Abstract

Network forum has become a speech field of Chinese netizens to express their own ideas with the fast development of the network in China. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the speech in Chinese network forum by survey on the Netease BBS, one of the most important network forums in China. The characteristics of the forum speech conform to the features of the crowd described by the social psychologist Gustav Le Bon, which is innocent, impulsive and vulnerable to implication. In the forums, the individuals form the group and imitate each other automatically and unconsciously. With the effects of polarization, sleeper and stereotype, the extreme speech and rumors often come into being in that process, and have harmful influence to the social stability.

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