Hot Events From The Network, The Network Evolution Of Public Opinion

Since internet was introduced to China over a decade ago, the network public opinion now has been playing an increasingly significant role in all walks of life. According to statistics, the total figure of internet users was 210 million,298 million and 384 million, respectively in year 2007,2008 and 2009, later reaching 457 million at the end of December 2010. The netizens, concerning about the news and current affairs and eager to express, are named as "New Class of Opinions", who, with the help of new internet technologies with characters of "tremendous volume, interaction, speedy & anonymity" are constructing a new era of public opinion.From 2007 to 2009, "Xiamen PX", "Anti-CNN" "Hide-and-Seek", "70 miles"& other hotspots show the infiltrating influence of network opinion over all spheres of society, which triggers a tripartite gaming of dominance over public opinion among government, traditional media and online public opinion. During the period of networking progress of public sphere, there are some urgent topics to discuss, like the possibility of the network consensus gradually becoming the source of public opinion, the way and to what extent the network consensus can domain the public opinion in future, and what kind of roles the government, traditional media & online network opinion will play.The main objects of studying in the paper are three representative Chinese forums (Tianya, Kaidi and strengthening nation forum), of which the yearly Top 10 hotspots from 2007-2009 are analyzed.Research methods include both micro-level means like case study & questionnaire surveys and macro-level means such as dynamic analysis & Historical Analysis in an entire social-ecological framework, which is to summarize the history and status of networking progress of public sphere, further exploring the characteristics and trend of the network of public opinion, reveal the interaction and links between government, traditional media and online public opinion and their respective impact over hotspots and public opinion dominance, and finally explain the coexistent ways of traditional media and new media.