Social Media And Civil Society In Japan

This book offers an overview of social media usage in Japan and describes its role in society during mid-level disruptions by natural disasters. Conceived during and after the Great East Japan Earthquake that devastated large portions of the north-eastern area of Japan, this volume addresses the links between Japanese civil society and the social media scene, using both traditional hypothesis testing, social surveys and large-scale big data analysis to provide insight into the development of an online community for connecting citizens. Considering the connection of civil society organizations, citizens and local governments through online communication, notably social media, and how to promote higher levels of citizen engagement in Japan, it offers solutions for a more prepared, resilient communication network among citizens in case of another large scale disaster.

Using case studies, interviews, and empirical sources, this book analyzes the strategies and impact of Internet use by civil society actors and asks how useful it is for their work – does the availability of Internet tools change the way citizens’ groups work, does it influence their effectiveness, and does it do so differently in Japan from other countries? Four fascinating studies take a closer look at the role of the Internet during the history textbook controversy; strategies of small citizen's groups; comparisons between internet use in Japan, Korea and Germany; and how the internet is used as a platform to discuss the dispatch of Japanese troops in Iraq. Isa Ducke has produced an original work that will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese politics, media and information technology and civil society.

Controversially, this book argues that the Japan that emerges from its manifold problems of the 1990s may be stronger than before.

This book explores encounters and interactions between international students and local civil society organizations (CSOs) in Japan. Based on the results of a cross-case analysis, this study reveals the possibilities for international students in Japan of creating social capital in the short term in culturally and socially diverse groups. While a conventional approach sees universities as the main support providers, this research shows the role of local CSOs as alternative actors offering international student support. Unlike the long-standing paradigm viewing Japanese civil society as top-down and closely following the government, this book uncovers many decentralized and bottom-up organizational types. Furthermore, it highlights an active part taken by foreign staff and volunteers in Japanese CSOs, which challenges the guest–host dichotomy of the previous literature. Presenting a reconsidered insight into the role of international students and their interaction with CSOs in community building, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies and migration studies as well as organizers of CSOs and faculty of international higher education institutions.

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Civic engagement is a concept of action that has become part of common vocabulary, not only in the West but also in many other regions of the world as well. A growing, yet still small number of scholarly works has recently emerged showing how in Japan citizen activism, volunteering, and social action for a public cause are dev- oping. This present volume is another, and in my view, important addition to the body of knowledge on civic engagement in Japan. The majority of books on related issues in Japan take on the perspective of organized civic life, in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or nonprofit organizations (NPOs): we know quite a number of things about the quantitative trends in these organizations, on their positioning, on their difficulties, and on the institutional contexts in which they have to work. We know relatively little – except for a small number of topical qualitative case studies – on broad issues that relate to civic engagement in Japan, inside or outside these formal organizations. This volume is the first to offer a wide scope of broad variety of forms of civic engagement in contemporary Japan. The volume is quite forceful in counterbalancing oversimplified ideas on an “ideal” civil society in which state, market, and civil society organizations are in- pendent and at best take on oppositional stances.

A look at the voluntary sector in Japan, which has emerged strongly only in recent years.

This book explores social movements and political activism in contemporary Japan, arguing that the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident marks a decisive moment, which has led to an unprecedented resurgence in social and protest movements and inaugurated a new era of civic engagement. Offering fresh perspectives on both older and more current forms of activism in Japan, together with studies of specific movements that developed after Fukushima, this volume tackles questions of emerging and persistent structural challenges that activists face in contemporary Japan. With attention to the question of where the new sense of contention in Japan has emerged from and how the newly developing movements have been shaped by the neo-conservative policies of the Japanese government, the authors ask how the Japanese experience adds to our understanding of how social movements work, and whether it might challenge prevailing theoretical frameworks.