The Network: An Extension Of The Public Sphere

With the coming of the information era, the new media technology such as theInternet network has brought great changes to our social life.The opening of theInternet allows people to accomplish something easily in the virtual world,which wasunimaginable in the past when traditional medias kept the overwhelming power, so asto achieve the freedom of speech. The public sphere which generates from the internetbrings us an opening platform for communicating, which is important for our countryduring the social transitional period to solve all kinds of problems and conflict of oursocial life.This paper is oriented to analyse the influence of Network Public Sphere, whichwas regarded as extension of traditional public sphere, on China’s democratizationprocess based on Habermas’theories on Public Sphere and the present socialbackground of China. This thesis also puts forward some basic ideas about china’sNetwork Public Sphere and figures out some strategies to solve the disadvantageeffects of Network Public Sphere.The thesis considers that the network public sphere existing in the internet withChinese characteristics, which brought us many positive effects, including providingordinary publics a freedom platform in which they could communicate with eachother equally and developing their ability of rational analysis. Nevertheless, there aremany problems that we could’t avoid may prevent the development of thedemocratization, such as the problem of the unbalance of public network structure,the lopsided of public opinions, the factual and understanding crisis in the thetransmission of network, the liability crisis of our government and mass media, andthe technology crisis of network security. Facing with these problems, the thesis putsforward that the coexistence and competition among the public, the government andthe network media is the choice and also the only way of Network Public Sphere tomaintain the sustainable development of the democratization in our country. Thispaper also propses that the best way to improve the effects of Network PublicSphere on the process of the democratization in our country is to follow theaudience-centered patternship (a way to improve the participation ability of public)and to make full use of mass media (a way to establish the responsibibilityconsciousness of network media) and to improve the government-oriented ability (a way to impel and supervise Internet).The thesis takes the method of Theoryâ†'Practiceâ†'Theory as the main researchmethods, meanwhile, it also adopts the methods of literature analysis, comparativeresearching,content analysis and data analytic method. The relevant cases,informationand data are the most popular events in our network and some Statistical Report onInternet Development in China and Statistical Report on Rural China Internet fromChina Internet Network Information Center from2007to2010.