The Study On Strategies Of Local Government’s Public Opinion Management In Social Media Era

The development of the Internet-based information technology has led to profound changes in not only ways of communication between people but also the original public opinion environment of the entire society. In recent years, the Web2.0 based social media, represented by Weibo and WeChat, have emerged as new carriers for Chinese people to exchange views and communicate with each other by virtue of their properties of mutual participation, multi-openness and community fusion. As the number of users is constantly rising, their influence is increasingly broad and profound, strongly facilitating open expression of personal views of ordinary citizens, integrating the power of originally scattered net citizens and endowing "grass-root" groups with more discourse power. However, the issues under discussion generated in the socialized media public opinion environment are featured with strong spontaneity, emotional and irrational expressions of the people, etc., which also increases the risk of network public opinion crises.Since China has entered the era of social media, local governments are placed in a broader field of public opinion and have less room to maneuver in the Internet public sphere as compared to the past. It has become an important issue in the public relations research field in China at the present stage how to change our way of thinking, improve the ability of local governments to cope with public opinion related issues in the socialized media era, coordinate the relationship between the government, media and the public, bring into full play the positive social functions of public opinion and eliminate the negative impact of negative public opinion and network public opinion crises.Based on the relevant theories of public relations, communication, public management and other disciplines, systematic and profound discussion and analysis of the current situation and existing problems of local governments’ response to public opinion in the socialized media era are carried out and corresponding strategies and suggestions proposed by combining both methods of literature research and case analysis in this paper.The paper consists of five parts. The introduction part mainly explains the origin, background, objectives and significance of this research as well as domestic and overseas research situation and briefly describes the main theoretic basis, research approach, methodology and innovations of this paper. The first part offers detailed definition and overview of the connotation and functions of public opinion, differentiation between socialized media and related concepts, a list of the signs indicating that China has entered the socialized media era and explanation of the new features and mechanism of formation of public opinion in the socialized media era. The second part focuses on the analysis and explanation of the necessity of Chinese local governments’ response to public opinion in the socialized media environment, advisable experience, existing problems and the causes of the problems, etc. The third part, by selecting the two left-behind child deaths in Bijie of Guizhou and the two tap water pollution events in Lanzhou and Jingjiang as the study case, presents a comparative analysis of the local governments’ response to public opinion in the abovementioned events, in order to illustrate the role and values of the issue management and crisis communication management framework in handling and guiding public opinion in the socialized media era. The fourth chapter presents the countermeasures to cope with the issue covered in this paper. The following strategies and suggestions are proposed based on the characteristics of the socialized media era and the current situation and existing problems of local governments’ response to public opinion:to build and improve a network public opinion monitoring and management mechanism, grasp the characteristics and laws of public opinion dissemination in the socialized media environment, incorporate the guidance and response to public opinion into the public relations of local governments, actively utilize the notion of issue management to improve the degree of consensus between the civil and governmental "public opinion fields" and enhance local governments’ communication management ability in responding to public opinion crises.