Internet Political Participation and Public Agenda-Setting

Abstract

There are growing calls for social network analysis methods to be more extensively deployed in governance practice and research. This article develops a formal framework for whether and how netizens change the model of public agenda setting through internet political participation. Drawing on the case of “PX Event in Zhangzhou,” this article aims to explore the social network structure in the process of micro-blog public opinion diffusion in public agendas based on SNA. By introducing the relevant theories into the research of public agenda setting, and focusing on the practice by which local governments do urban governance under the environment of internet political participation, the analysis reveals that the new whole network structure based on new media changes the action of social actors, in which consistently the mode of public agenda-setting is transformed from the traditional one-way to the interactive-way. This article extends the existing research discourse domain of public agenda setting and government response, further generalize the “Queen Bee mode” of government response.