Reinforcing Spirals Model

Abstract

The relationship between self, social identity, communication, and society has been a focus of social science theory since the work of Mead and the symbolic interactionists (Mead, 1934). The reinforcing spirals model (RSM; Slater, 2007, 2015) is intended to conceptualize this relationship between social identity and communication as a dynamic and recursive process. Individuals seek out mediated and interpersonal communication experiences consistent with their values, beliefs, and social identities, which in turn help them sustain their preferred social identities. From this perspective, media use is an endogenous or mediating variable, shaped by social and dispositional factors including those related to social and personal identity, and influencing beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and other components of human identity. The RSM draws on systems theory concepts (Bertalanffy, 1968) to describe this iterative process and suggests contingencies and boundary conditions that determine when selectivity or media effects are likely to be particularly strong, and the circumstances under which these patterns would be more likely to lead to severe polarization or even extremism. In the following pages, we will review these proposed processes and contingencies , as well as empirical data supportive of the model. We will also discuss method-ological issues posed by testing a complex dynamic model in social systems. The RSM is particularly relevant in the emerging communication environment of the past two decades. Digital and social media have made it increasingly easy to select communication sources, from news or quasi-news to quasi-interpersonal social media communities, closely aligned with one's ideological, religious, professional, sexual, and virtually any other form of social identity, free from the constraints of location or access of the identity community to expensive means of message creation and dissemination. People can, if they choose to, increasingly immerse themselves in identity communities that reflect their own beliefs and assumptions about the world, and reduce exposure to challenges to such beliefs. The RSM resembles spiral of silence theory (Noelle-Neumann, 1974) in being a dynamic, recursive model, but comes to opposite conclusions, proposing tendencies toward fragmentation and polarization rather than opinion homogenization.