Research On Policy Agenda Setting Under The Internet Background

The fifth information revolution, which is marked by the wide application ofcomputer and the combination of computer and modern communication technology, hasbecome the main characteristics of today’s society. From the formation and thedependence of the Internet society, it is not to abandon or refactor the original socialstructure completely, but it is the product of new technology and social structure underthe effect of multiple factors embedded mutually. In politics, internet public opinion,internet democracy, internet rights, internet decision-making and other internet activitesare increasingly becoming the important factors that affect political development.Therefore, it will become an important question to explore whether political system canadjust its own or change the way of of policy agenda setting under the background ofinternet.In the process of research, the auther mainly adopts the combined researchmethods of interpretivism and positivism and attempts to focus on research of policyagenda setting from the joint multidisciplinary angle of communication, politics andsociology. On the basis of the literature achievements at home and abroad, the theoryconstruct of “internet public sphere-public agenda-policy agenda” is summarized andformed. Finally cross-case study method is used to verify the primary theoreticalassumptions and, on the analysis of the problem, some correction and improvementmeasures are put forward.This study shows that policy agenda setting is a continuous, progressive,multi-stage process under the triggering mechanism. This changing process andcharacteristics in the rational and irrational models have different embodiments. To easethe contradiction between the rational model and the universalone on policy agenda, themodel of “power distance” as a modified model has certain explanatory power. Policy agenda setting is a process of different subjects competing. Multiple factors such asconflicting value system, closed political system, hindering information transmissionand hidden agenda manipulation are easy to pose obstacles to policy agenda setting.Policy agenda setting can hardly do beyond the interaction of the policy subjectsand external environment. The popularity of the internet in fact expands the public voice,which is conducive to democratic participation and internet consultation, and makepublic sphere that is increasingly eroded by public authority and commercial capitalobtain the hope of re-emergence. Internet public sphere has the functions of publicityreshaping, network integrating, democracy negotiating, policy criticizing in its internaleffect and the functions to bridge the public opinion feedback channels betweenpolitical public sphere and public power sphere in its external effect, which is conduceto improving the quality of policy and increasing public recognition of policy actions. Inthe internet context, the relationship of “input-transformation-output” between thepublic decision-making mechanism and the external environment is embodied ininteraction and transformation between internet agenda, public agenda and policyagenda.Under the background of network, elitism policy agenda-setting mode, pluralistpolicy agenda-setting mode and citizen participatory agenda-setting mode have changed.On one hand, internet, expanding the channels of citizen participation, makes theoriginal policy agenda-setting limited to elites and a few policymakers increasinglychallenged. On the other hand, internet has not completely eliminated the inequality ofcitizen participation.The original policy subjects are attempting to absorb advantages ofinternet into their decision-making process and make adjustment to the decision modelof themselves. Our country is a socialist country with the people’s democraticdictatorship, in which the Communist Party of Chin（aCPC）, as the representative of theinterests of all Chinese ethnic groups, is playing an extremely important role in theprocess of policy agenda-setting. After the reform and opening up, the citizen’ssubjectivity reset forces the “lock” status of policy agenda-setting by a few politicalelites to move to the trends of citizen participation in policy agenda-setting. Especiallyunder the condition of internet, political elites can be aware of the social needs and be active to carry on policy agenda, or the public as external appealing participators useinternet to mobilize and force policymakers to respond to the policy issues.The way and characteristics of internet public sphere affecting policyagenda-setting can get proper explanation from different case analysis. Some newcharacteristics and changes of the policy agenda-setting can be found in externalenvironment, operation process and subjects by comparing three different typical cases——“Sun Zhigang incident”,“Xiamen PX incident” and “new health care reform”. Atthe same time, deviation between the policy agenda and the internet environment is easyto cause problems such as passivity, emergency and irrationality in policyagenda-setting. Therefore, in order to promote orderly development of policyagenda-setting, it is necessary to promptly, effectively adjust the relationship among thenetwork, the traditional media, government, non-governmental organizations, the publicand other subjects and build a more democratic, open, transparent and efficient publicdecision-making system. However, it is a gradual process, some deep problems stillremain to be further solved.