Paper Title: “Climate Change is Real, but I Don’t Wanna Talk About It”: Unraveling Spiral of Silence Effects Regarding Climate Change Among Midwestern American Farmers

Author(s) and Year: Hong Tien Vu, Nhung Nguyen, Nazra Izhar and Vaibhav Diwanji (2025)

Journal: Environmental Communication (closed access)

TL;DR: This study finds evidence of a spiral of silence on the topic of climate change among Midwest U.S. farmers, meaning that many prefer to stay silent about the issue rather than risk interpersonal conflict over differing beliefs. It also reveals that Midwest farmers view climate change as an extremely polarizing topic based on their interactions with the media and politics. This could explain why many choose to stay silent despite existing at the front lines of the climate crisis. 

Why I chose this paper: This paper stood out to me as it seems like the first step towards a solution. If on-the-ground actors like farmers could feel empowered to speak out about climate change, they could have a major impact on policy and future mitigation. Identifying how the spiral of silence affects these actors could provide the framework for a future study about what they need to advocate for a more climate-conscious future. I am very interested in solutions journalism and I think this topic is important to cover.

In a time of outcry over the polarization of issues like climate change, it might be surprising to hear that the vast majority of Americans (72%) agree with scientists that the planet is warming. So, why does it sometimes feel like belief in climate change is becoming increasingly minoritized? In a new study out of the University of Kansas, research shows evidence of a “spiral of silence” among Midwestern U.S. farmers on the climate change topic, a phenomenon that could serve as a window into the wider issue. 

The Background

Farmers exist at the front lines of the climate crisis. Their livelihoods directly depend on atmospheric conditions like rainfall and temperature, and their yields can be upended by extreme events like hurricanes and unseasonal freezes. However, many farmers are hesitant to engage in conversations about climate change—even when they believe it is happening. 

Researchers Vu et al. decided to investigate this phenomenon through a theory known as the spiral of silence. Introduced in 1974, this theory proposes that people who perceive their beliefs to be minority opinions in their community remain silent. This can be a strategy for avoiding conflict or ostracization, and could explain why farmers are hesitant to speak out about the issue in their often rural, conservative-leaning landscapes. 

Farmers are important actors to study because they exist at the interface of climate and society as potentially powerful stakeholders for activism and implementing mitigation. Despite this, the authors observed a literature gap concerning how farmers and other front-line actors communicate about the climate, as well as how the spiral of silence plays a role in the process. Most previous studies have focused on climate communication within the media and among consumers.

The Research Questions

To address the knowledge gap, Vu et al. posed two research questions. The first, RQ1, involved looking for evidence and mechanisms of a climate-related spiral of silence among farmers in Kansas and Missouri. For RQ2, the authors then asked how these farmers perceive the broader political and media environment regarding climate change, knowing that these perceptions could contribute to the spiral of silence phenomenon.

The Methods

The authors conducted 22 interviews with farmers in Kansas and Missouri in person or over video call. Eighteen of the farmers in the sample were male, and four were female. Their ages ranged from the 20s to the 70s, but all had at least five years of previous farming experience. The farmers were recruited through a wider climate change research project using a snowball sampling method. Interview transcripts were coded using MaxQDA software, with results validated by two human coders. 

The Results

About half of farmers interviewed were believers in climate change, while skeptics and deniers each made up a quarter of the sample. Fifteen out of 22 farmers reported being resistant to speaking out about their climate opinions. Notably, only three out of 12 farmers coded as climate change believers reported that they tended to speak out.

Concerning RQ1, the authors found evidence for a spiral of silence among the farmers. Primary motivations to stay silent included protecting personal safety and avoiding isolation. “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth the time. It’s not worth the effort. It’s not worth the risk of losing a friend,” said Nathan, a 70-year-old climate change believer, when describing why he avoids discussing climate issues. Isolation is particularly a risk in the rural lives of these farmers, who describe wanting to avoid conflict for fear of losing trust with their neighbors. There was also evidence that farmers used specific active strategies (e.g., reading social cues and body language, looking for “red flags”) to determine whether or not to stay silent on the climate issue.

RQ2 sought to determine how farmers viewed the broader political and media environment of climate change beliefs, and results indicated that farmers perceived the landscape as highly polarized. Similar to how some interviewees looked for social cues during conversations, some looked for cues from mainstream media and politicians. “I have to reach my own conclusion because I don’t believe [Fox News or CNN]; they’re extreme right, extreme left, and right,” said Logan, a 60-year-old climate change denier. Overall, mistrust in climate information provided by the media was seen throughout the sample, with this perceived polarization potentially contributing to the observed spiral of silence. 

The Impact 

Though this study looked only at farmers, it can be seen as a microcosm of the wider issue of the spiral of silence effect in climate communication. When people who believe in climate change feel like they are in the minority, they feel less able to speak out about their opinions. Their silence in turn exacerbates feelings of ostracization in others with similar views, hence the “spiral” metaphor.

Future research should go beyond the sample of this study to look at other on-the-ground actors like activists and policy makers and how the spiral of silence affects their climate conversations. Additionally, more work should be done on how this spiral of silence can be overcome so that more people on the front lines of climate change feel safe to speak out about how they are being impacted. 

Written by Alex Music

Edited by Mykyta ‘Nik’ Kliapets and Madeline Fisher

Featured image credit: Photo by Erik on Unsplash