Mass communication, social media and public opinion

Abstract

The mass communication and public opinion have a close relationship, strong attachment, and become a research direction which has been shaped nearly 100 years in the world. The mass communication is the subject initiating and reflecting the public opinion; it helps not only orient but also harmonise the public opinion. While research activities on the public opinion and the interactive relation between the mass communication and the public opinion are paid attention during a recent decade and just gain the initial results, the studies on the public opinion in the world have been facing a new challenge since the social media appears. With billions of users, the social network has become an important and essential information channel which can spread very rapidly and have an extremely broad coverage. A lot of information becomes the positive public opinion, but we also have a lot of information which is negative, contrary to the mutual interests and social community, and adversely affects the state management and administration. This article has tried to clarify the importance of public opinion in a democratic society, the relationship and interaction between the public opinion and the social media, the public opinion formation and creation of the social media, and the issues for those who study the public opinion and pressman in the new context of communication.