The Communication And Action In The Conflicting Environmental Events

By choosing the public participation in conflicting environmental events as the object of the research, this research mainly studies and explores the mutual impact and interaction mechanism between the public participation and the mass media, which are the important institutional means for the expression of the interests.As a modern democracy form, the public participation is characterized by dialogue, consultation and communication for the purpose of influencing the government decision-making. It’s also the effective consultation mechanism for the interests to avoid or resolve the social conflicts and risks. Because of the lack of the institutionalized and routine protection and guarantee by the laws and regulations in the public participation in many areas, the realization of the right to know, express, participation and supervision of the public participation relies to a large extent on the mass media. This makes the impact of the media on public participation become an innegligible issue for the researchers. In this study, the public participation in the events of the waste incineration in Liulitun, Beijing and Panyu, Guangzhou is discussed. First, the processes of the public participation in the two events are expounded in the context of the historical scenes. Then based on this, the differences in access to the media and its realistic impact on activities of public participation during the process of public participation are analyzed. What is also of concern of the study is how the public, experts and the government fight for their own discourse right in the process of the risk game with the aid of media.Researches have shown that in different cases, the differences among the public when they access to the media have significant impacts on the path, manner and target setting of public participation. Under the condition with no support from the media, the protests usually become an important way for the participants to compete for the power within a system, which will inevitably cause the emergence of direct social conflicts, and thus reflect the necessity and importance of a coordinating mechanism for effective interest consultation. As the public platforms for the expression and consultation of public interests, both the traditional media and the new media are not naturally fair, open or free. The traditional media does not necessarily take an active role in social activities, nor does new media necessarily able to advocate rights among the underclass. In different cases, the differences in public access to the media and the impacts on public actions brought by the differences must be understood within the context of an extended media-social network.Concerning the issue of the public participation in the risk decision-making on waste incineration which is of the concern of this research, the process is actually a game of the risk decision-making on waste incineration, the roles in which are played by the three parties of the public, experts and government. Driven in the active public participation, the mass media continuously construct the complete truth of the risk gradually, and reveal the real facts on risk of the waste incineration, which are previously concealed by the government and some experts. This makes it possible for the government to reflect on and revise its previous decisions. But in this kind of public sphere of the media which set up in practical scene, the microscopic mechanism of the discourse is characterized by the profound impact on the discussion and consultation of the public interests, which is caused by the structure of the national power, the manipulation of the interest group, the media system and the inequitable distribution of public media resources during the transition of the society. From this perspective, public involvement not only promotes the democratization of specific decision-makings, but also creates the free space for expression prior to the existing systems during the communication practice, and constructs the publicity of the media during its interaction with the media.