Analysis Of The Formation Of Internet Buzzwords-A Sociology Perspective

The Internet language is regarded as essential in everyday online communication. In particular, the Internet buzzword has formed a special type of Internet language. Due to their unique characteristics, To some extent, the Internet buzzword reflects all sorts of emotions and opinions towards the nation and the society from all social classes. It also reflects the ongoing changes of a nation in culture,politics, economy, etc. The popularity of Internet buzzwords can be attributed to the law of language propagation and,more importantly,a host of social factors. The widespread of Internet buzzwords has posed various impacts on social development and everyday life. It affects the quality of Internet civilization, justice and equality of the society and the development of democracy. Therefore, it is crucial to perform a thorough analysis on Internet buzzwords.In this article, it utilize the theories in sociology and reveal the root causes of the popularity of the Internet buzzword through analyzing its concept, characteristics and influences. This article contains the following contents: 1.Clarification of the concept of the Internet buzzword. Incubated and propagated on the Internet, the Internet buzzword is a novel language which can be widely spread in the cyberspace and become popular rapidly in a short period of time. It can be further categorized into several classes: popular symbols, words, phrases, sentence structures, emotion symbols,etc., which originates from real-time online communication. 2. Social impacts from the Internet buzzword. After a brief introduction to the social impacts, we concentrate on the social bandwagon effect and the network propagation effect, from which we reveal the tendency of the Internet buzzword | more affluent in terms of language structures,more diverged from their literal meanings, more apparent indications towards social affairs, more possibilities for language innovation and a wider range of influence. 3.Social resonance mechanism of the Internet buzzword. By thoroughly analyzing the social resonance mechanism of the Internet buzzword, we further reveal the social impacts generated by the popularity of Internet buzzwords from the sociology perspective. We summarize its positive influence, namely, efficiency improvements,stimulation of interpersonal communication, release of unhealthy emotions,development of the sense of humor, insights of social affairs, enhancement of analyzing capability, propeller of public scrutiny, reflection of people’s livelihood and public opinion, enhancement of propagation, realization of economic value. We also summarize the negative effects of the Internet buzzword. For instance, it affects language norms, giving rise to language barriers, stimulates Internet violence, poses threats on social stability, subverts traditional ethics, impedes civilization construction,challenges the conventional mass media and undermines its authority. In the final part of this article, in order to combat such negative influence, we propose several constructive suggestions from the perspective of mainstream media and we-media.To conclude, this article aims to discuss the reasons for the popularity of the Internet buzzword from novel perspectives and systematically summarize its current development status. We also analyze its social impacts, reveal its merits and demerits and finally, propose several suggestions so as to make it more capable to provide high quality service for the society and the public.