A Study On Information Asymmetry Problems And Strategies Of Social Group Incidents

Social group event is one of special public opinion events that happen when individual or collective interests are violated. People gather spontaneously to appeal for their common interests, a social activity that attracts widespread public attention. The social group events often break out suddenly and unpredictably. The reasons for social group events are extremely complicated, predominantly due to the fact that the relative information is unavailable for the victims who have no ability to protect their interests over a long period of time. The present study focused on the role of information asymmetry in social group events.The first part (Chapter1-2) reviewed the concept, causes and characters of information asymmetry and its relationship with social group events, and introduced the objective, significance, research methods and contents of the current study.The second part (Chapter3-5) focused on two kinds of typical social group events: network group events and those caused by nimby problem. Through individual case analysis, we paid attention to the issue of information asymmetry involved in these social group events. We found that the information asymmetry frequently occurred among the government, organization, media and public. Meanwhile, the information asymmetry persists during the whole course of social group events, including their initiation, development and intervention. Based on this understanding, we discussed the origins and negative impacts of information asymmetry, and extensively characterized the possible influence of information management and information spread on the generation of information asymmetry. This study provided a professional clue about how to fix the problem of information asymmetry in social group events.The third part (Chapter6-7) strategy research, was related to the basic thinking and way to erase the information asymmetry in social group events. We emphasized the importance of information management and spread in the fixation of social group events, and put forward the theory of information availability. We thought that any information should be available for conflicting parties during the whole course of social events. Only then can the social group events be resolved. We considered it important to establish a platform where each party could get the information they needed. Meanwhile, any information should freely flow spatiotemporally. A rule should also be developed for the relevant parties to deal properly with the emergencies. Of the most importance was that information management divisions should know their responsibility in social group events. Taken together, this study shed new light on how to reduce the frequency and harm of social group events by means of information management and information spread.