How to treat the "melon-eating masses" in the public opinion field

In the online public opinion field, when encountering emergencies and public issues, there are often a bunch of people queuing up to comment. They seem to feel that the matter has nothing to do with them, but they like to join in the fun and are nicknamed the "melon-eating crowd." For example, "the melon eaters have witnessed the whole incident", "however, the melon eaters have already seen through everything", "the melon eaters have sharp eyes"... The surge of online public opinion is the response of every "melon eater" Screens and buildings.

They are not the indifferent spectators with "extended necks" in Lu Xun's novel "Medicine". "Onlookers only need a simple forwarding action, but what they see is their own heart that is not indifferent. A seemingly insignificant force that is feared by the powerful even though it has no power or ability” (Jiang Fangzhou).

The power and limitations of "watching"

In the online world, there is probably no group of people more enthusiastic than some netizens. On October 12, 2007, the Shaanxi Provincial Forestry Department announced the discovery of the South China tiger and released a photo of the tiger purportedly taken by Zhenping County farmer Zhou Zhenglong. Since the local environment is no longer suitable for the survival of South China tigers, the photos revealed flaws, and the voices of doubt on the Internet have become louder and louder. One netizen claimed that the prototype of the "South China Tiger" was actually a New Year painting on his wall. The Zhejiang Yiwu New Year Painting Factory also confirmed that it had produced tiger New Year paintings. The manufacturer also filed a lawsuit against Zhou Zhenglong in court for infringement. The public's chatter makes it difficult to hide the fraud that government officials are involved in. Eight months later, the deputy director of the Provincial Forestry Department was dismissed.

The scrutiny of Zhou Jiugeng, the former director of the Real Estate Bureau of Nanjing Jiangning District, and his “sky-high price list” of cigarettes and the “sky-high price list” of Yang Dacai, the former director of the Shaanxi Work Safety Bureau, helped the discipline inspection department discover clues to corruption. There are hidden dragons and crouching tigers among the netizens. For example, @花庄lost his golden cudgel. A watch appraisal expert identified the model and price of each watch of Director Yang one by one. Online viewing fulfills the people's right to know and express in a special way, but modern society is a society with a high degree of professional division of labor. Not ordinary people can make accurate decisions about people and things based on common sense and simple love and hate. Judgmental. There are often "more loudspeakers and less facts" on the Internet. A lot of talk may not be able to piece together the truth, and passionate opinions may lead to biased conclusions.

In August 2012, Chongqing police shot and killed gangster Zhou Kehua, and the DNA and fingerprints were compared correctly. However, some people questioned that the person who was shot was actually a plainclothes policeman, and even named Changsha policeman Chen Zihe. In fact, Chen Zihe was just the signature of a Bolian News netizen who earlier questioned that the deceased was not Zhou Kehua. What was suspected to be a train ticket from Changsha to Chongqing was actually a movie ticket. Some "experts" verified that the wallet Zhou Kehua carried was suspected to be printed with a police badge. In fact, "the public security organs have never issued such wallets with police badges to police officers, and plainclothes policemen would rather not have police badges on their bodies."

In March 2014, Li Sanhu, a retired cadre from a township in Baofeng County, Henan Province, died in a mine with his head dislocated. After investigation, the police ruled out the possibility of homicide. Netizens were in an uproar: "You can commit suicide by dismembering the corpse? The police have no brains? Did you dismember yourself?" This is completely taken for granted by laymen. The well-known police Weibo @江宁公安在线 explained that a broken corpse equals a corpse that has been dismembered by others. The mine is 340 meters deep, while the highest observation deck of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower is 350 meters. How many ropes, steel bars, and sharp stones are there in the mine? What kind of person could fall from such a height and still keep their body intact? "This is not a human being but a superman."

With the lack of professional knowledge and media literacy, the probability of spreading rumors is extremely high; the public uses individual cases to vent their dissatisfaction with the deep-seated contradictions in society, which can easily lead to public opinion going astray.

Late one night in December 2010, 18 Shanghai travelers, mainly students from Fudan University, were in danger in Huangshan. It is said that the second uncle of one of them is a member of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee. Only then did the Shanghai police and Anhui police jointly organize search and rescue, breaking the convention of "not going to Huangshan at night". The Shanghai police released the recording of the 110 call. The mysterious second uncle appeared on the TV station and was just an ordinary laid-off worker. During the public corruption incident, some people have a string that is always tight in their hearts, and they remain highly alert to the interpersonal relationships, power influence, and possible hidden rules behind the incident, even to the point of being allergic.

The onlookers of the "melon-eating crowd" may also invade privacy in the form of public opinion carnival. For example, "paparazzi" who gather around celebrities to break the news often cause harm to the parties involved and their families. For another example, once a leading cadre is caught smoking a pack of high-priced cigarettes or wearing some kind of luxurious accessories, he may be unanimously denounced as a corrupt official. This "presumption of guilt" leaves you with no defense.

Local residents and non-local netizens

The promoters of hot public opinions can be roughly divided into stakeholders (stakeholders) and non-interested parties. The former is usually manifested as rights protection behavior and is an interest appeal in the case; the latter is usually manifested as venting anger. As long as the case conforms to their "stereotype" of society (such as urban management bullying street vendors), they will take the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the government and the system. dissatisfaction.

Participants in hot online events can also be divided into local residents and foreign netizens. Local residents are well-informed about hot-spot events and often adopt the mentality of discussing issues as they stand and trying to solve problems; while netizens from other places do not really care about the merits and twists of the case itself, and more often use individual cases to complain and make noise. For example, in the early morning of August 15, 2014, Chai Shengfang, the head of Lintao County in Gansu Province, died suddenly in his office. Some netizens from other places wondered, "Did he really die on the job?" and "Did he empty his body because of his usual sensual activities?" Some people even maliciously speculated, "Did he commit a crime and were afraid of being investigated by the public prosecutor, so he committed suicide out of fear of crime?" '?" But Lintao people understand this parent officer. Chai Shengfang was born in a peasant family. She graduated from the Department of Archeology of Peking University and was sent by the government to study at the National Kobe University in Japan. After returning to her hometown as a Ph.D., she took the initiative to move to Dingxi City, which is "the most impoverished and barren city in the world". In Lintao, he traveled to all 323 administrative villages in the county and worked until 1:30 a.m. on the day of his death. He eventually suffered sudden cardiac death due to long-term overload. Local people spontaneously stood on both sides of the road, holding high slogans and banners such as "Good son of Lintao people" and "Have a good trip, County Magistrate Chai" to bid farewell to the good county magistrate who died in the line of duty.

During emergencies, posts by local residents are more likely to convey on-site information more accurately than those made by non-local netizens, while the comments made by non-local netizens may be further from the truth.

As stakeholders, local residents will weigh the pros and cons, compare costs and benefits, and have room for communication; while foreign netizens may adopt a "big no" attitude and maintain a confrontational mentality, which is difficult to persuade and difficult to achieve. compromise.

In May 2014, a garbage incineration project in Yuhang District, Hangzhou triggered mass incidents. People were worried that dioxin would pollute the environment and gathered to block traffic. Afterwards, the local government organized 82 batches of more than 4,000 people to visit other places to inspect domestic advanced waste incineration plants. Some villagers heard that treated water was fine for raising fish, so they reached out to pick up a handful of water from the pool and sniffed it. There are shops just outside the garbage plant, and there are real estates across the street. Residents live next door to the plant. I heard that housing prices there have not dropped in the past two years and are still rising. “You won’t know until you look at it, but you will be relieved once you see it.” The project is expected to be put into ignition and trial operation in the second half of this year. "People's Daily" published a newsletter "Social Governance Innovation: Hangzhou Unties the NIMBY Knot".

Tolerate local "complaints" and encourage "local participation"

Moderately tolerating local residents' complaints on local websites will help the government understand the flaws in grassroots governance, solve problems in a timely manner, and avoid contradictory opinions intensify. If local residents are blindly prevented from expressing their voices on local websites, they will move to some national online platforms to complain. The mentality of netizens from other places is more likely to add fuel to the flames, make the situation worse, damage the local image, and will not help solve the problem.

Hu Litian, an old woman from Chengdu, participated in about 20 government hearings in 7 years, and was once ridiculed by netizens as "the government's shill" and "the best extra". Later it was discovered that Mrs. Hu was an enthusiastic person and had signed up for about 40 hearings, with a high success rate. But this is not because the government and the old woman colluded to cheat, but because the quota for these hearings is often not satisfied.

This brings up a question: Why do some netizens "passionately" criticize reality all day long, but ignore the social participation around them and optimize hearings for government decision-making?

We might as well encourage contemporary netizens to "think globally, act locally" (Think globally, act locally). If you only know how to talk, turn a blind eye to the things around you, and just be a "keyboardman", it may not help matters, and it will not be conducive to finding your place in the real national conditions.

In November 2008, the Longnan Incident occurred in Gansu. Some residents were worried that their interests would be damaged if the Longnan City Administrative Center moved out of Wudu District, and they engaged in acts of vandalism, smashing, and burning. Afterwards, a search of People's Daily Online's "Local Leaders Message Board" found that since September of that year, many netizens had expressed dissatisfaction with the relocation of Longnan, and the messages had become increasingly extreme. The General Office of the Gansu Provincial Party Committee lamented: If we had known these public opinions earlier and responded in time, we might have had better results. People's Daily Online's "Local Leaders Message Board" has opened a direct line for official-citizen interaction. Grassroots people can directly submit issues of immediate interest to the "top leaders" of the party and government at the provincial, municipal and county levels and ask the government to solve them. This avoids the need to open the Internet Platform hype.

Sohu’s self-media “Teng Ying He Sheng” wrote: Internet onlookers have indeed promoted social progress, but they may also indicate that other channels of appeal are not smooth, and sometimes it is necessary to rely on heckles on self-media to solve problems. . Watching on the sidelines is not a long-term solution. The top priority is to design an excellent system for expressing public opinion.

On March 22, Liu Yunshan, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, visited the People’s Daily Online and expressed his appreciation for the People’s Daily Online’s “Local Leaders Message Board” and hoped that the People’s Daily Online would “build more bridges to connect with the masses and promote the solution of practical problems. , to better serve the masses.” There is a long way to go to implement this important directive.