A Study On Predicament And Countermeasures Of The Local Government’s Response On Sudden Online Public Sentiments

With the rapid development of the Internet,there is a growing number of channels for people to express their suggestions and ideas,which also made it possible for the public to obtain information and show their opinions.However,it became a hotbed for the fermentation of emergency online public sentiment as well.The way how local government departments respond to this situation should be systematic and it can be a criterion for testing the governance level of them.At the same time,it largely dictates the public’s perception and trust.If this situation can not be handled or responded properly,it would seriously affect the image of the government and damage the public credibility of its departments.Therefore,the ability in managing emergency online public sentiment has gradually got the attention of governments at all levels.The process of dealing with this type of events has exposed that government are still facing challenges in recent years.It has important theoretical and practical meaning to identify the difficulties of local governments when they try to do risk management for these emergency online public sentiments and find out effective solutions.Based on this status,this paper takes Event A in County F as the entry point to study the challenges and the optimized strategies in responding the emergency online public sentiments.The specific working methods shown as follow.Firstly,the emergency online public sentiment should be regarded as a dynamic living entity.According to the theory of information life cycle,the evolution process of online event A can be divided into the following four stages,potential stage,outbreak stage,propagation stage and dissipation stage.After that,illustrating the countermeasures taken by the local government after the event is needed.Secondly,the problems of local governments in the process of responding to event A should be pointed out.Such as t the inadequate monitoring and warning in public sentiments,the undiversified response methods,the insufficient guidance ability,and the inadequate resilience of local governments,which seriously affect the credibility of the government.Based on the theory of information life cycle and 4R theory of crisis management,we can find out the reasons that led to the above problems,such as the disadvantage of monitoring and early warning ability,the lack of guidance ability,the negligence of network media literacy of leading cadres,and the systematic inadequacy of disposal.Finally,combining the practical situation of the emergency online public sentiment management and the 4R theory of crisis management,this study finally puts forward the optimization suggestions as below.In terms of reduction,transferring the awareness of local governments to cope with online public sentiments,mainly including converting the response idea,improving the public sentiment literacy of leading cadres,and cultivating professional team in responding the online public sentiments.In terms of readiness,improving the monitoring and early warning capacity of emergency online public sentiments,which mainly includes perfecting the early warning mechanism,updating the monitoring means,mastering the rules of the development cycle,and strengthening guidance and exercise of the online public sentiment.In terms of responding,upgrading the ability to guide online public sentiment,which mainly includes releasing authoritative and effective information timely,taking offline survey into account for online responding,giving full play to the role of media,and cultivating the team of online commentators.In terms of recovery,improving and perfecting the evaluation and accountability system of public sentiment guidance.