The "Work Plan for Investigation and Research in the Whole Party" emphasizes that "in the whole party's large-scale investigation and research, we must adhere to the party's mass line," pointing out the direction for efforts to improve the efficiency of investigation and research work under the new situation. In today's era, cyberspace has become an important channel and link for our party to maintain close ties with the masses. At present, the core network literacy of some party members and cadres needs to be improved, the network communication ability is still insufficient, and the online work style is not solid enough. In the new era, how can Party members and cadres keep pace with the times and follow the online mass line? How to really practice the basic skills of investigation and research in the new era? Follow this article together.
What is the significance of following the online mass line?
First of all, the online mass line is a practical innovation in the Sinicization of Marxism. Since its founding, the Communist Party of China has made it a working principle that "all movements of the Party must penetrate deep into the broad masses." Comrade Mao Zedong put forward the famous thesis that "if you do not conduct investigations, you have no right to speak, and if you do not conduct correct investigations, you also have no right to speak." General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Party and government organs and leading cadres at all levels should learn to follow the mass line through the Internet, often go online, dive diving, chat, and speak out, understand what the masses think and wish, collect good ideas and suggestions, and actively respond to netizens' concerns and resolve doubts." Being good at using the network to understand public opinion and carry out work is the basic skill of leading cadres to do a good job in the new situation. At present, online public opinion, which carries the interests and emotional needs of netizens, has become a "barometer" of social conditions and public opinion in the new era. Leading cadres at all levels need to maintain flesh-and-blood ties with the masses, keep the "pulse" of the needs of the masses on the Internet, read the "barometer" of social conditions and public opinion on the Internet, and build a "bridge between the hearts and minds" of government netizens. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important exposition on taking the online mass line has scientifically answered major questions such as why and how to take the online mass line, and enriched and developed the Marxist view of the masses.
Second, the online mass line is an inevitable choice for the modernization of national governance. The ever-changing Internet technology is reshaping many fields, including the relationship between the party and the masses, in this regard, we need to keep pace with the times to carry out macro layout and field expansion of governance, unify the strengthening of top-level design and insistence on asking the people and asking the needs of the people, and take "walking the grassroots with your feet and checking public opinion on the Internet" as a new path to connect with the masses and govern society. General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed that party and government organs and leading cadres at all levels "should take the online mass line, improve their ability to organize, publicize, guide and serve the masses through the Internet", and "strengthen Internet thinking, make use of the advantages of flat, interactive and fast Internet, promote scientific government decision-making, precise social governance, and efficient public services, and use information technology to better perceive the social situation, smooth communication channels, and assist decision-making and governance." Party members and cadres should turn the Internet, the "biggest variable," into the "biggest increment" in promoting the modernization of national governance. Taking the online mass line can not only fully empower the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, but also push the investigation and research work in the new era to a wider cyberspace, so as to accurately identify the needs and demands of the broad masses of the people and continuously enhance the people's sense of gain and happiness.
Finally, the online mass line is a vivid practice of people's democracy in the whole process. As the application of the Internet penetrates into all aspects of the people's lives, the petition platform, the leader's mailbox, the government affairs hotline, and the online "message board" have increasingly become new platforms for the Party and the government to communicate with the masses, new ways to understand the masses, get close to the masses, solve problems for the masses, and carry forward people's democracy and accept people's supervision. From the State Council's opening of the "Internet + Supervision" platform to collect clues on problems, to the preparation of the "14th Five-Year Plan" to solicit opinions and suggestions from the whole society through the Internet, to the solicitation of opinions from the relevant work network of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and the "Carrying Sentences" activities of the National Two Sessions in 2023, rich and diverse democratic channels have closely linked "what the people want" with "what the party and the government do", so that more and more grassroots voices directly reach the decision-making levels at all levels, and the people's rights to know, participate, express and supervise are strongly guaranteed. The online mass line has built a new mode of "Party Committee, Government-People" interaction, which is conducive to expanding research channels, innovating research methods, improving research efficiency, and expanding people's orderly political participation at all levels and in all fields, fully confirming that people's democracy in the whole process of the mainland is the most extensive, authentic and effective democracy.
What challenges do some Party members and cadres face in following the online mass line?
The core literacy of the network needs to be improved. In the face of the huge and noisy Internet world, some party members and cadres have "skill panic", which is mainly manifested as follows: First, the ability to analyze and process network information is insufficient. When faced with all kinds of network information across time, space and field, some Party members and cadres "gradually become fascinating" and lose the ability to think independently and make accurate judgments; Some "horses step deep into the mountains and disappear", and they cannot use effective network information for me; Some "only look at the excitement and do not look at the doorway", cannot see the interests of the masses behind public opinion, and cannot grasp the essence behind the phenomenon. Second, the ability to grasp the law of network communication is insufficient. Due to the failure to accurately grasp the law of online communication, some Party members and cadres often fall into a passive situation when carrying out online mass work, miss the best time to actively disseminate effective information, and even take some work measures against the law, resulting in adverse effects. Third, the ability to guide online public opinion is insufficient. In the face of online public opinion, some leading cadres either have an "ostrich mentality" and do not listen to or look at online public opinion, or they are slow, passive, and old-fashioned, and stay on simply repeating official tones, resulting in damage to public credibility.
Network communication skills are still lacking. In the face of the new pattern of mass work formed by the Internet, the ability of some party-member cadres to use the Internet to strengthen mass communication is still lacking, which greatly reduces the effectiveness of the investigation. On the one hand, some leading cadres do not take the initiative to go deep among the masses: some party-member cadres are afraid of being "grabbed by the braids" for inappropriate words on the Internet, lack the initiative to deal with online communication, are not good at using the Internet, big data and other modern information technologies to carry out investigation and research, and find it difficult to adapt to the new requirements of mass work in the information age. On the other hand, some leading cadres are not proficient in using online language: they do not understand their expression in the face of a new generation of netizens; Lack of professional knowledge in the face of online "opinion leaders"; In the face of irrational appeals, appropriate discourse and communication skills will not be used. If leading cadres do not understand the online expression methods, it will be difficult for them to understand the true insights put forward by the masses through the Internet, resulting in the inability to truly understand the situation, identify the problems, and formulate the countermeasures in a down-to-earth manner.
The online work style is not solid enough. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that we must be good at asking the needs and plans of the people through the Internet and other channels, and better listen to the voices of the people, respect the will of the people, and conform to the will of the people. However, with the continuous popularization and deepening of informationization and intelligence in governance, the style of some party members and cadres is not strict and untruthful, so that the stubborn diseases of formalism and bureaucracy have been covered with a new invisible cloak of informationization, which is likely to dissolve the positive effects brought by information technology. On the one hand, information formalism is secretly breeding, and on the other hand, intelligent bureaucracy is quietly coming. Some party-member cadres let lower-level cadres directly report some original materials that should be obtained by grassroots research and acquisition through work groups, and moved some work that should be really done in practice to the Internet for "exquisite trace" supervision and inspection; Some party members and cadres have used working groups to set up "horse shooting groups", posting work photos of leaders carrying out research and speeches at meetings, showing the "glorious image" of leaders, and group members "laying flowers" in various ways; Some party members and cadres use the Internet to set up a "new threshold" and put all the responsibility on technical issues. The dizzying array of information formalism and intelligent bureaucracy has affected the style of work and damaged the party's image, and its harm cannot be underestimated.
How to truly implement the work of the masses online?
First, it is necessary to change concepts, firmly establish the concept of the masses on the Internet, and conduct in-depth investigations among the masses to understand the situation. In the face of the opportunities and challenges of online mass work in the new era, Party members and cadres should adhere to emancipating their minds, seeking truth from facts, constantly promoting the reform of thinking and updating concepts, and doing a good job in online mass work with a broader vision. First, adhere to the people-centered development thinking. Party members and cadres should always respect the status of online democracies, understand their thoughts and wishes, actively respond to the concerns of netizens, promptly incorporate their constructive opinions, promptly help them solve practical difficulties, promptly clarify ambiguous understandings, promptly resolve grievances and complaints, and promptly guide and correct erroneous views. The second is to continuously expand new areas of online mass work. Party members and cadres should foster the awareness that "to publicize the masses means to publicize netizens, to contact the masses is to contact netizens, to serve the masses is to serve netizens, and to follow the mass line well means to follow the online mass line." The third is to improve the cyberspace governance system of joint construction, co-governance and sharing. Party members and cadres should work together with multiple subjects, all directions, and multiple angles to promote online mass work, unite the joint forces of online social governance, build a benign interaction mechanism with netizens, and test the effectiveness of online mass work based on whether the legitimate interests of netizens are effectively safeguarded.
Second, grasp the main line, keep pace with the times, take the online mass line, expand research channels, improve research efficiency, and constantly put forward new ideas and methods to truly solve problems. The mass line is the lifeblood and fundamental work line of our party. Leading cadres at all levels need to embody the values and ideological methods of the mass line in online mass work, so that the mass line as a concept is deeply rooted in the thinking of the main body of practice, embodied in the formulation of various systems for online mass work, and implemented in every specific measure of online mass work. First, efforts should be made to go deep among the masses. Party members and cadres should regard "surfing the Internet" as the new normal, "using the Internet" as a basic skill, and "understanding the Internet" as a compulsory course, and widely understand what the masses think, think and expect through various methods such as "screen-to-screen", "key-to-key" and "face-to-face". Second, efforts should be made to study the masses. In the process of planning, formulating plans and promulgating policies, party-member cadres should be good at using the Internet, big data and other modern information technologies to ask the masses and practice for advice, and explore the key to opening up work ideas from the vivid practice at the grassroots level, so that all work always responds to the voice of the masses and reflects the will of the masses. Third, efforts should be made to serve the masses. Party members and cadres should tighten the closed loop of online mass work, take the satisfaction of the masses as the highest standard for measuring the effectiveness of work, and use rigid mechanisms and effective measures to truly implement the party's various policies to benefit the people and promote the improvement of people's livelihood through the solution of specific problems.
Third, identify the focus, build an online mass work discourse system, speak the "mass speech" well, open up the "last mile" of communication with the masses, and better serve the masses. With the development of the Internet era, more and more leading cadres are making good use of new platforms and using new words. However, some leading cadres are not familiar with the law of network communication, have no experience in how to use the network to do a good job in mass work, and respond to some major events and the demands of the people either empty words or "thunderous words." To follow the online mass line well, it is necessary to build a discourse system for online mass work. First of all, we must solve the problem of "who will speak" and "to whom to speak". According to the characteristics of different groups and people at different levels on the Internet, optimize the function of the main body of discourse, refine the classification of discourse objects, and ensure that discourse produces practical effects. Secondly, we should pay attention to the problems of "what to say" and "how to say" the subject of discourse to the object of discourse. We should extract and sum up new discourses from the great practice of the new era, inherit classic discourses from the excellent traditional Chinese culture, draw on mature discourses from the achievements of academic research and theoretical innovation, and use more language that the masses can understand, hear, hear, and hear closely, so that the ideas, theories, values, and concepts of mass work can be expressed with a more three-dimensional sense, more enlightening, and more vivid and vivid.
Fourth, integrate and interact, draw concentric circles of online mass work, listen to the voices of the masses, reflect the wishes of the masses, and care for the well-being of the masses. The problems and demands reflected by the masses on the Internet must ultimately be implemented by practice and solved with practical work. Therefore, to follow the mass line on the Internet, it is necessary not only to understand and use the Internet, but also to combine the Internet with the Internet, go deep among the masses, go deep into reality, investigate and study, and really do solid work. First, it is necessary to establish and improve online and offline linkage mechanisms such as online public opinion absorption, netizens' appeal feedback, and online political supervision. Leading cadres should set an example, take the lead in setting an example, consciously carry out investigation and study at the grassroots level with the opinions of the masses on the Internet, eliminate worries and solve difficulties for the people, ensure that the problems reported by the masses are seen online and handled offline, and win the trust of the people with practical actions and practical results. Second, it is necessary to establish and improve the standard mechanism for supervising and evaluating the work of the masses on the Internet. Through the operation of supporting supervision and guarantee mechanisms, improve the mechanism for evaluating supervision results, evaluate the attitude and ability of leading cadres in online mass work, guard against formalism and bureaucratism, encourage party committees and governments at all levels to really do solid work, and implement the online mass work in the new era.
Source: Cyberspace Corps