Internet-based Political Ecology Research

On the Internet, anyone, no matter where and when, can participate in public discussions on particular topic, and express their challenges, ideas, needs and preferences easily. Thus, the so-called network public opinion was born.In real life, with one led after another public event influenced by the network public opinion, the online opinions has been played a more and more important role in the real political and social area. Gradually, a new political environment associated with the Internet was born.Through the review of existing research related, we find that many papers mentioned the new political landscape, but there is no clear interpretation about this political ecology and the composition of the new political environment. At the other side, most papers have been launched on the conceptual elaboration and discussion, and there lacks of workable recommendations and case studies.This paper mainly focuses on the new political environment and the interaction between parts inner the political system under this new environment. Firstly, this concept the new political environment was proposed in detail, mainly through the description of flow of information; then we collected several typical cases and analyzed them in depth, and focused on the Government Website of Chengmai County (Hainan Prov.) and the Nanjing municipal government website; then, we established a theory framework including political ecology learning theory, human rights theory, public management theory, communication theory and civil crisis management theory, and use these theories to conduct relevant research and analysis of typical cases; and finally we got some suggestions.This study suggested that, the difference between Internet political ecology and traditional political ecology is because of change in Information flow--every individual in society has the right to collection,processing and dissemination of information, which leads to the social environment which strengthens its information input to the political system dramaticly. Online public opinion is a typical one. This is Internet-based political ecology. In the new political ecology, government should strengthen the interaction with the community, fully absorb and integrate the public by changing concepts, enhancing the development and use of high technology and establishing rapid response mechanism on network of public opinion.