›› 2016, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (8): 71-78.

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Studies on Online Public Opinion Inversion Effect

Huang Yuan1,2, Liu Yijun1   

  1. 1. Institute of Policy and Management, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190;
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190
  • Received:2016-05-31 Online:2016-08-28 Published:2016-09-24

Abstract:

This paper studies the phenomenon of online public opinion inversion that often occurrs in recent years, with multi-disciplinary and multi-perspective research integrated, summarizes three forms of online public opinion inversion, presents the definition of online public opinion inversion, and analyzes the causes of online public opinion inversion based on social physics. By exploring 41 events of online public opinion inversion from 2013 to 2016 through in-depth analysis of opinion tipping point, initial public opinion, turning points and final opinion, this paper concludes four types of online public opinion inversion:single center V-shaped inversion, double center N-shaped inversion, spiral S-shaped inversion and secondary center U-shaped inversion from three dimensions, namely reasons, time and effects. Structural balance theory is proposed to study the change of public opinion around inversion, and the event of "a male driver beating a female driver in Chengdu" which belongs to double center N-shaped inversion is quantitatively analyzed.

Key words: online public opinion inversion, social physics, inversion form, m-balance