Information Alienation and Circle Fracture: Policy Communication and Opinion-Generating Networks on Social Media in China from the Perspective of COVID-19 Policy

Abstract

The emergence of the Internet and social media provides a new platform for information diffusion, promoting the interaction among relatively independent participants in the opinion market and changing the balance of the intrinsic mechanism and external dynamics based on political communication. In this way, it is necessary to investigate the new interactive landscape of political communication and political discourse regarding digital media. In this study, we conduct a social and semantic network analysis of the dissemination and public opinion generation landscape of the COVID-19 “New Ten Articles” policy communication by the Chinese government, exploring the network relationships and emotional value interactions behind the contact of a new public policy in China. The results show that, in the political communication system, the influence of information’s position in the communication field has surpassed the information source impact, and the power of network opinion leaders is significant; the policy communication network presents a situation of “identity status circle” division, and the information circle connection presents a trend of fracture and barrier thickening, which may cause policy information alienation and social opinion polarization risk; the imbalance between policy information supply and public demand is further enhanced, and the negative emotion “cloud” is distributed on a scale and condenses into grassroots social governance pressure; and the content released by some key opinion leaders, experts, online media, and local mainstream media accounts is significantly correlated with network emotions. These emotions continue to spread in subsequent discussions, and to some extent, influence the formation process of political public opinion.