The Effectiveness Of Mass Media In Public Policy Making

This paper analyzed the role that mass media played on public policy making. It based on the common property of publicity, and the different aspects of performance of the government,public and the mass media in the evolution of public policy. According to the content analysis of605 reports of Southern Metropolis about “ Guangzhou garbage disposal ” from 2009 to 2014,the paper select 6 indicators(The tendencies of reports, the topic, news sources, the news forms,the comments and the policy process that the reports focused on)and combined with specific cases for text analysis.After the data statistics and text analysis, this paper focuses on the effectiveness of mass media which represented by the Southern Metropolis in policy agenda building, policy debate and policy implementation. In the process of policy agenda building, the reports uses enlightening narrative of intellectuals and procedural justice as a starting point, spreading the opinions of the intellectuals and expanded the event influence by attention to submitted proposals by the citizens. Meanwhile, used the focus events to trigger media attention, in order to accelerate the transformation of the policy issues and prompted the government to change the decision. In the step of policy debate, the mass media provided the platform for public opinion,moreover, the mass media is also one of the participators of the public policy, evaluated the policy in a variety of ways like reporting the news, editorializing on the news reports, and planning news feature. In the step of policy implementation, relying on its own resources advantage, the mass media accepting responsibility for the government and citizens. On the one hand, to shape a good policy environment, on the other hand, to exercise of supervision by public opinion.The garbage disposal in Guangzhou as to reach the result of co-win from the government,the public and the mass media. It also have significance for mass media, which must do better in increasing policy efficiency and improving the ability of public policy making.