Reversed spiral of silence: A case study of Fang-Han Debate on the outspokenness of deviant opinions on the Internet in China

Spiral of Silence refers that people’s outspokenness would be affected by the perceived opinion climate and those who perceived themselves as minorities would keep in silence. In China, the Internet has functioned as a platform for people to speak out rather than remain silent for (1) a sense of perceived safety and collective support provided by computer-mediated communication, (2) a distrust in China’s official and large private profit-making mass media organizations, (3) psychological rebellion against the suppressive political and social environment, and (4) high attitude strength, which has made the spiral of silence a reversed one. People would speak out regardless of the perceived opinion climate, even when they perceived themselves as minorities and hold deviant opinions against majority view. This study examined how the above factors interacted with each other and affected the outspokenness of deviant opinions by Chinese citizens on the Internet in China regardless of the media as well as opinion environment, based on the text analysis of participants’ posts through different Internet-platforms on Fang-Han debate [ Han Han, a famous Chinese writer, racing driver, most influential Chinese opinion leader and public intellectual who was chased by millions of fans, especially among youth and adolescents, was questioned by a few intellectuals, headed by Fang Zhouzi, a well-known Chinese intellectual famous by his efforts in exposing academic frauds, publicly on the Internet, which caused a heated debate lasting several months in 2012 (still on-going now but not so heated) among Chinese opinion leaders, scholars and professors, journalists, intellectuals from different industries, college students, adolescents and so on.].