Communication Strategy Of The Government To Respond To Emergencies Under The New Media Environment

Public emergency shows the characteristics of abruptness, destruction, urgency andpublic focus, etc., and generally will raise the concerns of the media and the public. After thehappening of Wenzhou "7.23" locomotive rear-end collision accident and the Red Cross "GuoMei Mei" incident, due to the social sensitivity and public interest associated with theseincidents, the public was intensively involved and showed high level of concern. In the newmedia environment, the public takes advantages of computers, mobile phones and otherinformation transmission terminal, and disseminates information via instant messenger, SMS,microblogging, blogging and social networking platform so as to quickly complete theinformation sharing and to form the public opinion regarding a specific incident.During the Wenzhou "7.23" locomotive rear-end collision accident and the Red Cross"Guo Mei Mei" incident, the related governmental departments showed inadequacies inhandling the incidents. The incident information was not open to the public, resulting in anescalation of the adverse social effects, and causing the governmental departments to facestrong pressure of public opinion. It is not difficult to see, an accurate analysis of publicopinion, an effective use of new media, and the purposeful development and implementationof communication strategy are essential skills to governmental departments. Facing theunexpected events, governmental departments should use the correct informationdissemination strategy, take advantages of new media for the collection of public opinion andthe release of information, and maintain online communication with the public in a gesture ofequal status, thus easing the pressure of public opinion, minimize the negative impact of theevent, if possible, even turn adversity into opportunity, so as to avoid or mitigate the seriousdamages and threats caused by the crisis, and to create a favorable public image.Communication strategy for the government to respond to emergencies under the newmedia environment is taken as a research object for this study, which mainly focuses on theimpact of new media on the spread of incident information, and the existing problems ofgovernment in handling the dissemination of emergency information under the new media environment. Consequently, the information dissemination principles and strategies thatgovernment shall follow when handling emergency incident under the new mediaenvironment are put forward.