Research On The Public Opinion Guiding Force Of Social Media From The Perspective Of Agenda Setting Theory

With the popularity of the Internet and the continuous upgrading of Internet technology,social media is penetrating into the life of the public with a flourishing trend,becoming the main carrier platform for the public to participate in social life and express their individual opinions.The convenient,instantaneous and strong viscosity characteristics of social media are recognized by the public,breaking the traditional single way of information dissemination.The public role is enriched and no longer limited to a single receiver identity,along with the release and sharing of information so that the social public has the dual identity of recipient and transmitter,and information popularization is widespread on social media.Social media have changed the information dissemination environment dominated by traditional media and become an important part of China's opinion environment,and the "civil opinion field" formed by social media largely influences the direction of social opinions.As a reflection of the ability of social media to guide public opinion,the strength of social media can be used as an important criterion to evaluate the comprehensive strength of social media.Social media,as the main carrier of online public opinion,presents a complex and changing public opinion environment,diversified public opinion subjects and flexible public opinion guidance mechanism,and corresponds to the general formation process of online public opinion spreading,gathering,hotly debated(and repeated)and subsiding.Understanding the specific characteristics of each stage is more conducive to grasping its internal development.To gain a deeper knowledge of social media opinion guidance,the main contents of its composition should be grasped.Based on extensive review of data,we summarize and condense the main contents of social media opinion guidance in comparison with mainstream media opinion guidance research,combined with scholars' research on the main components of social media opinion guidance.In addition,according to the characteristics of social media opinion guidance,this paper proposes the main contents of social media opinion guidance,namely,judgment,agenda setting,information dissemination and effect influence,and conducts more in-depth research to analyze them from both horizontal and vertical direction.As a consequence,the certain research results could contribute to the understanding of the whole picture and internal extension of social media opinion guidance from both macroscopic and microscopic aspects.The public opinion guidance of social media is influenced by many factors,therefore,the analysis of the main factors affecting the role of social media public opinion guidance is an important step to form a systematic and complete study of social media public opinion guidance.Based on the three perspectives of communication subject,communication content and communication medium,an overview and research analysis of the main factors affecting the role of social media public opinion guidance is conducted.The instantaneous and interactive nature of social media has made it rapidly develop into a major public opinion position different from the traditional media opinion field,especially in social hotspots and emergencies where it shows obvious role in public opinion dissemination and guidance.This paper adopts the perspective of agenda-setting theory in the study of social media's public opinion guiding power,and this theoretical perspective lays the theoretical foundation of this paper.The third layer of agenda setting theory,"network agenda setting(NAS theory)",is selected as the research perspective,and the characteristics of social media and the current realistic online opinion environment are combined to summarize the characteristics and rules of social media's public opinion guidance by compiling and analyzing a large amount of literature and combining it with specific public opinion events in order to explore and analyze the main contents of social media's public opinion guidance.The main elements of social media opinion guidance are discussed from different levels,thus helping us to form a more comprehensive understanding of social media opinion guidance and better judge the ability of social media to guide public opinion,and providing some reference for future research on social media opinion guidance,which has strong theoretical and practical significance.