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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1367805
This article is part of the Research Topic Public risk perception in public health policies View all 16 articles

The Formation Pattern, Causes, and Governance of Network Public Opinion on University Emergencies

Provisionally accepted
Xiaoning Gao Xiaoning Gao 1,2Zhuoya Li Zhuoya Li 1Ke Zhang Ke Zhang 1,2*Chongwu Bi Chongwu Bi 1,2
  • 1 Zhengzhou University, zhengzhou, China
  • 2 Research Center of Date Science, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: University emergencies, garnering significant public attention and shaping network opinions, pose a crucial challenge to universities' management and societal stability. Hence, network public opinion on university emergencies is a vital issue. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanism has not been fully explored and cannot be efficiently controlled. study aims to explore the formation pattern of network public opinion on university emergencies, analyze its causes, and provide scientific governance strategies for coping with this issue. Methods: Based on a sample set of 204 cases from the Zhiwei Data Sharing Platform, this study classifies network public opinion on university emergencies into six types and visually analyzes their characteristics: time distribution, subject, duration, and emotion. By integrating the theory of the network public opinion field, this study develops a network public opinion field model of university emergencies to reveal its formation pattern. Furthermore, it analyzes the causes of network public opinion on university emergencies from the perspective of the public opinion lifecycle and proposes corresponding governance strategies. Results: The sample consisted of 304 cases of real-life public opinion, and the visualization results show that: public opinion on mental health and teacher-student safety constitute the predominant types, accounting for 83.3%. High-occurrence subjects are public universities (88.24%) and students (48%). The most frequent months are July and December. 90.20% of the public opinions have a lifespan of less than 19 days, with impact index ranging from 40 to 80. The public's emotional response to different types of public opinion varies, with negative emotions dominating. Conclusion: This study provides novel insights for understanding their formation and dissemination. It also provides practical implications for relevant departments to govern network public opinion on university emergencies.

    Keywords: university emergencies, Network public opinion, network public opinion field theory, formation, cause, governance

    Received: 05 Feb 2024; Accepted: 30 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Gao, Li, Zhang and Bi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ke Zhang, Zhengzhou University, zhengzhou, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.