An interaction model among enterprise and government actions and public opinion dissemination in negative events

The development of Internet information technology has accelerated the spread of online public opinion in negative enterprise events. Moreover, enterprises release information through online social networks and cooperate with the government to handle the status of events, which affects the spread of public opinion and the progress of negative events. Based on the multi-molecular reaction model, we explore the interaction among four factors: enterprise online opinion dissemination, the development of negative events, government regulation, and enterprise response strategies. And then, the stability of the model is analyzed using Routh stability theory. Furthermore, we discuss the Baidu Wei Zexi incident that occurred in China as a case study, and offer courses of action for policy makers to navigate through crises of public opinion. The research results show that the linkage approach with government regulation out in front and the enterprise response following is the best approach to mitigating the spread of public opinion.