Research On The Reconstruction Of "public Sphere" Platform Through Network Medium

The rapid development and gradual ripening of network medium have led the present society into diversification. In recent years, a series of social events spread through the Internet, which has triggered powerful Network opinions, and this has made people realize network medium had become a significant medium in the whole society. This realization has given people a delightful expectation of the re-appearance of"public sphere"that had vanished for a long time but is extremely attractive to humans.Two websites of different type—WWW and Tianya BBS, Tianya Community—are chosen as the researching objects in this thesis. The"Foxconn Jump Events"is the individual case selected to study if the network medium can actually reconstruct the ideal"public sphere"in present China.The"public sphere"theory—especially Habermas's theory—was taken as the theoretical basis of this thesis, and the case recording method was used to research whether network medium can reconstruct Habermas's public sphere theory.In the part of case recording, the original posts and following posts about Foxconn Jump Events in WWW and Tianya BBS are recorded and classified, with the aim to discuss whether the network media can reconstruct the"public sphere"platform in present China, and to analyze in details the significance of network"public sphere".Based on the analysis, a conclusion can be drawn that network medium is obviously superior to the traditional media in constructing"public sphere"platform. An ideal network public sphere is highly expectable, and it has shown certain power in people getting involved in social affairs. However, it is still too early to confirm that network medium has already reconstructed the ideal public sphere. What appears in front of us is more like a public language platform, instead of an ideal"public sphere".Certainly, we can expect with optimism that the extremely appealing ideal public sphere—with the constant development of society, politics, economy, science and technology—will turn into perfect reality one day.