The Research On The Relationship Of Internet Public Opinion Guidance Between Government And Opinion Leaders In Emergency Events

In recent years, as various types of emergencies occurring frequently, the government has become the subject to handle these emergencies, and guiding public opinion has become the most important task of all treatments. The result of the public opinion guiding is directly related to the fate of the ruling party and society harmony and stability. The rapid development of Internet and the widespread use of new media technologies have opened up a new field of public opinion the network of public opinion. The number of Internet users in China ranks first in the world which making the guiding of public opinion becomes extremely difficult in emergency events. Nowadays opinion leaders have become more and more strong and formed a powerful force which deeply influences the public opinion on the Internet. In addition, these opinion leaders have also become powerful competitor of the government and become anther main force to guide the Public opinion. After the sudden outbreak of the emergency, both of them play different characters and exert different influences in the guidance of Internet public opinion. The relationship between them is not complex but also changeable. Thus clarifying the relationship between the two is of great significance for the government to guide online public opinion better.At present, there are a lot of researches about government and opinion leaders in academia for emergency events, but most of these researches nearly have been done separately. The research that combining the two and putting them in a same perspective is just a little. In this paper, by collecting a large number of documents, I have carefully analyzed the role and the influence of the government and opinion leaders to the public opinion on Internet in emergency events. Moreover, there are a large number of case studies in this paper. Through this case study, I have elaborated vividly the complex relationship between them. Due to their different positions and different interest demands, sometimes they were antagonistic but sometimes were unity. Both of them using their respective advantages have started a intense fighting for their main voice in the guidance of Internet public opinion. Two different discourse systems coexist in cyberspace that causes a new game situation: when one side is weak, the other is becoming strong, and when one side is strong, the other is becoming weak. This requires the Government to take the necessary measures to solve this problem. First and foremost, Government need to update the concepts, accelerate the pace of reform, strengthen institutional supply, and improve the ability to guide public opinion from inside to outside. Secondly, government must nurture and support their opinion leaders and coordinate relationships with them. Certain constraints must be given to these opinion leaders while respecting their independence. Government can use these people to the maximum extent and through them to influence public opinion and thus affect the overall situation.The studying of the relationship between government and opinion leaders is not only a supplement to the academic research in this area, but also can provide some practical and constructive advice to the Government to guide the Internet public opinion.