Study On Internet Collective Behavior And Public Opinion Leading In Risk Society

1986, the German sociologist Ulrich Beck presented a well-known theory of risk society,on the basis of long-term study of social development and globalization issues. Britishsociologist Anthony Giddens described the theory on the other two aspects. One is theinstitutional risk; the other is the impact of risk on people’s lives. In recent years, accidentdisasters frequently happen in China, which means our country is entering a period of risksociety. At the same time, the growing development of the network increased the people’sattention on social and public affairs, which expands the impact of the risk. One of the mostprominent phenomenon is people’s internet collective behavior.As a social group phenomenon, collective behavior was concerned by socialpsychologists. However, the development of networks and social networking sites make thetraditional collective behavior onto the network.Due to the concern of some events, a certainnumber of people reached a consensus and spread information with a common goal oninternet. That is the concept of the internet collective behavior. It can be said that internetcollective behavior is an extension of collective behavior. The same as collective behavior,internet collective behavior also has spontaneous, disorganized and instability characteristics.By posting comments and opinions, network users assembled information, which expandsindividual’s voice to public opinion. Finally, it leads the crisis incidents became social topics.According to the recently happened crisis cases in our country, journalism andcommunication scholars, media and government pay more attention on people’s disseminationpower. Nowadays, since the network has developed into a mature technology, media andgovernment should master people’s dissemination psychology to guide public opinion. Onlyin this way, could media and government build a responsible image.The thesis makes use of risk society theory to analysis the internet collective behaviorand tries to find an available way to guide public opinion.The thesis includes three parts which are preface, text and conclusion.The Preface mainly elaborates the background of the problem, the theoretical of the topicand the methods of the research.The text separates into five parts; the first part is to analyze the risk society theory andcharacteristics of the Chinese society. The second part is the research on internet collectivebehavior and the reason why it happen. The third part is the summary of the internet collective behavior case--"Yan’an serious traffic accident”. The fourth part described public opinionguidance defects. The last part based on the risk society theory, giving some effectivesuggestions to lead public opinion.