The Study On The Interaction Between The Government And The Public In The Internet Era

The interaction between the government and the public is a process of influencing each other. To the public, interacting with the government and expressing their demands is a necessary method to protect their interests and meet their needs of political participation; to the government, interacting with the public and responding to the basic demands of them is a guarantee of its legitimacy. Harmonious interaction between officials and the public is directly related to a country’s development and the social stability. China is undergoing the social transition, so various aspects of problems are emerging. Then, how to promote a positive interaction between officials and the public is a problem to the government.What are the specific characteristics of the interaction between the government and the public? Which period is this interaction in? How does the Internet impact it? How do people interact with the government via the Internet? Given to this, how do the central government and the local governments respond respectively? What achievements do the network participation by civilians has achieved up to now? Or, does it still exist any problem? And then, is the government’s strategy appropriate? How to realize the benign interaction between the government and people? All these are the points that this article emphatically explores.Based on previous studies, this paper explores the interaction between the government and the public of China in the age of Internet by using the method of comparative analysis, case analysis, and historical analysis and so on. The writer analyzes the changes of governance from the pre-Internet era to the Internet age. And the author points out that, in the pre-Internet age, the interaction is at the government’s initiative, so it is difficult for the public to interact directly with the government. The mode of discourse at that time is "monologue". By contract, the popularity of the Internet enables people to master the discourse. Therefore, the interaction is more frequent. As a result, the mode of discourse transfers from "monologue" to "dialogue". Meanwhile, the author illustrates the influence of network on the government and the public respectively. To the mass, the network transfers the "citizen" into "netizens". Not only does this mean the change of identity, but also it means the change of behavior pattern. To the government, the decentralized Internet world makes the government deconstructed. And it is losing the initiative during the interaction.In this essay, the interaction between the government and people is divided into two parts, namely, the public participation and the government response. On the public participation, the author summarizes the characteristics of "netizens" and makes a classification by citing the latest reports and data. Besides, he focuses on the popular events online and points out the advantages of "netizens". However, the turbulence demonstrated during the participation damages the benign interaction. On the government response, the author touches on both the central and local governments. Local governments often fail to cope with some events. So, in order to change this situation, central government takes a comprehensive governance to clear the Internet world.For the problems during the interaction, the author prefers exploring its internal logic overall to supplying specific suggestions. For instance, when investigating the identity of civilians, either as the "netizen" or as the "citizen", the writer finds that "netizens" plays a more important role than "citizens" during the interaction. And, to deal with the corresponding problems, the central government is more effective compared to the local. This is not conducive to realize the benign interaction between the government and people. In the author’s opinion, the good interaction should be based on the equal discourse between them. If we want to realize this, empowering citizens and enhancing the local government’s ability are both necessary.