Micro-blogging Communication And Public Sphere

Jürgen Habermas’s idea of Public Sphere has long been a hot topic in relevant fields.With the development of new media, different and new interpretations have beenderived from the original conception. Micro-blog, with its revolutionarycommunicative characteristics, soon becomes the hot spot for public opinions, and thequestion of “Whether the public sphere exists on the micro-blog or not” is highlighted.This thesis expounds the connotation of the public sphere as well as thecommunicative characteristics of micro-blog, hence demonstrating whether the publicsphere exist on the micro-blog.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is literature review,describing and analyzing the development of micro-blog with a focus on itscommunicative characteristics: timeliness, sharing and dynamic, which are thematerial and technological base of micro-blog’s significant influence. Also thischapter expounds the theory of public sphere, including its development andsubstance. The second chapter explains both the research approach and thecontents---the demonstration is developed from three aspects, i.e., the threeconstruction factors of public sphere: equal public participation, open speech forumand rational public opinion. The other three chapters, based on the constructionfactors and communicative characteristics above, in virtue of the cases such as GuoMeimei and7·23Bullet Train Crash, to examine whether or not the public spherealready forms or exists on micro-blog.. The study finds out there are threecontradictions which have restrained the formation of public sphere on micro-blog,the contradiction between the hidden hierarchy on micro-blog and equal publicparticipation, between the intervention of political power and open speech forum, andbetween the irrational voice of users and rational public opinion. Therefore the thesisconcludes that public sphere has not yet existed on miro-blogging.