Social Risks Of New Communication Technologies And Risk Governance

This article explores social risks of new communication technologies (NCTs,for short)and risk governance,focusing on the relationship between NCTs and social risks.The author systematically discusses the cause,mechanism of NCTs-genareated social risks and corresponding governance strategies.The paper contains five chapters. The first chapter introduces the aim and idea of the study. The second chapter "new communication technologies and social risks: social circumstances and logic relationship" is the first part of the article, it gives the background, frame and object of the dissertation. The author introduces NCTs and its characteristics:digitalization, networking, interactivity,individualization,time-space compression and so on.This paper then analyzes the definition and attributes of new media. China has entered risk society during social transition,its social structure,historical phase and the globalization process have caused amplification of social risks.The total social circumstances make the basis of NCTs and determine the nature of its social impact. The logic linkage between NCTs and social risks lies in two facts.The complexity and uncertainty embedded in NCTs generate the social risks. Above all,the essential forces that produce social risks is the interaction of NCTs and social circumstances such as society administration system and communication institution arrangement. The interaction and integration process between embedded institution structure and given institution arrangement will happen when NCTs applied in the field of social information flow.The third chapter involves constructional risks brought to society by NCTs. Firstly, networking technology is an important factor of high-risk social construction. Virtual environment of network society provides free and open space, which is the spirit of network society and origin of risks as well, In a global, virtual and open network society, information and knowledge becomes fundamental force to rebuild social constructure, while information and knowledge contains uncertainty and may bring social risks.In the network space of de-centralization and de-control, the main model of information exchange alters from centralization,hierarchy to decentralization and flat, NCTs deeply affect social authority construction and distribution of power. Thus, NCTs deconstruct traditional communication order, lead to decline of traditional information controlling system. The author founds that digital divide brings social differentiation, and causes unbalance of risk distribution and further social disorder.The main body of the dissertation is the forth chapter, production mechanism and amplification effect of social risks under condition of NCTs. This chapter focuses on NCTs’ function as engine and activator of social risks. Development of NCTs results in complication of social information system, with dependence between social construction and organization, social risk and destruction increases dramatically, in the network space, communication ethics and behavior criterion has not been founded yet, individualized communication behavior and virtualized interaction brings uncertainty, therefore, in each node of complicated social system, whole system risks may happen due to individual communication misbehavior. individualized communication breaks monopolization of specialty media, it features as extreme open and free, while it tends to bring non-institutionalized participation and irrational action as well. Meanwhile, with development of NCTs, global communication of cross-national social risks becomes reality which lead to conflict and unbalance in cultural communication field. Moreover, informational and national sovereignty may be damaged, nation-state are confronted with disabled government. Lastly, risk events interact with specific social, cultural and psychological factors, new media may play role as risk amplification station which intensifies public risk perception and forms amplification effect of social risks.The fifth chapter focuses on the multi-strategies on the social risk of the NCTs. On the base of modern governance theory, this article insists on giving up the simple way of evading the technical risk from technical level, and turns to improve the structure of risk governance. By building up a new risk governance system on cooperation and communication, we can establish a net of confidence between nation, citizen society, medium and enterprise, we can construct a stage for information’s exchanging and use the advantage of new media to create a risk pre-warning and emergency dealing system to prevent social risk from happening. To take advantage of new technologies and new media, we can create media literacy and risk consciousness among public. It’s also necessary to strengthen the social controlling system in the field of technologies, law and ethics. I draw the conclusion in the epilogue for the whole article.The author explores institution factors as the main forces of NCTs-generated social risks.The author puts forward the ideal model of new collaborative.