The Construction Of Public Opinion Platform In The Field Of Research

Do online forums in China provide the public the platform of rational communication or the location of bacchanal discourse? Based on "the theory of Public sphere" and "the theory of Communication Action" proposed by Juergen Habermas, the online forum of people.com.cn is analyzed to discuss how to construct the public sphere by adopting a case study of the "Sun Zhi-gang incident". In this research, we investigate two sides of the environment of publicity opinion and rational communication to evaluate the quality of discourse platform. It is likely to turn initial personal group communications into open mass communications for the existence of the public discourse sphere like Qiangguo Forum.Although online forums are more open than traditional media's, public discourse sphere is also affected by multi-factors. Instead of equally joining the discussion, a small percentage of people contribute to a majority of discourse in the websites' forums. That is, although online forums provide an opportunity for democratic discourse, it does not mean that everyone subscribed to the online discussion will participate equally. The forms of their discussion are often two way/reactive communication between original and return postings. The return postings posted by the netizens of Qiangguo Forum are almost to the question of the original postings so that their relations established the basis of rational communication and consensus. Discourses used by the participants consist of imperative, constative, regulative and expressive speech act, while regulative are adopted more than the others. Only do some participants provide theoretical or practical proof to defend themselves, and most communications can be expressed by means of speech. Finally, to make the analysis of the model of discussion relation, we find participants nearly take same side in a great deal of discussions. In a word, the duality of development and distortion in the public sphere constructed by the Online Forum of people.com.cn displays concretely in three respects: duality of publicity, duality of netizens and duality of consensus.In addition, according to comparing the web page setting of Qiangguo Forum with that of other online forums, the article argues that the web page setting of Qiangguo Forum should add a new main page which consists of no other than the titles of original postings, while the original page setting is also maintained.