ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED U.S. PUBLIC OPINION: THE SPIRAL OF SILENCE DURING THE PERSIAN GULF WAR

This study analyzes actual and perceived support for the Persian Gulf War in the United States. Data were collected from 292 residents of New Castle County, Delaware, during the 1991 Gulf War. Results show that support for the war was not the strong consensus reported in mainstream media. In fact, 53.1 percent of the respondents fell within the neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree ranges of a support for the war scale. Only 6.6 percent of the respondents were in the strong support range. However, responses were significantly higher on an item measuring perceived support for the war. Consistent with Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory, perceived public support for the war was a significant predictor of support for the war even after 13 variables were controlled. The alternative explanation that subjects were ‘projecting’ their own perceptions onto the public, is discounted by the finding that liberals, moderates and conservatives did not differ in their perceptions of public support.