"Two Public Opinion Fields": Concept Evolution And Integration Review

The concept of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’ was first proposed by Nan Zhen Zhong at the internal work conference of Xinhua News Agency in 1998. According to its most primitive definition, the ’Two Public Opinion Fields’ referred to people’s ’oral public opinion field’ and the news media’s ’public opinion field’. From the propose of this concept to the practice of mutual convergence, the ’Two Public Opinion Fields’ has developed for almost 20 years till now. In the past 20 years, as an academic concept, the theoretical construction of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’has improved gradually, while as a reflection of social reality, the relationship between two public opinion fields has also changed a lot. As a result, the focus of this paper is to investigate the concept evolution of ’Two Public Opinion Fields ’as well as study the change history of their real relationships. By doing so, this paper may act as a reference and provide recommendations when people cope with problems of the two public opinion fields.Briefly speaking, based on the research results of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’, this paper divides its development process into three stages when taking characteristics of the political climate change and the media environment evolution into consideration. Stage one is named as the first solo from 1997 to 2003. Stage two is called as the cognitive diffusion from 2004 to 2010 while the last stage is defined as the convergence practice from 2011 till now. Corresponding to each stage, this paper mainly investigates the concept birth of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’, studies the multiple divisions of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’,as well as clarifies the real ’get-through’practice of two public opinion fields. Finally, in order to complete the prospect of both academic researches and realistic development of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’, this paper takes all the content above into consideration. By doing so, this paper summarizes four essential characteristics about the concept revolution of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’. Besides, inspired by convergence practices of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’, this paper also raises three proposals, which namely are grasping the transfer route of unofficial public opinion field, ensuring the top priority of official public opinion field and affirming the opposing value of ’Two Public Opinion Fields’. May these three proposals provide references for the party and the mainstream media to handle the ’Two Public Opinion Fields’ properly.