2015 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 / Political Advertising / Permanent Campaign |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
During the 2015-16 academic year, progress has continued on this research in terms of theoretically and practically formulating the coding scheme for the 2013 Upper House election candidate website content analysis, as well as the content analysis of the collected social media (Twitter and Facebook).
In May 2015, I made a presentation at the Japan Studies Association of Canada (JSAC) conference in Tokyo (May 20-24, 2015). The presentation (“New Directions or Old Campaign Practices? Japanese Candidates Online in 2013 and 2014”) compared candidate usage statistics of the July 2013 Upper House election and the December 2014 Lower House election. Two interviews were conducted with local politicians about campaign use of the Internet and campaign practices. One interview was conducted in preparation for youth-oriented focus-group interviews to be conducted during the 2016-17 academic year. I also purchased election-related newspaper data to use as historical source material for preparing the book/manuscript chapter on the historical use of the campaign Internet.
I employed two people on a short-term basis during 2015-16 to assist me with creating lists of politician URLs, gather resources for the literature review for this projects, and assist with developing a coding scheme. The coding scheme draws on existing theory concerning campaign use of the Internet, but also originally reflects trends exhibited in Japan during the 2013 and 2014 election cycles involving media segmentation, political advertising and branding, and social media as a campaign involvement media.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
During the course of the 2015-16 academic year, work continued steadily on the project with regards to (1) preparing a sound academic literature review as well as historical review of the use of the Internet during election campaign periods in Japan; and (2) developing a coding scheme for the website and social-media data. The development of the coding scheme in particular necessitated a qualitative review of the websites and formulating a combined coding scheme that incorporates traditional approaches to website content analysis (based on the author’s previous research) as well as political advertising and social-media-use components.
The researcher requested that the research funding be carried over to the following academic year (2016-17) to gather data from the 2016 Upper House election. The anticipated 2016 will be added to the 2013 Upper House election data set to be used for historical comparative purposes.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In order to add to the existing data set of websites from the 2013 Upper House election, the research activities this year will focus on the following activities. First, in order to assess attitudes towards Internet-based campaign activities, small-group (focus group) and individual interviews will be conducted with young voters before the July 2016 election, with followup questionnaires and interviews conducted after the election during August/September 2016. Second, candidate websites will be archived during the period immediately prior to the Upper House election scheduled for July 2016. Social media data will also be archived using updated NVivo software (purchased in early 2016). This data will be analyzed and compared to the existing 2013 Upper House election data set to assess any changes in trends in Internet-based campaigning. Third, academic journal articles and a book (in English and Japanese) will be prepared using the 2013 and 2016 Upper House election data sets. Fourth, during October/November 2016, a one-day symposium/workshop will be held with presentations focusing on the comparative results of and methodological approaches used in this research.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I have applied to have funding carried over to the 2016-17 academic year for the following reason. Owing to changes in the Japanese law that will lower the voting age to 18 years of age, gathering and analyzing web-based data (websites and social-media data such as Facebook and Twitter usage) during the 2016 election cycle will allow comparison with the website and social media data collection in the 2013 election cycle. The resulting longitudinal analysis will shed new light on campaign-oriented website practices and new-media usage.
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
I intend to use the carried-over funding to undertake the following: (1) Continue interviews to be conducted in small groups (focus groups) and individuals, with an emphasis on young voters; (2) Attendance at two academic conferences, namely, the Japan Studies Association Conference (JSAC) to be held in October 2016 and the Conference for E-Democracy & Open Government (CeDEM Asia 2016) to be held in December 2016; (3) Short-term employment assistance to prepare for a one-day symposium/workshop to be held in October/November 2016; and (4) translation and checking book manuscript (November-December 2017).
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| Remarks |
A website is currently being prepared.
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