Research On The Phenomenon Of Agenda Denial Of Local Government In Social Conflict Events

With the social transformation and the development of the Internet,social conflict events have become more frequent and easily translated into large-scale online public opinion events.But the fundamental demands of the protest groups often fail to get serious consideration from the government.This paper introduces the theory of agenda denial,analyzes the strategies that the government uses to exclude an issue from the policy agenda,and explores the ways in which the government can reasonably respond to social conflicts.This paper uses content analysis method,and makes an empirical study on 105 cases of social conflict in recent five years.The study has found that social conflict events type,region,the incident involved scope of public interests,event information sources,and the level of the government's response departments all have an impact on the choice of the agenda denial strategy of the government.Data showing,in the social conflict events,where law enforcement is unfair or where information sources are self-reported by the media,the government is more likely to use low-cost agenda denial strategies;When the social conflict events are involved in public safety,occurred in the eastern region,relating to the provincial level and above the range of public interest,the source of information for the government to provide information,conducted by the provincial government response,the government uses the medium-cost agenda denial strategy more often;When a social conflict events involves environmental protection or occurs in the western region,the high-cost agenda denial strategy is used more.In this paper,the following measures can be taken to avoid the risk of agenda denial strategy in social conflict events:Firstly,understand social conflicts correctly and establish conflict management thinking;Secondly,grasp the law of crisis communication and use the agenda denial strategy with caution;Thirdly,promote the positive interaction between the public agenda and the government agenda and enhance the capacity of the government's policy agenda.