The Research On Media Participation In Public Decisions

This paper focuses on mass media’s practical influence on the government’s public policy making in the transformative age of China. Through the study on the mechanism of mass media’s participation in public policy system, the research studies mass media’s unique function in social opinions shaping, public interests expression and the reconstruction of social consensus. The paper also makes an argumentation of the positive regulation and negative rejection of new media’s participation in the government’s public policy making in the Internet Age. Meanwhile, it attempts to exert a deep analysis on the necessity and feasibility of constructing an interactive relationship between government, media and the public under the power check-and-balance of politics, economy and society.Public policy is an important means for the government to allocate social resources, resolve social public issues and realize the social public interest. It is also a process in which all aspects of social groups attempt to pursue their interests maximization through constant competitive games. Currently, China has reached a stage with social transformation, stratum polarization, interest entity diversification and conflict normalization. Only by establishing a free public discussion platform can it be possible for all the agents to participate in the process of policy making, when they could freely perform effective policy debate and reach an agreement and eventually bring about the authoritative allocation of public interests and the solution to public problems.With the establishment of "people oriented" governing idea, the nurture of civil society, the return of the public subject consciousness, and the change of media environment, mass media in China has become an irreplaceable social mechanism to promote decision making progress, to improve policy quality and to safeguard public interests, especially new media which have a huge impact on government public policy making, awakening public participation in politics and ensuring democratic decision-making. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to do some research on mass media’s participation in government policy making.The paper starts with the study on the publicity of mass media and public policy and investigates them in the physical background of China’s transformative age. It concentrates on the practical base and the dilemma they face when participating in public policy making, based on which it analyzes the different behaviors of mass media in different stages of public policy making and rethinks new media’s role in the process and eventually lands on the basis of the paper. Case study is mainly applied in the paper with the expectation to support related viewpoints.