, as he published “The Pollster and the Nazis” in the August 1991 issue of Jewish heritage and cultural magazine [[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]], accusing here of anti-Semitic passages in her dissertation and articles she wrote for Nazi newspapers. In fact, when young journalist and sociologist Elisabeth Noelle published her 1940 dissertation “Opinion and mass research in the USA” in Germany, having spent a year at the University of Missouri to research George Gallup’s methodology, Goebbels called the 24-year-old woman as an adjutant and intended for her to build up, for the ministry of propaganda, Germany’s first public opinion research organization. She declined, falling sick, and angering Goebbels; she later became a newspaper journalist with Nazi publications where she wrote some articles on Jewish influence over U.S. news and elite opinion.
Bogart suggested there is a direct line from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to Noelle’s theory of the “spiral of science” and “public opinion as our social skin,” which interpreted the group pressure band-wagon effect and the domination of leading mass media over public opinion. The accused wrote a letter of apology to the magazine, explaining that the passages served alibi functions under the dictatorship and were not meant to be harmful.
[[John Mearsheimer]], Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago wrote in the New York Times on December 16, 1991:
"She has admitted she was not hostile to the Nazis before 1940. She says she was anti-Nazi after 1940, but has produced no evidence that she criticized the Nazis then. She wrote anti-Semitic words in 1938-41, and there is no evidence she was compelled to write them. Queried on her anti-Semitic writings, she told me: "I have never written anything in my life that I did not believe to be true."
==Selected Work==
* ''The spiral of silence. A theory of public opinion – Our social skin'', [[University of Chicago Press]] (1984)
==External links==
*[http://wwww.noelle-neumann.de Page with Picture and further links]
*[http://www.demoskopie.de The Allensbach Institute]
{{BD|1916||Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth}}
[[Category:German political scientists]]
[[Category:Members of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:Nazi propagandists]]
[[Category:People from Berlin]]
[[Category:University of Göttingen alumni]]
[[Category:Humboldt University of Berlin alumni]]
[[Category:University of Königsberg alumni]]
[[Category:University of Missouri–Columbia alumni]]
[[Category:University of Mainz faculty]]
[[Category:University of Chicago faculty]]
[[Category:University of Munich faculty]]
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