China's Public News Development Present Situation And Prospect Analysis

In the 1990s, the Americans gradually lost interest in politics and the media, whichthe most distinctive feature is the decline in political election turnout. In order to changethis situation, a new conception called "Public journalism" had been put forward by thepress of United States. Since then, American academia and the press did a lot oftheoretical and practical explorations in the“Public journalism”. In 2004, Prof. Cai Wenand Prof. Li Qingli introduced this conception to Chinese journalism scholars. The livebroadcasting attempt of public selection process for 22 assistant department level cadrespresented by Jiangsu Satellite TV“1860 News Eye”is the beginning of the practice ofpublic journalism in the news media in China.The“public journalism”which launches a democratic movement in the area of media,encourages the media to build up a widely public domain, to focus on the public affairs, toencourage citizens to actively participate in political life and contribute to equalcommunication between the government and citizens. At present, our country is in theperiod of social transformation. The social interests distribution is not reasonable, andpeople need their demands of channels. Due to its own limitations，the traditional mediacannot satisfy the public demand for equal participation in debates on issues .“Civicnews”which focuses on people’s livelihood also exposes a series of problems for itsvulgarism and trivialness, lacking a deep concentration on social contradictions, as well asnot reporting in an objective, reasonable and comprehensive way, and even remainproblems unsolved. People urgently demand for a channel which correctly represent andsolve the social problems. The new concept and format,“public journalism”, rises on theother side of the ocean corresponding to Chinese reality, and it aroused the interest ofacademic and industry circles as soon as it is introduced.The popularization of the Internet promotes the development of public journalism.Canadian scholars, the famous media guru Marshall McLuhan points out that the mediumis the message and any technology are gradually creating a new human environment,which is not active packaging supplies, but the positive role of process. The development and utilizations of new media technology in the fourth media significantly altered theenvironment of the news communication.Lots of Internet users express their views about some public events through theInternet media, which make the originally unnoticed event becomes a hot topic, whichmake traditional media reports deeply. The interaction between the old and new mediacondenses the netizen’s opinions into enormous public opinion pressure to urge the eventresolved. This is our network of public journalism on the basis of American publicjournalism and Chinese current society, culture and media. This format of publicjournalism is a great boost to Chinese democratization process. As the intermediate zoneto buffer contradiction between the people and the government, it undertakes an importantresponsibility of building a civil society in China. By combining the background,definition, connotation and characteristics of the public journalism, this paper willdiscusses public journalism’s vigorous development and its trend in the future, which isthe construction of civil society.This paper will concern qualitative analysis with theoretical viewpoints and modelsby using politics, journalism, communication and other disciplines on the basis ofliterature study and the investigation.