Communication Characteristics, Practical Dilemmas, and Governance Paths of Online Public Opinion in Universities in the Post-Truth Era

Abstract

In the era of post-truth, a communication logic that gives more weight to emotion than to reason has begun to affect the formation and spread of online public opinion in universities. In light of the post-truth theory, this paper will examine the new features of online public opinion in universities from the four aspects of subject composition, content form, communication channels and development patterns. It can also be seen from the above that there are actual problems with the current governance of such public opinion, such as the cognitive dilemma of "facts yield to emotions", the structural problem of "circle barriers and echo chambers", the effectiveness problem of "delayed responses and rhetorical failures", and the value problem of "control-oriented mindset versus educational mission". Therefore, this paper proposes that universities should take the following four kinds of measures in the four areas of technological empowerment, emotional governance, value guidance and institutional reconstruction to build a full-chain governance system of "monitoring, empathy, guidance and regulation", and thus achieve the organic integration of order maintenance in cyberspace with the basic tasks of cultivating virtue and nurturing talent.