To the Editor:
I would like to correct the following points in Christopher Shea’s article “Nazi Apologist or Distinguished Scholar? A Journal Article Reignites a Fiery Debate” (August 8).
First, my sending Hans Mattias Kepplinger’s article to Christopher Simpson’s superiors hardly overshadows the intellectual debate at hand here. The only ones who actually believe that are Simpson and his old mentor, Mark Levy. Mr. Levy has said that my actions were “unusual.” I would say they are not as unusual as printing sensationalist journalism in an academic journal.
Second, Mr. Shea says I “admitted” to sending three copies of the article. Actually, I never denied it. A cover letter with my name and address accompanied all three copies. There was never any question as to who sent them. And Mr. Simpson’s superiors could have asked me any questions they might have had. As it was, only one of the three wrote back to say he would read the article with interest.
Third, I must say I was quite surprised that something delivered by the U.S. Postal Service can be described as having “mysteriously landed in ... mailboxes.” I was equally surprised that mailing an article is a “Stasi-style” tactic, as Mr. Simpson alleges. All I can deduce from this is that Mr. Simpson doesn’t know much about the Stasi and that neither he nor Mr. Shea gets a lot of letters.
One way or another, a bit more objectivity from Mr. Shea would have been appropriate.
William Scheckel
Master’s Candidate in Sociology
Universitat Konstanz
Konstanz, Germany
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To the Editor:
I know Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and her “spiral of silence” theory. The efforts to link her critique of the news media’s influence on public opinion to totalitarian ideology are curious because, except for one detail, most of her critics agree with her.
It is an article of faith among virtually all scholars of communication that media in Western democracies speak with one, narrow voice and that they restrict rather than enhance political debate. It would be hard to find a paper presented at the meetings of the International Communication Association challenging this premise. This assumption, linked to a psychological need to avoid social isolation, is the basis of her argument that news coverage silences real or perceived minority opinion and drives public opinion in the direction dominated by the media. Professor Noelle-Neumann’s views are really quite moderate compared to those of Noam Chomsky, Herbert Schiller, and Todd Gitlin (among others), all of whom share a belief in powerful, pervasive media that mold public opinion to their own view of the world.
The one detail that distinguishes Noelle-Neumann from just about everyone else, of course, is the direction of the political influence. If she accepted the conventional wisdom of the field that media are part of a right-wing power structure used to maintain a conservative status quo, the spiral-of-silence theory would be cited as one variant of a general theme advocated by just about everyone writing on the topic, and her personal background would be irrelevant. By arguing that the media move public opinion to the left, she demonstrates that common assumptions can lead to very different conclusions.
My guess is that her more ideological critics are upset because they agree with so much of what she says and have trouble demonstrating that their conclusions about media influence are any more valid than hers. Linking the spiral-of-silence theory to Nazi ideology is a convenient solution to this frustration.
Robert L. Stevenson
Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, N.C.