| The appearance of social media is a revolution in the area of Journalism and Communication in network era, which means the traditional media is on its way to the new media. The social media, with its portability, accessibility, low-cost and multiple terminals, has transformed the traditional lineal transmission to the new explosive transmission and has become an important carrier of information and a platform for public opinion. With the increasing of the population of netzens, social media gradually becomes the collecting and distributing center and amplifier of thoughts and public opinion.618 million netizens, assembling on the online platforms such as forums, micro-blogs and Wechat, discuss the public affairs and express their interests, which forms a new public opinion platform different from the official one. At the same time, the questions concerned by the people are replied in time by Party and government offices through the social media. This has built a bridge between the public and the government. However, it is undeniable that the social media also has its inevitable negative defects caused by its unpredictability and uncontrollability. Hence it is crucial to know the formation rules of social media and to guide it efficiently.This article will take the Sina Weibo as a sample, basing on the systematical statement of the formation and the development of social media and relevant references, to discuss the subject location of network public opinion and social media. Also the transmission and early-warning mechanism of public opinion in social media will be presented. Followed is the positivistic analysis on the transmission effect of social media. In this part, several realistic public events are considered. Lastly, this article puts forward some suggestions and questions.This article makes a deep analysis on the concept of social media and public opinion from the two aspects of logical rationality and realistic rationality. With the concentration to the subject of network public opinion and forming mechanism, special discussion is made about the feature of social media. Furthermore, the study on early-warning mechanism of public opinion in social media is supposed to guide the public opinion and social stability. |
