Taco Bell and the Spiral of Silence: Why Advertising Does Matter
Originally published May 14, 1998.
By Michael Bartanen (Professor Emeritus, Communication)
The News Tribune carried a story last month reporting the unhappiness of Latino groups with Taco Bell’s latest advertising campaign featuring Dinky, the chihuahua. You probably have seen the advertisements: Dinky passing up a liaison in search of the instant gratifications of a fast food meal; purportedly sinking a basketball shot; and in the latest version, leading a revolution. These spots have been memorable, or at least as memorable as any advertising spot can be.
While it is difficult to know if they have caused an increase in fast food consumption, they have had a more immediate effect: a rise in the number of chihuahua’s purchased from pet stores or rescued from animal shelters. I copied the article and brought it to class, confident that half a semester of inculcation about the dangers of overexposure to media would prepare my students to rise up in self-righteous indignation about the stereotypes contained in these television spots.
How wrong I was.
Not only was the apparent consensus of the class that the spots were funny and effective, but that it was about time that “they” developed a “sense of humor” and stopped being so “sensitive.”
The written class reactions that I collect each period told a different story. Students who did not participate in the discussion wrote that they had not thought about it before, but they could begin to see why the Latino groups were so concerned with the spots. The images of Dinky reinforced the common stereotypes of Hispanics, exaggerating their vocal patterns in ways reminiscent of bad B-movies, implying that they do not have the athletic ability to play basketball, and that the revolutions in Central and South America were nothing more than excuses for introducing a new variety of taco, which minimized the significant human rights struggles in that region that exists even today.
The students also reported that they were reluctant to express their opinions, but it did not really have a reason why they chose not to disagree with the prevailing view. A similar exercise in another class had a similar result with one exception. One of the quiet students wrote that “t wasn’t worth the effort [to comment]. Others wouldn’t understand. It is much easier to go along with everyone else.”
I came away from these discussions older and wiser. Older, in the sense that I was frustrated that students had not yet mastered the ability to see the world through alternative points of view. Hadn’t they completed their alternative perspectives and diversity requirements? Did all of them come from homogenous small communities that lacked the presence of people of other cultures? Did they sleep through my efforts to raise their consciousness about the often insidious effects of media on non-white, non-male, non-western perspectives and cultures?
Well, at least the last point may be valid. I teach early in the morning and no one yet has confused me with the “world’s greatest teacher.” But I also came away wiser. Wiser in the sense that I could supply a theoretical explanation for the general lack of understanding among my students about the potential harms of the Taco BEll spots as well as having a case study to demonstrate one of the best known theories of public opinion and media of the post-World War II era: Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s “Spiral of Silence.”
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann is a prominent German Communication researcher and founder of the Public Research Center, which is similar to the Gallup organization in the United States. Noelle-Neumann is one of many social scientists who have conducted research that is critical of media effects. There are many former and current scholars who have participated in this discussion. The most prominent, George Gerbner has led the way in pointing to the power of media in shaping social attitudes about violence. Michael Parenti has written extensively about cultural stereotyping. Noam Chomsky as part of a brilliant life-time of work in politics and linguistics, has been instrumental in pointing to the western bias of media. The work of these men and women has been extended by a more recent generation of scholars who have made us aware of the tremendous power of media to define and, more importantly, dis-define our world.
Benjamin Barber, in Jihad vs McWorld, makes a compelling case for how the cultural imperialism of western media, in its obsession with over-emphasizing western culture and distorting non-western culture, is creating a climate where the world is “coming together and falling apart.” This is similar to the scathing commentary of Edward Said about how western media distorts Middle East culture. The point of the work of all these scholars is simple: We many know more about our world, but do we known less about how people in our world really think and feel?
The reaction (or lack thereof) of Taco Bell’s “Dinky” series is useful to illustrate the point that Noelle-Neumann makes about media and public opinion. Simply, media is powerful because it is an unchecked force in building and reinforcing the views of the majority and driving out alternative views. In a world where a few concentrated media companies control access to ideas, the chance that people will disagree with, or even be aware of, the inevitable cultural stereotyping of media is growing increasingly small.
Noelle-Neumann’s theory, “The Spiral of Silence” is based on the claim that people have a pronounced ability to gauge the beliefs of others and know what constitutes “popular opinion.” People almost instinctively pick up on cues that help them know when their own views are “out of sync” with those of others. Sometimes, depending on an individual’s level of self-confidence or other factors, a person will be comfortable disagreeing with popular opinion. Unfortunately, a more common reaction is for a person who feel “out of sync” to avoid confronting opposing views. This is especially true is a person believes that there are many people who disagree. This doesn’t mean that a person changes their view to conform with the majority — at least at the beginning. But over time, constantly repressing their own views to avoid appearing “different,” causes people with minority views to devalue their own views and gradually adopt the views of the majority. This is the “spiral of silence.” Views that fall outside the mainstream are marginalized and ultimately ignored.
The media dotes on catering to the “majority.” The whole point of media programming is to provide advertisers with a captive audience. The more people toward whom an advertising message can be directed, the more likely that sale will result. Images that challenge the “conventional wisdom” will not appear- why “bite the hand that feeds you?” This leads to an inevitable result — programming that is predictable, banal, and most crucially, biased toward the interests and stereotypes of the cultural majority- the so-called “White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS).”
The Spiral of Silence predicts that, given the constant barrage of “majority” oriented images, people whose opinions and feelings fall outside that narrow range of images, will have fewer and fewer opportunities to have their view validated, and will, almost inevitably, come to adopt the views of the majority or at the very leaster, subordinate their views and “keep their opinions to themselves.”
But what of Dinky, the cute chihuahua? How can such a seemingly innocent and fun advertising image be harmful? Consider the opinion of Gabriel Cazares: “I think it is very demeaning. It is definitely a hate crime that leads to the type of immigrant bashing that Hispanics are now up against.” Is this an overreaction? Taco Bell certainly thinks so. According to spokesperson Laurie Gannon, “We don’t believe we are portraying the dog in a fashion that is derogatory or insensitive toward Mexicans. In fact, we think the commercials portray a sort of quasi-Mexican heritage that is cool and hip.” Cool and hip to whom? To Latinos, who, despite their growing economic and demographic significance still are under-represented in advertising spots aimed at appealing to the white middle-class consumer who has the necessary disposable income to make up the vast majority of fast food restaurant patrons? The insatiable appetite of the advertiser makes the answer to that question fairly obvious. As the line from Jerry McGuire goes, “Show me the money!”
Hispanics, (and all other minorities), of course, patronize fast food restaurants. Fast food restaurants are convenient and employ millions of people (including a fair number of college students) who pump money into the American and world economies. But is the economic benefit worth the cultural cost? That is the question. We should not minimize the cultural significance of advertising in shaping how we view the many people who share our world who are misrepresented, or not represented at all by entertainment programming or advertising.
African-Americans were all but non-existent on television prior to Roots. Hispanics, if they were seen at all, were all-too-often portrayed as bandits in John Wayne movies or as criminals in crime dramas. All racial minorities, if portrayed at all, are at least twice as likely to be shown as criminals; or portrayed as servants or other lesser jobs. Asians, to this day, rarely are seen on television in any role whatsoever. The cast of Friends apparently patronize the only coffee shop in one of the most diverse cities on the planet that is only visited by caucasians who are thin, good-looking and invariably witty.
Is it any wonder that advocacy groups might object to an image such as Dinky? Is Dinky that much different than the unmourned “Frito Bandito” of the 1960’s? Is the absence of public dissent a sign that, as the Taco Bell spokesperson claimed, an indication that no one was offended by the spots? Or is it a sign that Noelle-Neumann was right: that the incessant media pounding of images that appeal to the majority completely drowns out alternative voices and caused those who have alternative viewpoints to keep their views to themselves, or, more frightening for democracy, to keep them from even considering the alternative in the first place?
If the Spiral of Silence is valid, we run the risk as a society of never knowing that there are alternative cultures and perspectives. We will only learn about those images that they corporate owners of media choose to share with us, and only then if those images will help sell us yet another product.
The stakes are enormous. Each day, the average person is exposed to 3000 advertising messages and watches six hours of television and countless hours of radio programs. All the “diversity and alternative perspectives” requirements in the world will mean nothing if college students , and the public at large, do not attend to the power of media and open themselves to the possibilities, however small it might be, that an advertising spot is more than “innocent fun.” Failing to do so means that we doom ourselves to a future that goes far beyond the bleak predictions of Aldous Huxley or George Orwell.
References:
Barber, B and A. Shultz (1996). Jihad vs McWorld. New York: Ballantine Books.
Chomsky, N and E. Herman (1988). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon.
Noelle-Neumann, E. (1984). The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion- Our Social Skin. University of Chicago Press.
Parenti, M. (1992). Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Said, E and L. Walker (1997). Covering Islam: How the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world. New York: Vintage Books.
