A Study On The Functions Of Traditional Media In The Public Sphere In Cyberspace

According to the theory of Jurgen Habermas's "Public Sphere", people can stand in arelatively independent field from government and carry on a free discussion of publicaffairs. Since the emergence of the Internet media 10 years ago, its various features makepeople see the hope of the existence of the public sphere in cyberspace. So far, there havestill been many related discussions. However, most of them concentrate on the Internetmedia and pay little attention to the traditional media.This paper choses Haicang PX Project event as its research subject, which has a lot ofpractical significance when referring to the public sphere in cyberspace. Both thetraditional media (newspapers, radio, television) and the Internet media play very importantroles as mediums in the public sphere in cyberspace.The paper mainly relates to the following theories: Habermas's public sphere theoryand Lippmann's agenda setting theory. Then, it divides some existing researches into threecategories: the possibility of the existence of public sphere in cyberspace, the agendasetting in the public sphere in cyberspace and the mode of the public sphere in cyberspace.The next part of the paper reviews the whole process of the event of Haicang PXProject, on the basis of which, we can see the two main functions of the traditional media inthe public sphere in cyberspace: agenda setting and promoting the discussion on theInternet.Finally, the paper puts forward a mode of the public sphere in cyberspace, highlightingthe prominent role of the traditional media. This mode includes five factors: occurrence ofan event, first broadcast by the traditional media, the discussion on the Internet, reinterventionof the traditional media and the decision making. The mode may has two kindsof processes: the paralleled one and the linear one, in both of which, the traditional mediaplay an important role.The paper mainly applies the methodology of case study and also use "Acapulcomodel" as its supplement.It is hoped that this paper will attract more attention to the traditional media in thepublic sphere in cyberspace and provide some reference for the future study in this field.