Despite the rapid growth of the Internet and the surge of public online discourse on policies in China, little is known about the tendencies of netizens＇ policy attitudes, and less attention has been paid to how poli...Despite the rapid growth of the Internet and the surge of public online discourse on policies in China, little is known about the tendencies of netizens＇ policy attitudes, and less attention has been paid to how policy attitudes form from a social psychological perspective. In this study, we explore how netizens have developed their negative attitudes towards established political policy through online interaction. Using grounded theory, the paper analyzes the netizens＇ online comments on a new policy of flexible working hours for civil servants in Ningbo. The concept of policy-precipitation is used to explain how the residue of outcome from previous policies, the impression of government departments and the image of civil service intensify the formation of netizens＇ policy cognition orientation. In addition, the concept of policy-cognitive inertia is put forward to explore the subjective factor which is a way of thinking inherent in leading to netizens＇ cognitive tendency of policies. Finally, a policy attitude formation process model and a policy attitude influence elements model are proposed to demonstrate the effects of policy-precipitation and policy-cognitive inertia on the formation of a certain policy attitude trend.展开更多
文摘Despite the rapid growth of the Internet and the surge of public online discourse on policies in China, little is known about the tendencies of netizens＇ policy attitudes, and less attention has been paid to how policy attitudes form from a social psychological perspective. In this study, we explore how netizens have developed their negative attitudes towards established political policy through online interaction. Using grounded theory, the paper analyzes the netizens＇ online comments on a new policy of flexible working hours for civil servants in Ningbo. The concept of policy-precipitation is used to explain how the residue of outcome from previous policies, the impression of government departments and the image of civil service intensify the formation of netizens＇ policy cognition orientation. In addition, the concept of policy-cognitive inertia is put forward to explore the subjective factor which is a way of thinking inherent in leading to netizens＇ cognitive tendency of policies. Finally, a policy attitude formation process model and a policy attitude influence elements model are proposed to demonstrate the effects of policy-precipitation and policy-cognitive inertia on the formation of a certain policy attitude trend.
