2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Domestic and International Online Discourse on Polarized Issues: The Case of Japanese Whaling
| Project/Area Number |
19K01442
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 06010:Politics-related
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| Research Institution | Hitotsubashi University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
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| Keywords | social media / Twitter / political communication / whaling / comfort women / Tokyo Olympics / polarization / Japanese politics |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
I assembled a comprehensive database of Japanese politicians' and their followers' Twitter accounts. Using this database I was able to investigate the structure of Japan's online political population, the levels of interest and sentiment of politicians and their followers in polarized issues. The salience of Japanese whaling as an issue on social media has declined since Japan abandoned its "scientific" whaling programme in the Antarctic in late 2018. I therefore analyzed online discourse about the "comfort women" issue in addition to whaling. On the international side I analyzed how the "comfort women" issue has been written about on English Wikipedia, using network analysis to discover patterns of interactions between editors with conflicting views of history. One article for a refereed journal (on the Olympics) and one book chapter (on "comfort women") are currently in the final stages of editing. I am now planning a book that will introduce my findings across all three issues.
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| Free Research Field |
political science
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
This research offers insights into polarization in Japanese politics. It shows how international communication on polarized issues takes place on a micro-level, which has implications for cultural diplomacy. The database allows further investigation of online political communication.
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