We encourage you to read the expert commentary by Professor Tomasz Gackowski on our CATI survey conducted this year.

The results of our study are thought-provoking. Nearly three-quarters of respondents distance themselves from active participation in public debate, especially when the topic might "break through" beyond the dominant media narratives. This phenomenon perfectly illustrates how strongly the “spiral of silence” mechanism operates in Polish society — a concept that assumes people avoid expressing unpopular (or perceived as such, particularly in mainstream media) opinions for fear of social exclusion.

Importantly, this mechanism does not only activate in response to “minority” opinions — it also operates when someone believes that dominant media, elites, or experts present views that differ from the “majority of ordinary people.”
This phenomenon resembles a notable moment of reflection in the American media after Donald Trump’s election, when CNN and other mainstream players had to admit they fundamentally misunderstood American society, which they had been observing only through the filter of their own editorial biases. A similar mechanism may be at work in Poland today — on one hand, we have dominant media and expert narratives, and on the other, a growing number of people who feel their views are not reflected in these narratives.

Furthermore, the topic of Poland’s military involvement acts as a particularly strong “trigger,” provoking withdrawal and self-censorship. But this may also signal a deeper process: the decline of trust in large, uniform mainstream narratives and the gradual retreat of people from open dialogue. If so, we are witnessing a worrying symptom: not so much a lack of opinions, but a lack of spaces where opinions can be safely and freely expressed.

In this context, for example, the electoral result of Grzegorz Braun (6.34%, 1,242,917 votes) in the first round of the presidential election was a complete surprise to the media, pollsters, and social-political commentators. Braun’s media exposure was marginal (except for popular debates), yet he managed to achieve a better result than all coalition government leaders except Rafał Trzaskowski.

If one tried to predict the results of the 2025 presidential election (first round) based on media exposure of individual candidates, the mainstream media would have made one of the largest cumulative errors in the history of the Third Republic of Poland (correlation between media exposure in mass-reach media (television) and election results).
It is clear that the influence of mainstream media on voters is significantly decreasing, and “media ostracism” no longer works as it used to years ago. Candidates can reach their voters alongside and beyond mainstream media.