Study On The Dissemination And Guidance Of Public Opinions Of Major Incidents In Microblogs

Since2009, the emergence of Sina microblog has provided the public a new information dissemination channel. Currently, Sina microblog is one of the most common social media in China, with more than3hundred million users. Besides, the lattice communication model has transformed microblog into a new kind of public sphere which is different from other social media, making it the best channel for the development of public opinions. Whether it is originated from real life, or it is evoked from the media, it is almost impossible for major incidents to avoid the formation of public opinions in microblogs.The low ignition point of public opinions in microblogs has urged scholars to probe into the guiding strategy to control the development of such public opinions. This dissertation studies on the dissemination and mechanism of guidance of the public opinions in microblogs based on the case study of the "Toddler incident" which has occurred in October2011from three major aspects including the analysis of communication time, communication objects and communication contents in the incident. The research is conducted by collecting microblog posts with the most amounts of comments daily as the research samples within the monitoring period of one month after the incident has occurred by setting six different search terms.From the research, it is discovered that the degree of update, the interaction between the communication objects including the public and the key opinion leaders as well as the simplicity of contents are the main factors that influenced the dissemination process of public opinions in microblogs. Therefore, the mechanism of guidance include the control of message dissemination during the "golden hours", the coordination between key opinion leaders of different attributes and the setting of brevity in the content.