2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Effects of Social Networks and News on Political Affections

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23730135
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Politics
Research Institution	Kyoto University
Principal Investigator	SHIRASAKI Mamoru 京都大学, 大学院・文学研究科, グローバル COE 研究員 (30362560)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2012
Keywords	マスメディア / ソーシャル・ネットワーク
Research Abstract	From the panel data set collected in the Japanese Election StudyIII, 2001-2005 (JES:III), a panel analysis was conducted on the data sets collected in 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2005,which were the years that national elections were held during the Koizumi administration, which itself ran from 2001 to 2006. In the paper, the effects that Social Networks and TV news had during the period of the Koizumi administration on voters’ feelings toward Prime Minister Koizumi, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in terms of their scores on the Feeling Thermometer Scale is discussed, and the process by which voters were affected by Social Networks and TV news during the formation period for the two-party system - which came to be made up of an established political party, the LDP, and a new political party, the DPJ - is clarified.