Contact And Barrier: A Study Of The Microblog’s "Political Intermedairy" Function In Internet Public Events

Nowadays in China,the frequent occurrence of public events in the network has caused a certain degree of social confrontation and panic.Internet public events are usually caused by an incident,gradually evolved into social issues with the spread of social media.As the main body of the two sides are not present,they usually make dialogue and communication mainly through the media.Also the media provide the communication platform to let the public express speech and attitude.With the leaping development of digital technology,the public no longer simply rely on the traditional media,they begin to search and collect information through social media actively.Microblog has the social media attributes and communication mechanism,making it an important role in the discourse presentation and problem construction in the internet public events.This affect can not be separated from its "political intermediary" function.The essential study of microblog’s "political intermediary" function is to examine how microblog deals with the relationship between the government and the public when constructing discourse and issues.In order to study the "political intermediary" function,we select five internet public events in 2016,searching the content text of Sina microblog,including its subject category,the source category,the content publisher type,the reporting direction and the construction issues.The study finds that microblog "political intermediary" function has double attribute,including link function and barrier function.Microblog acts as both "political intermediation" and "media politicization" duties.As a"political intermediary" exists,microblog discourse space is not completely objective and neutral.The media institutions are not only the major roles of the content publisher type,but also the dominant force to construct issues.Microblog provides an open platform for the public to express suggestions,also let the government to gather information,ease the negative emotions and make correct decisions.As the "power of the media","gatekeeper" still exists in microblog content production process.Through spreading the science knowledge,supervising the public opinion,taking humanistic care,microblog helps the government departments to achieve operational goals.While analyzing the complex of causes in public events,the public also recognized that simply depend on the government is biased.Microblog mobilizes the public to participate in problem solving trough this method.There are large number of fragments,discrete,commercial,entertainment content in microblog,which covers the meta-risk issues,blocking the public perceive the correct reason of the problem,reduce the social mobilization of the subject itself.This is the barrier side of the "political intermediary" function.