激活社交媒体在重大公共事件中政治传播的正向功能

Activating the Positive Function of Political Communication of Social Media Concerning Major Public Events

社交媒体具有政治传播的“凝聚共识”正向功能和“扰乱人心”负向功能的双重属性。在这次新冠肺炎疫情重大公共事件及其引发的社会变局中,社交媒体彰显了政治传播正向功能和负向功能的冲突性社会效应。同时,政治传播中的几种力量也应激性地出现“势能转换”:政治权力的天然本性和职责,使政治逻辑强力“统摄”整个传播;强大的组织传播、人际传播以及由政治权力控制的特殊大众传播,被约束在“政治稳定”的逻辑之中;很多同时掌握政治权力和媒介信息权力的官员,陷入可能性的维护政治与公布真相难以取舍的纠结之中。在这个时候,社会民众比平常更加渴求真相。反思这种现实,我们应充分激活社交媒体政治传播的正向功能:实体层面的对应寻找功能、延伸层面的补充修复功能和理想层面的规范建构功能。

Social media have the dual attributes of the positive function of“consensus building”and negative function of“disturbing people's minds”.The major public events triggered by COVID-19 and the social changes they have caused highlight the conflicting social effects of the positive and negative functions of political communication of social media.At the same time,several forces in political communication are undergoing a“potential energy conversion”in response to the stress:The nature and duties of political power will force political logic to“dominate”the entire communication,and powerful organizational and interpersonal communication,as well as the specific mass communication controlled by political power,is bound to the logic of“political stability”.Many officials who hold both political and information power will fall into the dilemma of maintaining politics and announcing the truth.At such moments,the mass are more eager to know the truth than usual.Faced with this situation,we should fully activate the positive functions of political communication of social media:the corresponding search function at the entity level,the compensatory repair function at the extended level,and the norm-building function at the ideal level.