A Study On The Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting In Social Media

With the development of the Internet, the environment of mass media has changed and social media has begun to be popular. The Agenda-setting power has been delegated from traditional media to general public, which has begun to set agenda by itself. In order to ensure that the voice of the public can be better expressed, to help traditional media to be better transformed, to assist the government to manage network more effectively to control public opinion on the internet, and to develop the function of the Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting, this study tries to grasp the content and structure of Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting from several aspects. First, it introduces the definition, classification and characteristics of social media, thus analyzes the background to the appearance of the Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting, and tells us what the Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting is. Using the method of physical observation, it carefully observes the four main platforms in Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting. Combining cases and theories, on the basis of “Agenda Melding” theory, it observes creation, production, aggregation, enhancement and development of agenda and concludes that the Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting is a process of the development from individual audience agenda, community agenda, network agenda, traditional media agenda, to public agenda. About the process, it concludes two mechanisms for Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting, the significant information filtering mechanism that takes issue properties as its core, and the opinion-leader-guiding mechanism that takes the leaders’ opinion as its core. Then it elaborates on the issues and characteristics of the public Self-authorized Agenda-setting, and in the process of outlook for the application of the effects of Public Self-authorized Agenda-setting in society, finds that the difference of the agenda-makers’ qualities and the unordered spread of information may cause bad results, which needs a interdisciplinary assistance.