Study On The Formation Mechanism Of Internet Mass Incidents And Government Coping Strategies

In recent years, the changing social configuration and the adjustment of interests distribution in China have led to the outbreak of social contradictions. Consequently, mass incidents happen frequently and increase on a year-to-year basis. The outbreak of mass incidents has influenced negatively on people’s life and property safety, government credibility and social stability. Since the 21st century, the popularity and rapid development of the Internet caused the raising number of Internet users. People are using the Internet to communicate and transfer information. The Internet provides a new platform for mass incidents. Specifically, people are able to comment on the hot news via Weibo and other social networking platforms, which produces the Internet mass incidents. For instance, in 2012, people launched a human flesh search on Weibo and other Internet platforms, right after they saw the news of a smiling official in a serious accident scene, as what we know as "the smiling official"; this aroused a strong reaction in the society back then.With more and more negative impacts of the Internet mass incidents, correct guidance and prevention of the Internet mass incidents has become the practical difficulties that faced by the relevant government departments. This paper explores two main aspects that include the formation mechanism of the Internet mass incidents and government coping strategies, using the theory of dissipative structures and the combination of qualitative and quantitative method.Firstly, based on the study of 108 research-collected cases, this paper analyzes the formation mechanism of the Internet mass incidents and builds the theoretical model, by using the theoretical framework which is the four basic conditions generated by the dissipative structure that include open, non-linear, far from equilibrium and fluctuation. Secondly, according to the empirical model built by the theoretical model and data analysis, this paper draws the following conclusions:the influence of opinion leaders, media attentions, the harmonious extent of a region, casualties, the attitude of the government reactions, responding speed and relative deprived feelings have correlative relationships with the influence of the Internet mass incidents, while property loss is not correlated. Such order of putting above variables into the regression equation is found in the regression analysis:relative deprived feelings, the attitude of the government reactions, responding speed, the harmonious extent of a region, and media attentions, where media attentions have a small coefficient. It means that those five variables mentioned above are determinants of the formation mechanism of the Internet mass incidents. Therefore, the study suggests that far from equilibrium effect and non-linear effect are more prominent in the Internet mass incidents. Lastly, according to the study results, this paper proposes coping strategies in three main aspects, which are how to lower people’s relative deprived feelings, how the government actively reacts, and how the government enhanced the harmonious extent of a region.