Understanding Group Events Through The Lens Of Co-orientation Theory

China is now experiencing a thorough transformation period. On the one hand, the rapid economic development promotes the social progress, on the other hand, social conflicts are increasingly highlighted and intensified, leading to the frequent occurrence of group events in recent years and arousing widespread concern of the whole society.This paper selects the event of shishou as a typical case to study. Under the guidance of"co-orientation approach", the author makes a discourse analysis of the reports text about the event of shishou, combining with the process of the event, the background and the information transmission mechanism. The Objective of this study is to make a comprehensive display and analysis of the interaction among the government, mass media and public in the communication of the event of shishou.Through the study, the author found that under the influence of the political power, the media and so on, elite (government), mass media and social public failed to achieve overall and positive interaction in the the process of the event. In most cases, the interaction was one-way communication rather than two-way interaction and was malignant rather than benign, one-sided rather than comprehensive, superficial rather than in-depth. The author holds that this interaction exerted adverse effects on the process of the event.In order to change this vicious interaction, the author holds that the government should take these measures: strengthen the"public relations awareness"of cooperation with mass media; use the soft and active communication strategy to guide mass media; while ensuring the government as the agency of releasing authoritative information, give the maximum right of criticism and supervision to the media.The mass media should take these measures: while respecting the fact and leading the event to the benign development, achieve the combination of"official discourse"and"public discourse"; adhere to the"objective and fair principle"and try to report group events objectively and comprehensively; pay continuous attention and make consecutive reports to the group events.