反思互联网政治参与:代表性的视角

Reconsidering Internet Political Participation:A Perspective of Representativeness

伴随着互联网信息技术的发展和普及,作为信息来源、沟通媒介和虚拟的公共空间,互联网为用户获取政治信息、培育政治观点并进行政治参与提供了极大便利。无论是网民线上讨论所产生的网络民意,还是网民通过线上手段与政府进行的互动,都对政府的公共决策发挥着日趋重要的影响。从代表性的视角看,网民在多大程度上代表社会大众,将决定这一参与形式对公共决策的价值和意义。研究表明,当前中国网民无论在人口特征还是在政治态度上均无法较好地代表大众,且在重要政治态度上缺乏一致性。网民的这一代表性偏差可能削弱当下中国互联网政治参与对公共决策的积极作用。当前政府制定公共决策应从全局出发,审慎对待互联网政治参与,不可盲从网络民意。

With the development and popularity of information technology,the internet makes it extremely convenient for it’s users to learn political information,cultivate political views and process political participation online.Online public opinion fostered by netizens’discussion,together with online netizengovernment interaction,is playing a more important role in policy making.From the perspective of representativeness,how positive this role is played depends a lot on the extent of which netizens can represent the public.With data visualization analysis on two nation-wide survey,namely CGSS2015 and CFPS2018,this article investigates the representativeness of internet political participation on two dimensions:demographic characteristics and political attitude.The results indicate that,at present,internet users can’t represent the public well in China.Further,they show less consistency on crucial attitudes as well.The biased representativeness of netizens could possibly diminish the bright side of internet political participation for policy making.Based on empirical results and theoretical discussion,we argue that government should make policy concerning the whole situation,treat online opinion prudently instead of following it blindly.