Study Of Communication Effects. Emergency Government Press Release

Affected by its unique social and economic background, the News Release System in China displays special traits and is crucial to both academic research and policy making. Being the information disseminator, government leads the whole process of information communication in a drastic changing environment, where unpredictable events occur frequently, and the current social system and media system stay relatively static. By controlling the source of information, initiating the news releasing in its contents, time and style, the government is part and parcel to the process of News Release System, which deserves careful research. Propelled by the democratization process, the Government News Release System has witnessed dramatic progress, especially after the SARS incident in 2003. Although at its initial stage, this system aims to achieve "openness, punctuality and accuracy" in the long run and has already displayed positive trends of potential development.By examining the effects of Government News Release System dealing with emergencies, this research seeks to answer:1. What is the role of government news release in dealing with emergent incidents? How do government, media and the public interplay in this process? 2. What is the difference between the information producing process of the government press releasing and of the media reporting? What are the effects the government press conference exerts on the media and on the public? 3. What are the factors that might affect this process, and how can we improve this?In order to explore the effects of government news releasing affected by the interplay of"Government-Media-Public", this research first reviews literature in public relations in crisis, crisis management and the relationship of government, media and the public. By recognizing the information flow in crisis management, the researcher establishes government news releasing model and then creates an assessment scheme. Case study is employed to better situate different elements and factors such as government policy, nature of the crisis in this research framework. By compare and contrast, this research also endeavours to locate the shortcomings in this news release system and offer better policies. This research is carried out on two phases:1, media effects, including textual analysis on news reports in aspects such as news resource, interaction between difference news sources, nature of reports and their reception; 2, audience reception, examining audience reaction towards crisis communication and their attitudes towards government in this process. It also seeks to discover whether people with different level of media literacy would react differently to government policy. By carrying a content analysis on media contents and audience reception survey, this research also endeavours to assess government news conference from bottom up, and by doing so it stands better chances in locating latent problems and offering solutions for the public interests. Moreover, by doing an empirical study on audience reception, this research not only illuminates audience reaction towards official news release, but also constructs a model on the interplay of"Government-Media-Public", which also contributes to assessment scheme and methods on different dimensions of this model.