A Study On Group Polarization Of New Media Events From The Perspective Of Interaction Ritual Chain

With the development of Internet and the expansion of network users,the network changes from the initial ubiquitous communication to focus communication,further realizing the information interaction between network users and media.The media environment further recognizes differences and respects individuality.Nowadays,the wide use of smart mobile terminals has made the promotion of personalized news play an important role in news production.This new type of news distribution restructures the large-scale production model based on the experience of news producers in traditional media,making news production more intelligent,providing information to news users more accurately,and providing a good experience and support for obtaining information in the era of information overload.At the same time,this kind of news distribution method has also broken the previous network user contact mode,making the current media more individual,diverse and unique.The theory of interaction ritual chain focuses on people's interactions between most behaviors and situations in micro situation of human society.It is considered to be the most basic activity of people.When people have a direct physical presence with each other,an encounter is formed.This theory is concerned with the structure of social encounters,the knots of these entities in which people interact with each other.In new media era,the barriers of space and time are broken,and all participants in the network topic obtain the reality of sharing.The immersion of virtual reality makes long-distance interactions and heterogeneous interaction no longer require presence of the body.Thus possibly becoming a ritual.The "interaction ritual chain" theory is mainly used to explain that the audience can use a ritualized action to focus on a certain focus of commonality and generate corresponding behaviors,and pass the rituals in the interaction.This theory can be used to explain the generation,dissemination,emergence nodes,and resolution process of ideas when polarization appears in the current hot news topic of society news.Based on the principle of group polarization and the theory of interaction ritual chain,this study selects several hot news events in the years from 2016 to 2018.We used text analysis,content analysis,online participatory observation,and some other research methods.Refering to the news data information generated by the EEFUNG platform software and the dissemination of Sina mircoblog and WeChat platform,the paper studied on the gourp aggregation of news events and the new changes in network culture in the new media environment.Based on the news reports,fact presentations,network topic situations and reversal issues of these events,the paper discussed from the aspects of news event propagation path,topic presentation and branch and extreme topic resolution cycle,and summarized in the new media environment of personalized news push,the new forms and new features of the phenomenon of polarization of public opinion triggered by the hot events in the network.The study finds that due to not only the unidirectionality of communication methods but the relative singularity of information sources and lags,the phenomenon of group polarization in the traditional network era is highly prone to information garrison phenomenon resulting in information closure,which makes similar opinions more concentrated,strengthened and extreme.The homogenization of network news during this period was serious,and there was a homogenous virtual user community,which caused the differences and separation between the views of network users,and the increase of the difficulty of reconciling diversified interests and worldviews.The members of the traditional network user opinion group are relatively stable,and it is easier to participate in discussions on topics related to geography,kinship or other event correlation.The common topic is the gathering power of the polarization of news events during this period.Group members share opinions on common topics.Their opinions tend to converge,and the discussion within groups is also homogeneous.Groups with differences in opinions have clear group boundaries with each other.In new media era,the massive amount of network information,the increasing ability of online users to choose their own news topics,and the media information presentation methods have spawned the subculture phenomenon of the Internet.The resulting relationship between group members becomes loose and random,and the groups are relatively more inclusive and flexible.The opinions expressed among members are more one-to-one associations.The discussion of topics is more targeted,and the results of the discussion are better and deeper due to more emphasis on the generation of meaning.If the phenomenon of group polarization in the early Internet era is an imbalance of network ecology,the phenomenon of polarization of news events in the new media era is more diversified.The generation and discussion of topics and secondary topics have activated the long tail part of the discussion of Internet topics,which has eased the previous view confrontation situation of single topic.Individuals's behavior becomes more restrainted and the discussion becomes more rational,mostly for generating meaning rather than simply venting emotions.Finally,the new situtation caused by the development of the network has transformed the psychology and behavior of network users.The individual is no longer invisible in the background of the network.The phenomenon of polarization of the network group now is manifested as the derivation and discussion of multiple topics of news events.The presentation form is more decentralized,and the emotion-driven extreme views are more easily resolved.The paper is divided into four parts.The first part mainly introduces the research background and related concepts,and summarizes the current academic research on such issues.The second part analyzes the new community culture of the media environment and network user group aggregation in the new media era.The third part mainly studies the propagation path and presentation of news events in the new media era,and analyzes the performance of network user group in the news polarization event different from the previous performance.The fourth part draws the conclusion of the paper.