A Study On Guangzhou Grass-Roots Governments’ Guidance Of Public Opinion In The Micro Era

The advent of the first year of micro-blog in 2010 marked the arrival of the “Micro Era”.The profound change in the way of information dissemination has not only deconstructed thetraditional pattern of utterances but also provided a wide platform for the multiple expressionof public interest and brought new opportunities and challenges to the government’s publicrelations. The dissemination of public opinions in the “Micro Era” characterizes thefragmentation of the contents, the real-time speed, the popularization of the subject, theantagonism of standpoints, the interactivity of the process and the dimension relations andtherefore the government’s guidance of public opinions is endowed with more new contentsand meanings. Only by adjusting and innovating the way of guiding public opinions timelycan the government satisfy the needs of the government’s public relations in the “Micro Era”.As the forerunner of reform and opening up, the grass-roots government of GuangzhouCity took some measures in guiding public opinions in the “Micro Era” and achievedcorresponding effects. There was no lack of typical cases of widespread concern andbeneficial experience for reference was gained. However, it must be objectively noticed thatin the process of guiding public opinions in the “Micro Era”, the grass-roots government ofGuangzhou City has encountered such challenges as the manifestation of networktransmission function, the tendency of media marketization, news gathering, themultiplication and irrational expression of public interest appeal, the risk in the post of pressspokesperson, and many pressing realistic problems have arisen, such as the lack of theconsciousness of guidance by the subject, the weakness of the public relations organization,the delay of public relations organizational mechanism, the low quality of public relationsstaff, the crisis caused by lack of execution, the singleness of the means of media use, the lowstatus of the public main body, etc. If such problems are not appropriately solved, thegovernment’s credibility will be affected and the development of the government’s publicrelations will be restricted.This thesis adopts such approaches as literature research, empirical research, caseanalysis, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis and makes a theoretical analysis of theguidance of public opinion in the “Micro Era” from the perspective of the study of thegovernment’s public relations. Based on the practical conditions, it also makes a practicalanalysis of Guangzhou grass-roots governments’ guidance of public opinions in the “MicroEra”, summarizes the measures taken and the effects achieved, analyzes typical cases anddraws on beneficial experience, dissects the challenges and problems that Guangzhougrass-roots governments are confronted with in guiding the public opinions. Grounded on thespecific reality, this thesis examines three aspects of the government’s public relations—thesubject, the carrier and the object, puts forward in turn such countermeasures as strengtheningits own construction to improve its soft power in guiding public opinions, taking advantage ofthe media to improve its sensitivity in guiding public opinions and respecting the publicsubject to facilitate the scientific guidance of public opinions, and integrates the methods ofguiding public opinions into it.This study will provide a new perspective of research and model for the grass-rootsgovernments’ guidance of public opinions in the “Micro Era” and offer a theoretical referenceto grass-roots governments in all parts of China in their guidance of public opinions and willbe of certain reference value as to how to improve the relationship between grass-rootsgovernments and the general public as well as the degree of the general public’s satisfactionwith grass-roots governments.