Research On Classification And Behavioral Factors Of Stakeholders Of The Microblog Public Sentiment

The application of microblog formally started in2009. It has attracted a huge number of users due to its characteristics. For example, the operation of microblog is easy, the writing of microblog message is fragile, users can access microblog application through multi platforms, and microblog has many-to-many based information communication pattern. Nowadays, more and more common users, organizations, and public figures choose microblog to publish or spread message. Moreover, the Chinese society is currently undergoing transition period, the society faces multiply risks comes from areas like politics, economy, population and ecology, but the public limit the channel of express its demands of interest. Therefore, Chinese microblog has become a preferred platform to express public opinionMicroblog public sentiment is defined as the aggregation of individuals’(or organizations’) influential emotions, attitudes and opinions towards a specific events or social issue which is of their own interests, or closely related to their current or potential benefits. The evolution of microblog public sentiment is strongly influenced by the activities of all parties involved. Therefore, how to design targeted regulation policy is an important topic of microblog public sentiment research. Based on the theory of stakeholder, this paper first defined and classified the stakeholders in microblog public sentiment, and then explored the motivations of each type of stakeholders. Furthermore, this paper proposed the self-regulatory policy for microblog public sentiment, thus providing a valuable reference for the management of microblog public sentiment.This paper first reviewed literature on public sentiment and microblog-based usage, and found that current studies on entity-detection and entity-categorization in microblog public sentiment are limited. For example, the motivation of microblog usage is not clear, and most studies are not individual-based, thus there are lack standardized theoretical guidance in microblog study. These limitations could lead to low-efficient microblog public sentiment management. Therefore, the research of this paper was devided into three parts. The first part of this paper defined stakeholders in microblog public sentiment based on stakeholder theory. The second part investigated the factors which influence stakeholders’activities in microblog public events. And the third part put forward a proposal to manage (monitor and lead) public sentiment from self-regulatory and supervision perspective.The first part of this paper categorized different stakeholder entities under the guidance of stakeholder theory. First, the Experts Grading Method is used to find out the types of stakeholder related to microblog-based public events. Second, hypotheses are put forward regarding differences of motivation among different stakeholders. Third, the hypotheses were tested through data analysis, and a categorization model for stakeholders was established.The second part of this paper used grounded theory to analysis stakeholder’s motivations at different evolution stages of public sentiment. Typical users, identified as stakeholders of specific microblog-based public events, are invited to conduct a deep interview, and the interview materials were coded and categorized. The results show that different stakeholders have different microblog usage motivation at different evolution stages.The third part of this paper based on the classification of stakeholders at different stages of development of microblog public sentiment, combined with the stakeholders in microblog public sentiment behavior motivation research, put forward the suggestions about self-regulatory codes for stakeholders in microblog public sentiment, namely government, media and weibo users advice of self-regulatory codes.The contributions of this research are, first, this paper defined different types of stakeholders related to microblog public sentiment and constructed a classification model for different stages of evolution of public sentiment. Second, this paper put forward an integrated model for stakeholders’motivations, and discussed every type of stakeholder’s behavior and motivation in each stage. Third, this paper extended the research area of stakeholder theory, enhanced the motivation research on microblog, and provided a valuable reference for government to manage microblog public sentiment, and leaded to an improved ability of government to lead and management public sentiment.The limitations of this research are, first, in the study of stakeholder classification, the scale of survey is not wide enough, and the attributes of stakeholders needs further exploration. Second, in the study of motivation, the result needs to be tested and refined through wide-scale questionnaire. And third, microblog public sentiment can’t restore events, respondents to the division of microblog public sentiment development stage has certain subjectivity.