Page 246 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

extreme public opinion. Because of conformity psychology, individuals may worry that

their opinion to a social event is wrong, so they either remain silent or follow the ma-
jority’s line to avoid virtual attack by others. Few of the netizens would stand up with
counterviews. Conformity in believing ‘common opinion’ generates subjective assump-
tion which can easily cause group polarisation effect and collective absurd behaviour,
which makes Weibo the breeding ground of rumour and fake information.

7.6 Summary

In this chapter, I analysed the ‘media-public’ interrelationship via the Weibo plat-
form through the investigation of the Yihuang case. The Yihuang incident represents a

typical case about the citizens’ livelihood that the victims received an acceptable result
by using the social media (i.e., Weibo) to safeguard their rights.
First of all, as discussed in my triangular system, from the media side, the internet
companies need the traffic to generate profits to keep the business running. While it also

provides the technical support for the public to express their opinion. In terms of the
public, it represents a huge number of netizens with different intentions in consuming
online content. Netizens are empowered by the new media services when attempting to
participate in social events. It is also a commercial pattern of supply and demand: ser-

vice provider and consumer. Thus, in my triangular system, the media company repre-
sents the operator to offer technical support to the online or quasi-public sphere, while
the public act as the main participants in the online public sphere.
This chapter focused on the We Media age, which provides more space and auton-

omy for public participation. As independent individuals, participants in We Media are
less likely to be influenced by the organisational structure and external constraints such
as the economic cost. Also, the main change in media communication is the switch
from one-to-many to many-to-many interactive pattern. The arrival of Weibo promoted

and expanded information dissemination in a fissured approach. Weibo enhanced the
expression and dissemination of public opinion. It reflected a distinct feature of Weibo
– ‘all-around’ communication mode. Through posting and reposting, it creates a con-
stant range of one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many user interactions.

230
230