On Local Governments’ Coping Strategies For The Public Opinion Crisis In The Internet Forum

With the rapid development of science and technology, the internet, which is everywhere in our life and thus is changing our life, makes possible the public participation in political life. The public increasingly tends to, via the internet, keep abreast of state affairs, international diplomacy, talk about the public events, and even express their interest demands. And thus, Governments should always take the public’s view and opinion in the internet into account before making decisions, which enable them to improve their governance and credibility. In China, at the critical stage of comprehensively deepening reform, the inadequate social managing system bring with it the frequent occurrences of the public emergencies. In its interaction with the traditional media, the internet forum exerts a strong positive influence on public opinion environment. The analysis of its development and its spread shows that the worsening of various social contradictions and the conflicts between the exercise of public power and the awakening of consciousness of citizenship may bring about the internet public opinion crisis. From its start, owing to its immediacy, interactivity and irrationality, the public opinion crisis in the internet forum will exert a negative influence by threatening the social stability and blocking nomocracy construction. This paper sums up how local governments respond to the internet public opinion and why they fail to prevent the worsening of the internet public opinion emergencies. It suggests the combination of the control over the internet public opinion and a new mode of administration, and thus proposes the establishments of government websites so as to enable the local governments to solve the internet public opinion effectively.