Raw Japan
Slices of Japanese business, politics and life
Japan’s election allergy on the Internet
Tech-savvy Japan is home to many high-tech companies and more than 70 percent of its people use the Internet. But politics on the Web falls far behind.
Both politicians and voters can be found online. Lawmakers have their own blogs and channels on sites such as niconico and youtube, and political parties such as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and main opposition Democratic Party of Japan have websites. A couple of politicians are even tweeting on ”Twitter“.
But now that the election looks set to be called for late August, Japanese politics will fall off the ‘Net, rather than ramping up in volume like it does in other countries.
Japan’s 59-year-old election law bans campaigns using visual images that can reach large numbers of readers during an election campaign. While written in the age of posters and pamphlets, the law has been interpreted as preventing Internet advertising.
Opposition lawmaker Seiji Ohsaka is one of the “tweeting” politicians but he has been told he must stop for the 12 days of official campaigning ahead of the election.
“With Twitter, I can send out information in a short, small, and compact way… It’s possible for those that do not seriously face politics on a regular basis to touch on it in a casual way,” Ohsaka told me, after sending 50 tweets during a debate between the prime minister and opposition leader in parliament.
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Welcome to Raw Japan, one of two new Reuters blogs focusing on Japan. This one is in English. The other is in Japanese and published on www.reuters.co.jp. They join other Reuters blogs that can be found at http://blogs.reuters.com/us/.
These new blogs reflect a determination to promote intelligent discussion of Japan. Most of the entries will come from Reuters journalists who depend on their ability to delve behind the scenes and produce balanced news reports about a country that is an economic powerhouse, a key strategic player, home to some of the world’s best known brands and a cultural trend-setter. The site will also be a flexible forum for the examination of issues that make Japan unique – from its politics and economy to society, culture, entertainment and history.
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While this new win definitely brings about “change” in Japan’s leadership, it’s still too early to say whether Japan will move away from it’s strong U.S. ties, and towards stronger Asia regionalism. Asia Chronicle actually recently wrote about this historic election, which you can read at (http://asiachroniclenews.com/).