2013. May 2 Future Media Politics in US and Japan Noriko Amanuma Waseda University Abstract United States has been known as one of the media political countries where Internet takes such a big role. My paper topic is going to be about the future of media politics in Japan learning the lessons from the United States.How can we Japan make full use of media power? My research question is as following: will it be possible for Japan to be an equal society where all people, young and old, men and women can express their feelings or opinions that can be reflected in the nation s policy. 1.Introduction First, the target of my research is the younger generations, especially people in their 20 s. I believe that the young generation is a key to lead to make our world to be a better environment, to be an equal society, and to be more peaceful and comfortable world to live for everyone in this world. Therefore, higher political participation from young people is needed to make a change for our society. In these years, it is said that young people do not engage in the politics in Japan. However, in my daily life, I ve heard some of my friends saying that I am following Shinichiro Abe (the current Japanese prime minister) on Twitter" what do you think about what Hashimoto(the current Osaka City mayor) tweeted yesterday?) I used to feel that political affairs are happening far away from us but now, I feel that political world getting closer to closer to us thanks to Internet technology. In Japan, for better or for worse, we have experienced frequent changes of our prime minister. Some people might say that it makes young people to feel that those
Japanese political leaders are useless and each of them has no difference. However I believe that this might be a chance for young people to engage in the politics using media power. To support my idea, the voting rate in Japan has been increased little by little in these years. 1 As well as the voting rate, I have got a number to show that how people have started to try to engage in the political election by looking at the reasons of abstention from voting. While 28.5% of voters in 2005 said because no interest in the election, however, only 12.6% said that they didn't vote because they has no interest in the selection in 2009. Here we can understand that less people have not interest in the election. 2 In that case, what would be the reason why more and more people now have interest in the political election? One of the answers is obviously the power of media. Today, the Internet has taken on such a big role in our daily lives: we collect information, vote for candidates, discuss politics, communicate with other supporters, and interact with the government officials through the Internet. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the usage of the Internet has drastically increased since the late 90's. 1 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000153570.pdf/ 2 GIGAOM http://gigaom.com/2013/04/06/why-home-wont-move-the-needle-forfacebook/
As you can see from the graph above, Internet services are supported by relatively young people. Today we have Social Networking Services ( SNS ) such as Facebook and Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004 while he was attending Harvard University and now it has been very popular by people all over the world. It is remarkable to see how fast the number of Facebook user is growing. There are 130 million smartphone users in the U.S. and currently 76 percent of U.S. smartphone users, or 98 million people, have the Facebook application installed on their phones. 3 Can SNS give young people a good influence in getting anticipating in the politics? 2. Literature Review 3 GIGAOM http://gigaom.com/2013/04/06/why-home-wont-move-the-needle-forfacebook/
Voting percentage from Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows that the voting rate of 20 s increased to nearly 50 percent in 2005 and 2009. In 2009, less people show no interest in the election. Internet services were supported by more young people in 2009. Since Facebook was founded, the number of users reached 800 million. 68% of the people knew that positions have SNS account. In the 2008 campaign, Obama received donations totaling approximately 750 million dollars, 88% of which came from individual donations. In contrast, most of Senator McCain s donations were corporatefunded. In 2012 his campaign, more than 550000 donors gave to the president's reelection effort with an average donation of 69 US dollars. media or social networking services also help to expand the out of media actions like canvassing, so called "offline actions" 3. SNS benefits Before looking at the current situations in the U.S. and Japan, let me clarify the pros and cons of Social Networking Services. Today, people are likely to get a chance to know
about the individual politician, get to know about other's political opinions and so far through social networking services. Next, people start to feel connected to the group that you are joining in and discuss the deeper topics and have closer conversation.for example, Facebook has a function called discussion board where people can freely bring up a topic and anyone can freely join the discussion as long as they talk along the topic. Another good use of social networking services Japan could learn are the visual effects. Through Internet media, it is much easier to get visual images of politicians or political affairs. As a good example of successful use of pictures is the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She puts a lot of pictures of her work both on Facebook and Flickr, which is one of the second generation social networking services and is for updating pictures mainly. Secretary of State Clinton put her natural-posed pictures instead of official posed-pictures, which makes people attracted to see it. It is one of the useful ways to see how popular the political figure is by counting how much follower his or her tweeter account has or to count how many "like" button his or her Facebook page has. Actually, the number of "like" button of her page is how much. 4. SNS deficits Although it is very convenient to use social networking service to get involved in the politics from the bottom level, however, we have to understand the pitfalls of social networking services. First, it is easy to join the discussion online, at the same time, it is also easy to put bad comments or unrelated topics. For instance, on the Facebook page of the Obama, there is a discussion board where people can voice their political ideas or opinions. What actually happened, is that some people bring up an unrelated topic or even slander Obama anonymously. Since it is open to everyone, it is difficult to regulate unneeded comments. Second, the credibility gap is an issue in the Internet. For example, during the 2008 campaign, it was widely reported upon that that Obama started to use Twitter to stay tuned in with his supporters. He tweeted regularly and people, including me was always excited to see his tweets but a while later, the news reported that his account was not official, his one of the secretaries actually run the account pretending he is Barack Obama. Therefore, you have to make sure that you can trust the resources or you should judge the account is official or not. The aim of this research paper is going to be examining the reasons why internet election or media politics could be successful in the United States and proposing possible solutions for the Japanese political system regarding internet services. It is important to understand the transition of media politics and the transition of the election style. I will employ quantitative measure to address my question -- looking at the data how big number of national governments are using social networking services and how many of governments and policy makers are now taking advantages of it to communicate with citizens. From those numbers, I would like to get some analysis and conclusions for my
thesis question. 2. The current situation in Japan First, let's look at the actual situations now Japanese college students have regarding to media politics and social networking services, I took a questionnaire to a number of Japanese university students about the use of social media by politicians. The first question is "do you know many politicians have a personal Facebook or/and Twitter accounts?"
From this result, we can know that the high recognition of the presence of Politicians' SNS accounts online. I asked the names of the politicians having a SNS account they actually know. The biggest number of the students wrote "Toru Hashimoto" who is the city mayor of Osaka, who has been known as the person using SNS very actively. He tweets averagely 5 times a day, 25 tweets a day when he has something to inform the 996064 followers. 4 It is also interesting to know some of them know American politicians have an account such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.The second question is "Is there any politician you follow on Twitter/ you push the "like" button/ you look at his or her online page on regular basis?" Some of the comments said that "I am somewhat repulsed by letting the politician know my personal name" or "When I see a lot of people do that, I would do. But if it is a few people, I would not do." we can say that it is yet far to reach for those SNS page to be a community where ordinary people easily indicate with politicians. I also asked them how frequent they go to the politicians online page. It actually really depends on how often each person goes online. Some check once a week, some do every in a few hours. The third question is "do you feel closer to the politicians who are using social networking services?" As you can see from this data, most people feel closer to the politicians who use SNS to communicate with citizens. Their comments are like "I can see the politician's personality more" or "I can get more information about where they are going to have the next speech or their events" or "I can understand his opinions more." At the same time, people who do not think SNS brings any change said, "I sometimes doubt whether the politician himself really posts that tweet or not." "I even look at their online posts, politicians are still far away from me." The last question is "with looking at those politicians social media sites, do you feel closer to the politics? " 4 TWITTER, http://mobile.twitter.com/t_ishin/tweets
The result of this research shows us that Social networking services are possible ways to make young people feel closer to the politicians or even politics. Therefore, politicians should be aware of the useful political marketing toward young people by using SNS power. However, the questionnaire shows us that only SNS cannot be the solution for the best way to get more supports from younger people. We still have to find better use of Internet media and try to find a way to communicate with young people. 5. The current situation in US To learn from the successful cases in other countries, it is important to look at the situations in the United States. President Barak Obama is famous for his great success of using social media in his 2008 campaign. He had his own official webpage where anyone can create an account and donate through that page. In the donation page, you can choose the amount of donation you would like to from 1 US dollar up to limitless. He made great use of social networking services to collect small donations from great numbers of people and it contributed his win the election. In the 2008 campaign, Obama received donations totaling approximately 750 million dollars, 88% of which came from individual donations. In contrast, most of Senator McCain s donations were corporatefunded. In 2012 his campaign, more than 550000 donors gave to the president's reelection effort with an average donation of 69 US dollars. 5 One of the improvements of his use of Internet strategy is expansion of network. When you go to Obama and Biden official webpage, you will see the donation page where you can donate starting from 5 US dollars. When you go to the Facebook page of Barack Obama, you will also see exactly the same donation page in there. His media strategy was to create new supporters by encouraging them to know more about him through connections two or three different media resources. This multiplied effect of Internet media is called "Net Katte Ren". Network Free Combination if it is translated in English. This 5 John MacCormick, Obama s 2012 Campaign Fundraiser List
means that once the politician creates the connections between one media to another media, the network of supporters will be expanded itself. Mitt Romney s official website has 2 jump buttons, which bring you to other social networking services. You may create the 2 other different online accounts. Then, people who look at your Facebook account and see you pushed the "like" button of Romney's page, they might get interested Romney's Facebook page. Moreover, they would be interested in the other Romney's related online page. Like this process, the network of people can keep getting bigger and bigger. Moreover, media or social networking services also help to expand the out of media actions like canvassing, so called "offline actions" During the 2012 election, I had an opportunity to experience to see the support the team of President Obama and Vice- President Biden. I was very impressed many college students voluntarily supported Obama and Biden when I visited one of the local constituency support of Obama. They called to every household around that area and check whether they support for Obama and make sure they are going to vote on the correct date and place. The fact is, canvassing does increase voter turnout. According to the institution for Social and Policy Studies, the turnout rate among those in the treatment group who were actually contacted by canvassers is slightly over 59%, and the turnout rate for those in the treatment group who were not contacted was 40%. 6 Therefore, not only Online activities but also Offline activities could contribute to the more active political society. On the contrast, We rarely see canvassing activities in the Japanese election. Why do America and Japan differ each other? Why is America successful in having more young people to participate in the politics? What can Japan learn from the Unites States? 6. Existing obstacles for Japan from taking the lessons of US To adopt the lessons from the United States, we must understand US and Japan have many political or institutional differences, which would be a obstacles for Japan to be successful in media politics. First of all, the political system itself is different. While the United States takes Presidency, Japan takes Parliamentary System. The way of voting for political leaders is also needed to compare. In the United States has the voting system called "winner-takes-all system", which means that on Monday after the second Wednesday of November, the qualified voters revote again based on the result of popular votes voted by all American citizens. While the United States take indirect election, Japan takes direct election. Japanese citizens do not choose our leader; we vote for a congress man who belongs to the political party voters support for. Then, the congress people who got the seats at the congress choose our prime minister. Therefore, it is hard for Japanese people to feel that their own votes lead a result of deciding our own leader. In Japan, due to the strict rules regarding use of the internet in political elections or 6 Alan Gerber and Donald Green, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University
political activities, the Japanese political system has fallen behind the times in terms of internet politics. We have Public Offices Election Law, which regulates the candidates for the over political actions during their campaigns. The Law prohibits the followings: 1. canvassing door to door, 2. setting a rest station, 3. conducting a campaign to collect signatures, and so on. It is almost impossible for Japanese political groups to make as many campaigns as U.S. citizens. There is a new change in terms of Internet campaign in Japan. The Ministry of Public Management used to ban the campaign bulletin on Internet due to fear of falsification of the information. Instead of using the Internet, candidates put their campaign bulletin as an inserted flyer of the newspaper or door-to-door distribution. However, after the East Japan Great Earthquake, the qualified voters in the stricken areas moved to another city. To reach those who were away from the electoral district, the Ministry relaxed the law and Internet campaign bulletin has started in all prefectures in Japan. 7 However, it is not still officially allowed to Internet election campaign. The Law says that newspaper and magazine advertisement, TV and radio commercial, Internet homepage and political activities via e-mail are all permitted as long as it is not on the campaign period. It indicates that those candidates who have more money are able to carry out more legal campaigns. Consequently, the Law blocks newcomers who are trying to get himself into the political world because it is necessary to have much money to push the candidate to the public in Japanese election system. 8 Another reason of prevention newcomers from joining to politics is "shared territorial bond." Politicians generally have a place where they have much supporters and long history of relationship with local citizens. This traditional bond makes young people almost impossible to win in the small electoral districts as long as the older candidates who have a strong connection with local people stay in that area. Another difference is the length of the campaign itself. In the Unites States, the whole election period is a full year, from January of the Olympic year to on January 20 when the inauguration of the President is held. Therefore, campaign itself lasts for almost 3 months; from October to December. In Japan, the period of campaigning is 17 days for the House of Councilors, and 12 days for the House of Representatives. It is strictly prohibited to conduct any election campaign when it is 7 JIJI, http://www.jiji.com/ Jijitsushin 2012/4/5 8 the Public Offices Election Law, by Ministry of Public Management, http://law.egov.go.jp/htmldata/s25/s25ho100.html
not on the election campaign period. This is a graph showing when the qualified voters decide their political mind to vote. It shows that almost half of the voters decide their mind in the last minute of the election period. This means that how important the election campaign and how big the chance of changing people's mind in the last minute. 7. Case study of successful use of SNS in Japan 7.1. Case in Takeo City To propose the possible solutions for Japanese government to be successful for Internet politics, let's look at some successful cases of using social media in Japan. Takeo City, Saga Prefecture which is southern part of Japan island, is one of the remarkable local governments in terms of the great use of social media. Keisuke Hiwatashi, the city mayor of Takeo City says, "Facebook would be able to become an entrance to face to face public relations. Facebook tells the users who actually sends a message, enable people who couldn't voice to the city government, to talk to them directly online, and make staff members take a responsibility to speak up though social media. When we put a policy plan on Facebook, local citizens would push "like" button or leave a comment or feeling about it, which makes us easier to get a feedback from the citizens directly and to judge the new policy. In this case, it makes those citizens feel closer to the local government. " 9 7.2. Case in Kesennuma City 3.11, the East Japan Big Earthquake shows us how efficient and how convenient social media worked to inform to people in emergency. Since phone services were all out of service right after the earthquake, many people used social media to contact to their family and friends to make sure their safety each other. Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, where the whole city was devastated by Tsunami, sent out a message saying "a big tsunami warning, take refuge on a hilltop" on Twitter nine minutes after the big earthquake occurred. It was the fastest information among the local governments in the stricken area. As comparing the number of Twitter followers before and after the great earthquake, for example, on Kesennuma City Government's Twitter, it increased from 617 to 22000 followers now. This fact can show that many people have started to be aware of the importance of social media to get useful information. To adjust our society into a new technology world where social networking services are commonly used to communicate, the governmental support are also necessary. Ministry of Finance and Ministry declared a new instruction. It introduces some advices and warnings when it comes to use of social media. It also encourages more and more official governments to use social media to inform to the citizens immediately and communicate with them more closely. To solve the problem of trustiness, the Japanese government has 9 Kohokaigi 2011.9
developed the scheme where the official government can safely create it's account and users can know it is an official one or not. 7.3. Case in Rikuzentakada City This city showed how convenient and valuable SNS was after 3.11. Right after the big earthquake, all of electricity shut down and telephone communication got out of service. In the situation where people had no way to contact to family, Internet greatly worked. People who were able to connect to the Internet sent a message on Facebook or Twitter, even could talk on Skype. Now, after the disaster, there is a movement in the city called "make a wifi city." Japan cannot avoid the natural disaster such as earthquakes and tsunami in the future as well and the important thing is to prepare for the next one, not to make the same mistake. Mr. Ishiki, the president of Takada Hospital said that well-united community is a key to recover from the disaster. Local people also have started to consider of trying to use a SNS to be ready for another sudden occasion where they cannot reach the telephone connection. From those voice, the local government has started to work on the measures to deal with another natural calamities by making the whole city provided wifi services where every local citizen can get free wifi Internet connection. 8. Conclusion Even though I understand how great and how efficient the SNS service is for politics, I stri am still a supporter of local and traditional ways to take political actions. During the 2012 election, I had an opportunity to experience to see the support the team of President Obama and Vice-President Biden. I was very impressed with how people were trying hard to support Obama and Biden even though they would never be able to actually see the two men. We visited one of the local constituency support of Obama and we saw many local people, including both local and international students, retired people and various ethnicities. They call to every household around that area and check whether they support for Obama and make sure they are going to vote on the correct date and place. We also had a opportunity to do canvassing for Obama. First, we got a file of the date of local citizens and then tried to make a contact with those who were absent from the first visit of canvassing group. We sometimes got a chance to talk to some of the citizens and learned how they felt about the 2012 election and how they expected Obama to be in charge of national affairs. From this experiences, I felt that media is good and very useful, however, sometimes it is better to actually meet people, talk to them, and exchange opinions. You can get more emotions and feel closer to others. It's time to change, it's time for everyone to adjust ourselves to the new technology era. It is not the time anymore where the governmental officials send out one-way information to the citizens, it is the time where the governments and the citizens to have two-way communications. As well as the government, the policy makers, politicians also need to try to interact with the voters or even younger people aged under 20 through social
media. What about making a new smartphone application where people can freely join the politics? When you have a question about a certain environmental problem, that application brings you to the politician who is an expert on that area then you can ask him or her a question. All in all, I believe that SNS service would be a effective way for politicians to make more people to participate in the political election.