2014 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
| Project/Area Number |
25330381
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| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
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Principal Investigator |
タック川崎 レスリー 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (70580497)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | Internet Campaigning / Political Communication / Online Research Methods |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Progress has continued in this research during the 2014-15 academic year in theoretical and practical approaches to data analysis and dissemination of research results. For data analysis, I was able to start intensive work on analyzing the websites and social media utilization of candidates in the 2013 Upper House election.
During the 2014-15 academic year, I made the following presentations at academic conferences: (1) Presentation entitled “Friends, Tweets, and Youtube: New Directions in Online Campaigning in Japan” at the Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference held in Daegu, South Korea from October 21 to 24, 2014; (2) Presentation entitled “A New Era in Japan Election Campaigning? Perspectives on ‘Big Data’ and Social Media Use in Japan’s Electoral Landscape“ at the Daegu Gyeongbuk International Social Network Conference held in Daegu, South Korea from December 11 to 13, 2014. A paper based on the results of this research has been accepted as a paper presentation Japan Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference to be held in Tokyo, Japan from May 20 to 24, 2015.
I also collected and archived additional data (candidate websites, Facebook, and Twitter data) during the December 2014 Lower House election. I also collected a similar data set involving Lower and Upper House Diet members during January and February 2015 for comparative purposes.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Although the project was slightly delayed in 2013-14, starting from mid-2015, particularly since August 2014 to March 2015, the project has gained momentum.
The reasons for this change are as follows. First, I was able to hire two coders/website archive assistants from January to February 2015. These two coders assisted me greatly in archiving the December 2014 election data as well as the Diet member data collection during the first two months of 2015. With their assistance, I have been able to put the project back on track and continue to make progress. Second, in preparing the presentations for the AoIR Conference (October 2014), the DISC Conference (December 2014), and the upcoming JSAC Conference (May 2015), I have been able to clearly see ways of analyzing each individual data set of election data from 2013 and 2014, as well as sitting Diet member data from early 2015. These rich data sets are yielding robust comparative data in terms of campaign and non-campaign media utilization, as well as providing valuable chronological datasets. Third, although public dissemination (through a project website and a planned international symposium) have been delayed to the 2015-16 academic year, arrangements have been made to create the website and plan the international symposium during the 2015-16 academic year.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The following activities are planned for 2015-16:
First, coders will continue the coding of the website, Facebook, and Twitter data during the first half of the 2015-16 academic year. Longitudinal comparison of the results of two election cycles (July 2013 Election and December 2014 Election) will be used to prepare the JSAC accepted paper for the May 2015 conference. Following the conference, these results will be publicly disseminated through a website. Two papers will be submitted to relevant academic journals by August 2015 and also translated into Japanese. Second, from May to August 2015, I will write chapter drafts of six chapters of an English-language book on the history of the Internet as a campaign medium in Japan, translating these chapters into Japanese. Sample chapters will be sent to publishers to secure publishing contracts for the English and Japanese formats. Third, focus-group interviews are planned for late August or early September 2015. As the results become available, I will also publicly disseminate them on the project website and incorporate the results into the planned book publication. Finally, a one-day international symposium is tentatively scheduled for mid-November 2015. I will invite one international speaker (an academic researcher) and two domestic speakers (at least one politician). The international symposium will be open to the public and the research community to attend. I will create a monograph of papers and presentations from the international symposium and publish it separately (in English and possibly Japanese).
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| Causes of Carryover |
During the 2014-15 academic year, the budget usage was lower than originally anticipated, however, progress was made in analyzing the research data with results starting to be disseminated to the public.
The budget amount requested in 2015-16 will cover costs related to disseminating the research results to a broad audience: through a project website, travel to academic conferences, a public symposium, and book/journal publications. The budgeted costs concerning translation of the planned book/journal publications are necessary to disseminate the project results to a wide audience in English and Japanese. In addition, the international symposium will be open to all and provide a venue for disseminating the research results to the general public.
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
I respectfully request to use the remaining balance in the 2015-16 academic year for this research project as follows:
Personnel Expenditures (Coders, website maintenance, administrative assistance for focus-group interviews, international symposium assistance and proceedings creation): 427,500 yen; Travel (domestic travel to JSAC, domestic interviews, domestic speakers for international symposium, international travel to DISC 2015, international travel for one researcher for international symposium): 645,800 yen; Goods to Purchase (computer, software, paper, ink cartridges, office supplies, research materials): 473,832 yen; Miscellaneous (project website creation, translation/checking for two papers and book chapters, conference website, publicity materials, library articles): 609,000 yen.
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Research Products
(3 results)
