Page 248 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Feasibility Study of New Media Technology
on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Weibo, including the ‘soaring’ feature, the ‘fissionable’ feature and the ‘domino’ fea-

ture. These features showed the mutual beneficial relationship between the public and
the media during social events.
I also argued that safeguarding citizens’ rights on Weibo is possible by avoiding
the bottom line of Chinese central government. The first reason is that the power of
safeguarding rights on Weibo originates from the characteristics and advantages of the

microblogging platform in the We Media age. Weibo, as almost the highest developed
form of internet communication so far, shows remarkable strength in transmitting infor-
mation. The second reason is that Weibo, as the new technology representative of We

Media, provides the possibility for breaking through the information block. However,
there are still some problems of Weibo as the online public sphere, such as the increas-
ing number of online rumours, the bandwagon effect and the group polarisation effect.
Therefore, although Weibo could be work as the online public sphere in China, these
problems need to be solved through suitable regulations issued by the governmental

departments, the reliable management approach from the media companies and the im-
proving ‘quality’ of Chinese netizens.

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