Online Opinion Risk Control and Ideology Construction of College Students in New Media Environment
Published Online: Mar 21, 2025
Received: Oct 29, 2024
Accepted: Feb 07, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0588
Keywords
© 2025 Ying Yuan et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The development of the Internet has prompted today’s society to enter the era of “everyone can hold a microphone”, expanding the discourse power of college students, making colleges and universities frequently become the focus of online public opinion, and the complex and turbulent public opinion environment also brings new problems, opportunities and challenges to ideological education in colleges and universities [1-4]. College students are the new force for the future development of society and shoulder the important responsibility of national rejuvenation, and colleges and universities are the fertile ground for ideological education, so they should grasp the risk management of public opinion in colleges and universities and maintain the safety of college students in the field of ideology, so as to implement the fundamental task of cultivating morality and educating people [5-8].
In the era of new media networks, the mainstream ideology of college students faces the challenges of diversity and plurality. On the one hand, new media networks provide college students with a wide range of information sources and communication platforms, making them more open and diversified. On the other hand, new media networks also have the problems of information overload and false information, which can easily lead to college students’ ideology being misled or confused [9-12]. In the face of this situation, college students need to continuously improve their information recognition ability, actively participate in diversified network communication activities, strengthen academic research and social practice, keep an open mind and respect others’ views and choices [13-15]. Only in this way can college students better control and cope with the challenges from online public opinion in the new media era and form a healthy and rational mainstream ideology [16-17].
Literature [18] aims to construct a network public opinion evaluation model suitable for the university environment through fuzzy evaluation method, and to construct effective network public opinion guidance measures. The results of the study point out that this method can effectively deal with the uncertainty of the online public opinion environment, improve the accuracy and credibility of the evaluation, and help to improve the online public opinion environment and enhance the health of online public opinion. Literature [19] aims to explore the main factors affecting our understanding of the theory of online public opinion communication about major epidemics among college students. Based on the questionnaire survey, the validity of the theoretical model and measurement tools was verified using intelligent PLS. Conclusions such as “adult attachment and social motivation have an important positive influence on the awareness of social participation” were drawn, which is conducive to improving the understanding of online public opinion on major emergencies and provides a basis for guiding the initiation and dissemination of online public opinion. Based on the analysis of the connotation and characteristics of new media, combined with regression calculation, literature [20] discussed the influence of new media on college students from multiple angles, discussed the characteristics of college students’ public opinion, and put forward measures to cope with social pressure and public opinion from multiple dimensions. Literature [21] points out that the unique context and information attributes of the network circle promote the development of disorderly public opinion, and topic deviation is usually accompanied by negative emotions. It also seeks strategies to govern public opinion accordingly from the perspectives of shaping the online environment and optimizing human resources in colleges and universities. Literature [22] aims to understand the impact of social media on student achievement. Using the survey method to collect data and research on student groups, the results show that social media has a certain role in promoting students’ performance, but there is a significant difference between the performance and the impact of social media is large. Literature [23] compared college students’ online public opinion crisis events with other literature. It also outlines the research response initiatives based on innovative and comprehensive use of big data technology according to the mental health characteristics of college students. It emphasized that the mental health problems of college students cannot be separated from the establishment of a perfect emergency protection system. Literature [24] emphasizes the important topic of network ideological security in higher-level education in the new era, namely, exploring the main causes and negative impacts of college students’ network group polarization, and examining in-depth the guiding measures to cope with the negative impacts of college students’ network group polarization, so as to exclude the potential risks of college students’ network group polarization. Literature [25] used two research methods, literature and case study method, to develop a comparative analysis with two universities as research objects. The importance of controlling the spread of online public opinion is emphasized, and suggestions for universities and social media to manage the construction of online public opinion are put forward in order to promote students to establish a correct view of education.
This paper simulates and analyzes the main influencing factors of network public opinion evolution using the complex network public opinion evolution model and virus propagation model. Based on this, five risk control strategies for college students’ online public opinion are proposed, namely: random control strategy, strategy based on network
In order to realize the risk control of college students’ online public opinion in the new media environment and to promote the ideology construction, it is first necessary to analyze the influence mechanism of online public opinion evolution. To this end, this paper constructs a model of SIRH viral propagation based on the evolution of complex network public opinion, in order to explore the power mechanism of public opinion propagation.
A complex network is a network that consists of many nodes and nodes together with the connectivity relationships between them, in conjunction with graph theory, a complex network is a network topology graph with many nodes and intricate edges [26]. Any complex system is composed of many edges and nodes. The nodes represent different individuals in the system, and the edges represent the relationships that exist between individuals. Social networks are typical complex networks, and in recent years, various social platforms and new media have emerged and flourished, making complex networks a hot research topic.
The main basic statistical characterizations of complex networks are as follows:
Degree and degree distribution Degree is the most basic statistical feature quantity of complex networks. For an undirected network, the degree is defined as the number of connected edges of a node, but for a directed network, the connected edges of a node are directed, and the degree of a node can be further divided into in-degree and out-degree, in-degree is the number of connected edges pointing to the node, and out-degree is the number of connected edges pointing from the node to other nodes. The degree of a node is one of the measures of the importance of a node in a network. The topology of a complex network can be represented by the adjacency matrix
Where
In an undirected network, each edge is connected to two nodes, and if the number of edges in the network is denoted as
To wit:
The degree of all nodes in the network is ranked and the proportion of nodes with degree Clustering Coefficient The clustering coefficient is used to measure the size of the probability of the occurrence of this phenomenon in a network. Its more common definition in complex networks is to measure the probability that two neighbors of a node are neighbors of each other. The clustering coefficient
where
For a network with a given degree distribution, the clustering coefficient
where 〈 Average shortest path In complex networks, paths refer to the pathways between nodes, starting from a node, along the edges in the network can reach another node, it is said that there is a pathway between the two nodes. The pathway with the least number of edges is called the shortest path. From a macroscopic point of view, the network has an average shortest path, which is denoted as
where
There are some complex networks where most of the nodes in the network are not connected to each other by edges, but most of the nodes have short distances between them, and complex networks with this characteristic are called small-world networks. Small world networks are intricate networks that have high clustering coefficients and low average paths. Offline interpersonal network is a typical small-world network, and the famous “six degrees of separation” theory proves that interpersonal connections can be established in a social network through only six people.
The WS small-world network model is a new network formed by changing the connecting edges of a regular network with a certain probability, which is different from a regular network and is not a completely randomized network, and the steps of constructing a WS small-world network are briefly described as follows:
First, given The next step for the already created network is to reconnect the edges already in the network with probability
It is important to note in the construction process that in step (2), no white connected and duplicate edges can be created.
The degree distribution of some complex networks shows a serious uneven distribution, i.e., a small number of nodes in the network have very large degree values, and most of the nodes have very small degree values, and such a network is defined as a scale-free network.
Scale-free networks are generally constructed by the BA model, which is a model based on the growth pattern, i.e., new nodes are constantly joining the network and will preferentially form connection edges with those nodes that have large degrees.The specific principles of constructing a BA scale-free network are briefly described as follows:
Start with a very small connected network with The
where
Internet public opinion often centers on social phenomena of public concern and reflects the current social issues that the public is most concerned about, epitomizing social public opinion. The main components of online public opinion are subject, object, and carrier. The subject is the public on the Internet, the object is the event itself, and the carrier is various social platforms on the Internet.
In addition, online public opinion is affected by many factors, such as internal factors, i.e. the influence and destructive power possessed by the matter itself, and external factors, i.e. the driving force from Internet users and various media. In the new media environment, due to the anonymity and virtuality of Internet users, the Internet is flooded with a variety of massive information, the authenticity as well as the reliability of the information can not be obtained in time, and some malicious users spread false information that jeopardizes the social stability or disrupts the public order, and most of the users are unable to judge the accuracy of it, which is prone to cause widespread dissemination and panic. The complexity of the network environment, the flattening of the network society, and the lack of work in guiding public opinion have caused network public opinion to easily fall into a quagmire.
Although there are some negative impacts of online public opinion, it also expresses the public’s inner will. If there is an in-depth study of online public opinion, it can be developed as a means for governments or management organizations to promote positive images and monitor social phenomena. This paper, on the other hand, explores the strategies for controlling the risk of college students’ online public opinion through the study of the influencing elements of online public opinion dissemination, so as to promote and strengthen the construction of ideology.
Let
Let
Where:
The evolution of the number of connections is equivalent to the degree distribution of the network, assuming that the number of nodes is conserved, i.e:
The overall opinion opinion distribution is defined as a marginal density function of:
Describing the nodes from micro point of view nodes are modifying the opinion with binary interaction and number of connections, if two nodes opinion and number of connections, i.e., (
where:
Where “
Regarding the opinion evolution process, the process of adding and deleting edges in complex networks is strictly related to the static scale-free scale. In this paper, we set the operator
For each
Where:
Eq. (15) describes the
Two factual existence cases should be taken into account in Eq. (17), i.e., nodes cannot be removed when there are 0 connections between them, and nodes cannot be added when they have reached a maximum value of connections between them.
If the characteristic rate is defined as:
Among them:
density associated with the preferred combination of attachment process (
Assuming that the total number of nodes in
Typically
For node conservation number setting:
The conservation of the total number of nodes can be obtained when the conditions required by Eq. (18) are satisfied, and the formula is as follows:
There is a special case where
Among them:
The dynamical equations of Eq. (24) correspond to the connectivity density functions of the optimal connectivity process (
Let the static solution be equivalent for each
And then get:
Among them:
Further approximate solutions are obtained in the case of
where
The factors related to the spread of online public opinion can be roughly divided into three categories: the first category is the measurable quantity category, including the number of subjects, the number of subjects that can disseminate information, the number of subjects that are not sufficiently sensitive to the same information, and the number of correlations with links to the outside world. The second category is the control category, which includes the prescribed level of public opinion dissemination, the reality of the start of the control work, its duration, and the percentage of uncredible information. The third category is the environment category, which encompasses factors like the scope of dissemination, the speed of dissemination, and the level of dissemination. In practice, not all categories of factors can be realized for their control of dynamics. The primary explanation is that the kinetic features are not significant and the kinetic constants cannot be identified. Therefore, in the practical work and modeling, the design of some kinetic constants is discarded, and the propagation variables of the public opinion propagation model are traded off under the premise of ensuring that the propagation of a certain public opinion can be demonstrated completely.
In addition to the above factors, the following concepts are also often used when expressing public opinion:
Time: In the process of public opinion dissemination, time is the key node for measuring the effect of opinion control and controlling the resolution of negative public opinion. Therefore, in this study, it is instructive to take time as a constant scalar, and it is also possible to select a specific control time node through simulation, and then derive an analysis of the effectiveness of the public opinion guidance policy through the displacement of the node.
Strength of Public Opinion: That is, the degree of strength or weakness of the ability to spread public opinion. Netizens have different sensitivities to a point of view and different concerns as a group, so public opinion itself will have different degrees of influence when it breaks out. In the simulation variables, the concept of probability is introduced, assuming that a certain propagation subject is
Receiving population: from the perspective of the receiving population, each person is both a receiver and an emitter of online opinion information, with both the desire to disseminate and the possibility of terminating the dissemination at any time with the marginalization, i.e., the weakening of interest, of the BA scale-free network. Based on this, the receiving population is also considered as one of the data to be considered separately, and the percentage of each attitude in the population is used to indicate the specific stage and current status of opinion dissemination.
In the development of traditional dynamics, there is a class of VM viral models that have been widely used in a variety of different fields, ranging from computer virus propagation, social network construction, to information dissemination, which have been used as classical models in various fields of dynamics, and the viral models have been developed through continuous evolution and formed three kinds of models, i.e., the SI/SIS, and the SIR models.
In the classical transmission model, scholars classify the population into transmission state
The SI model is based on the wireless transmission scenario derived from the traditional scale-free network model, i.e., when an individual is affected, then it does not recover and has a certain amount of influence to continue affecting other subjects. Assuming that the probability that an individual is exposed to infection is
The individual rate of change over time is:
So:
As in equation (32), the
However, in the actual propagation process, each individual can not always be the propagation state, that is, due to the insensitivity of the information and the propagation of the willingness of the change occurs not the same change, such as the probability of
The SIR model is the classical model of scale-free network propagation and has a very important place in most research works on propagation types [28].
The SIR model is schematically shown in Fig. 1. Based on the SI model, the SIR model considers the probability of a

SIR Model
In order to investigate the promotion effect of the combination of information dissemination and public opinion evolution on each other, this paper conducts computer simulation experiments on the process of information dissemination and public opinion evolution on scale-free networks based on the constructed dynamics model of online public opinion dissemination.
The state of public opinion can be inferred from the percentage of published views of a particular opinion. In this paper, we count the ratio of the number of published opinions with

Evolution of the proportion of published
From Fig. 2, it can be seen that regardless of the value of
Existing related studies have confirmed that the topology of the network has different degrees of influence on the process and results of information dissemination and opinion evolution. Scale-free networks are more robust than random or regular networks, and scale-free networks are more conducive to the propagation of information or viruses. On random or regular networks, the disease spreads to the whole network only when the infection rate reaches some critical value greater than zero. On scale-free networks, on the other hand, the critical value of the infection rate of infectious diseases drops to 0, and an arbitrarily small infection rate can cause a disease infection in the whole network. This section focuses on the effect of network topology on the outcome of information dissemination and viewpoint evolution by changing the connectivity of the network.
The connectivity of the network can be compared by the average degree of the network nodes, the higher the average degree of the nodes, the better the network connectivity.
The BA scale-free network is used as the study network, and networks a, b, and c are generated with the following parameters:
Network a: network size
Network b: network size
Network c: network size
The simulation results are shown in Figures 3 and 4.

Network degree affects the ultimate propagation scope

Influence of average network degree on information dissemination process
The larger
The dynamics of the number of speakers in the network over time for different degree averages is shown in Figure 5. Experimental parameter

Influence of average network degree on the number of speakers
In this paper, nodes of high degree number are selected as the initial discussion group, and the results of investigating whether the node degree of the initial discussion group will have an impact on the information dissemination process are shown in Fig. 6.

Influence of initial discussion groups on information dissemination
From Fig. 6, it can be seen that when the initial discussion group nodes themselves have a high degree, the range of information dissemination is substantially improved, and when the parameter
This part examines the control strategies to inhibit college students’ risk in online opinion communication:
Random control strategy, i.e., randomly selecting a portion of individuals to control them. A strategy based on network A strategy based on network degree metrics, which first orders the individuals according to the degree of the nodes from largest to smallest, and then controls a portion of the top-ordered individuals. A strategy based on node weights (point weights), usually individuals with a large number of social relationships have a greater influence on others, and Node-based strategy for group influence. The group influence is calculated as shown below:
Where
Based on the Facebook social network dataset, the relationship between degree,

Relationships among three metrics in the Facebook dataset
As can be seen in Fig. 7, the degree of nodes is within
In the absence of control strategies, when the opinion spread rate is less than the opinion spread threshold, the opinion will not prevail in the social network. To wit:
Where
Similarly, different control strategies can be adopted to obtain the corresponding opinion spreading threshold, when the opinion spreading rate is less than the corresponding opinion spreading threshold, i.e.,
In addition, this paper focuses on the effect of the five different control strategies mentioned on the final opinion spreading range when the opinion spreading rate is the same. The effect of the control strategies is judged based on the size of the public opinion spreading range, i.e., when the spreading range is smaller, the control strategies are more effective.
First, the individuals are ranked from largest to smallest according to the metrics of 1

Influence of different control strategies on public opinion propagation
As can be seen from Fig. 8, with the change of positive and negative social reinforcement factors, the control strategy based on degree and point weights is better and more robust than the
The control method that relies on group influence is superior to the other four control strategies, and it has a more significant control effect. This is due to the fact that controlling the nodes with higher group influence can effectively divide the network (even if the number of different regions in the network is maximized), and this method can quickly block the way of spreading public opinion and effectively inhibit the spread of public opinion.
Social media is an important way for many netizens to obtain information, and it also affects the ideological values of young college students, thus giving full play to its role in leading and regulating ideological education is an important way for young college students to set up positive values and ideological awareness.
The enhancement of legal construction can provide strong support and guarantee for the construction of network ideological security. By strengthening the construction of the network legal system and regulating the words and deeds of opinion leaders on the network, the legal system can provide support for network ideological security. By improving the real-name authentication of network information, we can also establish a binding network monitoring mechanism to regulate the words and actions of network opinion leaders. Online rumors continue to seriously mislead the public judgment, resulting in a bad social impact, the need to ferment public opinion at the same time to increase disciplinary efforts to reduce the irresponsible words and deeds of bad media, to play the mainstream opinion leaders in the supervision of public opinion on the positive leading role. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen legal education, enhance the ability of netizens to identify and reduce the blind worship of bad online opinion leaders, and follow the trend.
As the front line of college students’ ideological education, schools should effectively shoulder the political responsibility, stand firm and guard the ideological position, and be responsible for guarding the land, guarding the land and being responsible for guarding the land. Colleges and universities can actively build campus media culture exchange platforms, by opening college ideological education positions in major mainstream media, creating official public numbers, official microblogging and other new media communication matrices, using them as effective platforms to guide the cultivation of network opinion leaders, and cultivating opinion leaders who are easily accepted by college students and who can lead the transmission of positive energy. Embedding media literacy education courses in the talent cultivation process of universities is popularized, promoting theoretical knowledge of online media literacy, especially in terms of online media and laws and regulations. Colleges and universities can carry out multi-party exchanges and communicate with young students face-to-face by going into student dormitories, laboratories and libraries to collect and understand the real situation of young students’ thought dynamics, life needs, and aspirations for growth and development, so as to promptly understand what young people are thinking about and guiding them well.
Agenda setting is the process by which the news media directs what the audience sees and thinks by setting the topics. For different audiences, the world they are exposed to through media reports is different. With the advent of the Internet era, the passive state of the audience to receive information no longer exists, and all Internet users can become the active release of information and expression of opinions “media”. The theory of “spiral of silence” in communication science refers to the fact that in the process of communication, a minority of people will intentionally cater to the dominant opinions of the group in order to avoid being isolated. The existence of more and more such a minority of silent individuals will lead to the dominant voice to occupy all the public opinion field very quickly, and the comments forwarded or emphasized by the media or opinion leaders are often more likely to evolve into the dominant opinion recognized by the majority of the people, and this opinion can be shaped. Therefore, although the Internet is full of different voices, online opinion leaders can utilize the number of fans and influence they have accumulated to selectively release specific topics and express their opinions to the audience, so the ideological direction of young college students can be driven by the use of agenda-setting by opinion leaders to create public opinion hotspots and attract the audience’s attention.
Creating a cooperative community of “party and government, public opinion leaders, and university students and netizens” will help multiple subjects to consult and communicate, and collaborate in common governance, laying a solid foundation for online ideological security. Parties and government departments need to take the main responsibility of monitoring and supervising the development of the Internet, and forming positive online public opinion. Promote rational dialogue between the public and the government. At the same time, they should fully play their positive role in encouraging online opinion leaders to analyze government decisions and hot events positively and guide positive social opinions. Correctly view the subjective initiative of college students and give full play to their strengths, so as to build a positive and healthy online public opinion environment among young college students and promote the establishment of an online ideological security team. By relying on the party and government departments to strengthen network ideological security, and mobilizing the enthusiasm of network opinion leaders and college students, we can form a situation in which the party and government, opinion leaders and college students work together to modernize the network ideological security governance system and governance capacity, and firmly grasp the network ideological security governance system and governance capacity. Only by mobilizing the active participation of online opinion leaders and college students can we form a situation where “party and government, opinion leaders and college students” work together to build a modernized network ideological security governance system and governance capacity, and firmly grasp the dominant power of network ideological work.
By simulating the complex network public opinion evolution model and virus transmission model, this paper explores the relevant factors affecting the evolution of network public opinion, and designs the risk control strategy of college students’ network public opinion and the path of college students’ network security ideology construction.
Regardless of the value of the proportion of positive tendency
The BA scale-free network is selected as the research network, and the larger the degree average
Due to the localized association structure, the relationship between nodes within the association is relatively close while the relationship between nodes between associations is relatively sparse, which leads to the existence of nodes with small degree but large
