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Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann was a 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.
Elisabeth Noelle was born to Ernst and Eve Noelle in 1916. First Elisabeth went to several schools in Berlin and then switched to the prestigious Salem Castle School, which she also left one year later. She earned her Abitur in 1935 in Göttingen and then studied philosophy, history, journalism, and American studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, and the Königsberg Albertina University. When she visited Obersalzberg, she by chance had an encounter with Adolf Hitler, which she later called "one of the most intensive and strangest experiences in her life". She stayed in the USA from 1937 to 1938 and studied at the University of Missouri. In 1940 she received her Ph.D. concentrating on public opinion research in the USA.
In 1940 she briefly worked for the Nazi newspaper Das Reich. On 8 June 1941 Das Reich published Noelle-Neumann's article entitled "Who Informs America?" in which she propagated the myth that a Jewish 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.
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