Online Public Opinion: Transforming Agenda Setting and Shaping the Public Sphere in China

Internet usage has exponentially grown in China since it was first established in 1993. The newest report indicates that 43.2% of the population in China is connected to the online world. The medium has re-shaped the Chinese society and the public sphere unprecedentedly in terms of public information sharing modes, communication habits and most importantly, expression of opinions. Traditional mass media is experiencing marginalization in terms of news events as Web 2.0 has developed as a huge "electronic plaza" in China where people from every walk of life can publish and exchange self-generated information in any form, comment about these information, express their petitions and complaints, elect their own opinion leader and set agenda for whole society. As Internet usage is on the rise in the country, we argue that the technology is changing the old mode of agenda setting for the society and hence transforming the reality of Chinese citizens. In detail we highlight how the setting of public agenda worked in the traditional media mode in China and how it is now altering under the new media (Internet) mode, along with the help of opinion leaders. Finally through discussion of Weng‘an riot (2008), one of the first riots where information was spread via the Internet, we try to establish the agenda setting enabling power of this medium in a highly censored society like China.


Introduction
such circumstances, the power of the society was negated as there was no public sphere where the mass could exchange their opinions. But in this age of technological advancement, the commercialization of the internet has changed the situation for better and the citizens now have a platform where political opinions are fervently discussed and public agendas are set. It is here that every now and then we observe the influential roles of opinion leaders in the online as well as offline world.
The concept of opinion leadership aroused out of empirical research conducted primarily within the Unites States. The theory of two-step flow of communication propounded by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz(1970) emphasizes opinion leaders to be the filters of ideas and information and engage with the media while their ideas are spread to the wider world of those who care.
The media-savvy influential and active leaders know and turn to the opinion leaders on their issues of interest. The most influential and active citizens become opinion leaders themselves when they are more plugged-in, more vocal and more engaged in the issues, as others tune to them for their point of view.The ideas of the opinion leaders bounce around the internet and are discussed by many. Even some government leaders tune into the debate and they follow what the opinion leaders are saying. Many government leaders become opinion leaders themselves on issues important to them. An opinion leader can make their opinions inform policy and influence the actions of legislators, get laws passed or change the rules for the government agencies.
Each new medium is first described and perceived as a novelty. Only a small group of people use that medium. As time passes by, it becomes prominent and there is a sudden widespread of its reach forming a mass media,as the case with the internet.
Internet has become highly influential in the way traditional media acts and behaves. Two important aspects that define it are the ‗Netizens' and the ‗Public Agenda'.
Netizens are people who use the internet for a particular purpose and motive. These netizens can be classified into several groups in accordance with their motive on the internet. Netizens in 1996 was described by Hauben as the people who actively contributed online towards the development of the Internet. The internet bulletin boards are considered to be an ‗agora' where these netizens actively discuss, debate, form opinions and spread news about various societal issues.
The Internet is now a public space where people and netizens have an opportunity to express their own opinions and debate on a certain issue. Moreover, the role of Internet as a public space is far active and practical than that of traditional media such as television, newspapers, and magazines because of the interactivity factor as discussed before.
Through the interaction of these netizens, various issues are discussed and this leads to setting of agendas. Hence internet acts as another medium, an important one, which influences the traditional media in setting an agenda. Agenda setting has been one of the critical themes in the field of mass communication effects research since Walter Lippmann delineated public agenda-setting in his book Public Opinion (Dearing & Rogers, 1996;Rogers, Dearing & Bregman, 1993).

The Chinese Perspective
In order to research how online public opinion set agenda for Chinese society, it is necessary for us to compare two information dissemination modes in terms of traditional mass media and new media (Internet) which represent respectively two different political and social discourse systems essentially. In regular evolution pattern of communication, the mode of new media inevitably integrates all modes of old media. However, in modern times it is no longer a simple integration but a thorough revolution of communication in which information is relatively de-monopolized and traditional mode of agenda setting is unprecedentedly overthrown. Consequently, entire social discourse power is experiencing extensive reconstruction and redistribution, thus all actors in this system would try to reorient and redefine their new coordinates and mutual relations.

Public Opinion under Traditional Mass Media Mode in China
China is usually known as a country with a long history of Feudalism (from 221 BC to 1912 AD). But essentially it is a country with more than 2000 years' history of Despotism, in which state mechanism extended itself into every aspect of society and all the resources (intangible and tangible) had been highly monopolized and controlled by dictators and bureaucracies until the sunset of Manchu Dynasty. When Manchurian royal family members were debating with high rank bureaucrats of Han nationality on whether a constitutional monarchy must be established, Chinese bourgeois democratic revolution broke out in 1911.
Consequently, these successors, Kuomintang (KMT) and local warlords brought to this country more chaos, replacing budding constitutional monarchy by authoritarianism.
However, during the first half of last century in China, freedom of speech and press were guaranteed relatively.
Many opine that the situation got worsenedwhen KMT was driven to Isles by another At this moment, criticizing the local officials and admitting truth cost him and CCP nothing, but appeased inflammations of public and restore general situation of social stability.
This incident is a typical case of how online public opinions set agenda for whole society and set political agenda for government, set judicatory agenda for court in which Chinese netizens played roles of volunteer investigators, legal aid suppliers and invisible jury.

Conclusion
The Internet is affecting every facade of the Chinese life influencing public opinion and rapidly shaping the public sphere. The speedy advancement of the internet has created new challenges in a nation where information habitually has been censored by the government. The medium has decentralized and deregulated the traditional media mode, making governmental control more complex. This difficult control has led to a large scale involvement of the public in the societal sphere, as seen during Weng'an riots.
Large-scale online petitions and protests imply potential "chain reactions of nuclear fission", such as actual extensive petitions and protests; even larger-scale riots on streets which would trigger similar actions in the whole society. Nowadays CCP regime which has been deeply involved with globalization and has extensive economic interests could not withstand another Tiananmen incident. "Social stability" is the most crucial issue, so CCP top leaders have to soften their stances toward the internet and netizens, regarding online public opinions and intercommunicating with netizens in order to appease their anger and harmonize social relations.
On the other hand, the internet and globalization have eroded sovereignty and has massively influenced the domestic affairs of these authoritarian countries thathave been incorporated into international system as normal entities. Due to the internet, domestic incidentscan more easily develop to be international affairs than ever. An undeniable truth is standards of human rights in China and in Western countries are so different that these issues usually become the debating and bargaining focus. Today CCP receives more pressure from international society than ever, and this pressure urges CCP to solve such kind issue wisely and actively.
The Internet has indeed changed the whole atmosphere of public opinion in China and in the process it is relatively changing the trajectory of the public sphere and the process of agenda setting in the Chinese society. This maturity process is painful for some but has also led to the development of the public in China. However with the medium transforming and evolving at such a rapid pace, it remains to be seen what happens in the days to come.
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 4 -Issue: 4 -October -2014