Research On Construction Process Of Education Policy Issues In Network Society

The network society changes the logic of policy formation by changing the condition of policy decision, making the education policy decision-making subject more diverse and the decision-making process more democratic, making the present policy formation show the different characteristics from the traditional one, and the affecting the path of policy formation. This article takes process of a educational policy issue as a case, analyzing the setting stage, the marked features, and the action logic of different subjects involving in the agenda, showing the policy function of different subjects. This article is just an attempt of exploring education policy formation mechanism, hoping to broaden the research field of policy formation factors, and proving basic information for policy decision which is under the condition of network society.It is very easy to accumulate and diffuse personal opinions, media’s views, and public attitudes in the environment of network society. In this condition, the problems are that how education policy issues are constructed and what role subjects play in the issues construction, which are valuable but neglected by academic circle. However, the present education policy decision mode cannot properly interpret the formation mechanism of education policy issues in the network era. Based on the practical and theoretical considerations, this article expands further based on the empirical mode, which is “Media-Public-Policy Agenda”, and propose the “Network Mode” of education policy issues construction.In the Network Mode, citizens escalate “personal problems” into “public problem”, make “focus” to promote the establishment of media issues and public issues, and then affect the process of government policy decision-making. This mode highlights the agenda setting power of new media and citizen. The process of Network Mode could be divided into three phases: individual agenda, media and public agenda, and government agenda.The initial phase: individual agenda construction. This part mainly uses content analysis method to statistically analyze the micro-blog of Zhan Haite in a certain time. The results show that there is mainly individual action during the individual agenda. People who take part in discussing the agenda mainly consist of interest-demanding aspect and interest-vested aspect. The influence of individual agenda is very limited. During this phase, individual demand gradually evolves from “individual problem” into “public issue”. In this process, new media plays a role of a platform, realizing the empowerment of citizens, making everyone has rights to express his or her opinion, safeguard his or her rights and interests, even make the focus of public opinion, enlarge his or her influence, and realize the diffusion of policy demands.The key phase: media and pubic agenda construction. Individual uses new media to make “focus” to accumulate attentions of the media and the public, arousing debates on the policy problems in the context of the whole society, successfully construct the media and public agenda, forcing policy makers to consider how to make a rational design to reduce the resistance of policy. By analyzing the contents of news, magazines, and newspaper text referring to “Zhan Haite Event”, it is found that the mainstream media plays a leading role in the aspect of public agenda construction. In this phase, network media also plays an important role with the characteristic of diverse views and deep contents. Rational express and clear demands are effective approaches to enhance the abilities of media agenda construction, guiding the public opinion, shaping public opinion, and expanding the function of public opinion.The substantial phase: government agenda construction. The effect of education policy construction should be finally examined by the policy introduced by the government. This part mainly analyzes the documents, “views of implementation on immigrations’ children attending school in Shanghai” in 2014 December and “notice on 2014 Shanghai college enrollment work” in 2013 December which were issued by Shanghai government, and make a comparison among the demands of all parties. The government’s action logic of solving the problem of participating in college entrance examination in different place is that, on the basis of no harm to local vested interests, conditionally setting the barriers to participating in college entrance examination in different place. As a result, the demands of all parties have different degrees of response.Through the analysis of the three phases, it is found that “Network Mode” embodies the release of individual rights and the accumulation of public opinions, having a significant influence on promoting citizens participating in the process of education policy and government policy decision. This article abstracts the key influence variables of new media, individual citizens, and focus event, theoretically realizing the expansion of connotation and denotation of China’s educational policy-making mode.