Tut 1: Wired Japan: Social, Economic, Political usage of Internet
From Asian Digital Cultures
Contents |
[edit] History of the Telecommunications Industry in Japan
Since 1925 the Japanese broadcasting industry, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (Nippon Hoso Kyokai) has dominated the field of development and implementation. In 1953 television broadcasting began, with colour television introduced in 1960. Cable followed in 1969 and in 1978 an experimental broadcast satellite with two color television channels was launched. The Japanese telecommunications industry rapidly expanded in the 1980s, owing largely to the increased improvements in technology. Optical fibres, satillites and the fax machine all innnovated, diversified, and challenged the way Japanese citizens previously communicated. In 1984 and 1990 the earliest form of operational satellites for television transferal were launched simultaneously with teletext, and sound multiplexwhich contributed to the improvement of television significantly. At this stage of the industry's development, Japan was the global leader in telecommunications, a position that was later lost to the United States as a result of their successful "Dot.Com" industry and emerging economically driven "Tiger" states in other parts of Asia.
[[http://www.teltarif.de/i/imode-1m.jpg
[edit] History of the Internet in Japan
[edit] Developmental phase and Challenges:
During the 1980s, the internet emerged in Japan through different, but ultimately inter-related, fields of development. The challenge at this early developmental stage was to unify and strengthen newtworking systems into one, cohesive whole. The earliest form of digital networking officially emerged through the necessity for certain Japanese universities to communicate with each other. In 1984, a research network linking Keio University, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the University of Tokyo was instigated, and was known as UnixNETwork (JUNET) (Gottlieb & McLelland: 2003). This network was basically a rudimentary version of the internal intranets used by schools, governments, universities, and other companies all over the world today.
Following on from this first developmental phase, the early Internet systems branched into two categories; Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE), and commercial online PC networks, abbreviated as “Paso-Tsu”. The two networks were controlled and orchestrated by government bodies and affiliated research institutes in this early stage. The primary challenge facing the developers of Japan's internet industry was to fortify and refine its use as a government tool and essentially further the development of network technology, whilst its function as a potential portal for public communication and use was a secondary goal. The Japanese public was not granted internet access until 1993, and was made available as both a social avenue and one with significant economic potential- in essence Japanese citizens began to use the internet in both a private and a commercial capacity. As a result, the internet as a new found avenue for communication sky-rocketed. (Gottlieb & McLelland: 2003)
Timeline of development of the WIDE Project
[edit] Challenges and Opportunities for the industry:
Once established and functioning, a challenge the internet industry created for other traditional media outlets was its significant implications on the revenue and circulation figures of the press industry. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) reported that in as early as 1998, there were more than 18 million Web pages in Japan- a figure which had almost doubled from a report of only six months earlier. It was also revealed that the website characters, when added together, constituted more than the total number of characters published in Japanese newspapers and magazines in that same year.
An occurrence which presented an opportunity for further development of the internet industry in Japan was the simultaneous development of the Mosaic WWW browser in the USA (Gottlieb & McLelland: 2003). This new interface allowed a more user-friendly approach to public use the internet, giving more power and control to the average user without having needed significant technological training or computer experience. In a psychological sense, this meant the internet was somewhat disconnected from its previous administrative, moderated connotations, and could be viewed more as an approachable, acessible, and readily available communication mode for the Japanese people.
Evidence of the impact this occurrence brought was the emergence of an incredible amount of Japanese-language sites in a relatively short period of time at the turn of the twenty-first century. After English, Japanese became the second most widely used language on the internet in a short period of time. Only in 2001 did Chinese momentarily surpass its use, with Japanese regaining its position as second three months later. It must be noted that however astounding this achievement is, Japanese pages are rarely viewed by non-native speakers, which demonstrates how insular internet use has been in Japan compared with the rest of the world. (MIT, 2005)
Government IT Strategy Timeline
[edit] Reference
Gottlieb, Nanette,; McLelland, Mark J. (2003)Japanese Cybercultures : Asia's Transformations New York, Taylor & Francis.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (2005) Personal, Portable, Pedestrian : Mobile Phones in Japanese life, London, MIT Press.
[edit] Social usage of the Internet
[edit] Internet as a social tool
Wired Japan - the Internet is credited as the information hub that such a technologically dependent country could not survive without. With one of the highest rates of Internet users in the world, many Japanese require the net for entertainment, news and communications.
[edit] Social networking
While Japanese are one of the most active Internet users globally, blogging, to date the most popular Internet activity worldwide, had a late start in the nation due to the lack of blogging software in Japanese. Internet forums are still the predominant arena for information exchange and social networking, stated the Japanese Ministry of International Affairs and Communications. (Soumu, 2005). Forums such as the famous 2Channel, thought to be the largest forum in the world, offers many young Japanese a form of social bonding and information exchange, and have a large impact on traditional forms of mass media such as television, radio and print. Serving almost as a channel for citizen journalism, issues and topics raised on 2Channel usually serve a large amount of public and national interest, such as when Nike raised a controversial billboard in a popular part of Town in 2007. After a large protestation on the forum, officials were forced to remove the advertisement, showing the power that such a unison, social forum could offer. (Katayama, 2007)
[edit] Cyberfeminism
The Internet also offers a voice to minority groups, and cyberfeminism has notably been on a sharp incline.While women comprise only 37% of Japan's online population as of March 2000, this number grew significantly, with Japanese women approaching 50% of the online population by 2003, as estimated by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Being in a predominantly male-dominant culture, cyberspace is a form of media that can offer specific female-only arenas, or offer women opportunities to bypass the bias of gender stereotyping.
A report by New York Times in 2000 stated many Japanese women are forced to leave their jobs after marriage or after having children. Seeing a need for change, one woman founded a virtual company which attempts to put to use the skills of women who want to work at home. (Strom, 2000) Entrepreneurs have also caught on to the profitability of such online businesses for women and several large, reknown organizes have offered their backing. Sites in this category include Excite Women, Career-Mam, Coolgirls Japan for instance. (Howe, 2000)
[edit] Mobile Keitai Internet
When defined, Keitai refers to "something to carry with you" in Japanese, but portable phones are often referred to with that term. With Keitai usage in Japan dating as early as 1953 and a reported 89.5% of Internet usage rates, Japan is the world's highest user of such techonology. No small wonder then that, "Imode", a service launched by NTT Docomo, which was launched in Japan in 1999, provides users wireless Internet, was a hit among youths of the nation, and to date remains the leading service provider. (MIT, 2005) Since May 2001, 36.9 million Japanese cellular subscribers have access to Internet enabled cellular telephones, representing well over half of Japan's 62 million cellular users, and the growth rates appear to be strong. In terms of the most frequent activity done using wireless Internet, Japanese Internet-enabled cellular telephone users reported using email more than anything else, with entertainment applications running a close second. Statistics by NTT Docomo show that entertinament sites received 64% of accesses to official sites listed on the i-mode default menu, with news and weather as the next most popular category (19%), followed by ticket reservation sites at 5% and financial services with 4%. (Kemper, 2001)
[edit] Distribution of media online
The global distribution offered by the Internet provides the export of Japanese media products, such as anime, manga, Japanese dramas are popular downloads, especially through websites and channels such as Bittorent.com. One particular form of Japanese media that has been widely distributed online are self published works, known as Doujinshi. Usually created in a form of anime or manga, Doujinshi are often created by fans and involve a degree of "borrowing", in which the writer creates their own stories and art out of the originals. Successful Doujinshi artists usually score a large number of fans, and some even move on to create their own studios - one of Japan's most famous animation companies, Clamp, was formed in such a manner. In the past, Doujinshi's main form of distribution was through print, but nowadays the Internet is rampant with such forms of media, where sites such as www.dojinonline.com offer its members downloads of popular doujinshi for a monthly membership.
[A cover of a Doujinshi [1]]
![[1]](http://bemmu.pp.fi/11990.jpg){kind=link}
However, the easy availability of such content has resulted in a large circulation of Hentai, (meaning perverted) as well. Not just a typical form of pornographic content as viewed in many Western contexts, Hentai in Japan is often closely linked to anime, manga and Doujinshi. While sexual relations can be exhibited through video content and real actors, the media focus on anime and manga culture in Japan has resulted in large amounts of fan made, or animated pornographic content as well. Indeed, the social networking of the net provides access to darker content.
[edit] References
Barlow, Aaron. (2005), The DVD Revolution: Movies, Culture and Technology, Greenwoord, Praeger, pg. 72.
Hentai.co.uk. (2006) Hentai: The Past and Present, Hentai.co.uk. Available from <http://www.hentai.co.uk/articles/hentai_past_and_present.htm> [Accessed 21st May 2001]
Howe, Rachel. (2000) Japanese Women Online - Driving Internet Growth in Japan, International Business Research. Available from <http://www.international-business-research.com/JapaneseWomenOnline.html> [Accessed 15th May 2001]
Jacobson, David. (2005) Statistics on Internet usage, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Available from: <http://www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2005/pdf/050517_3_1.pdf> [Accessed 15th May 2001]
Katayama, Lisa. (2007) 2-Channel gives Japan's famously quiet people a mighty voice, Wired.com. Available from: <http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/04/2channel> [Accessed 13 May 2001]
Kemper, Steve (2001), Wireless Internet in Japan: Offered localized services, Multilingual computing and technology, Vol. 12 (1). Available from < http://www.tkai.com/press/Multilingual.Wireless.pdf> [Accessed 15th May 2001]
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005, Personal, Portable, Pedestrian : Mobile Phones in Japanese life, London, MIT Press.
Stephanie Strom. (2000) Rising Internet Use quietly transform way Japanese live, UCLA Center for East Asian Studies. Available from: <http://www.isop.ucla.edu/eas/newsfile/japansociety/000514-nyt.htm> [Accessed 15th May 2001]
[edit] Social problems of the Internet
Unfortunately, social problems, in which the Internet has been blamed as a contributory factor, are many - global issues such as pornography, social alienation, Internet addiction and escapism are just some. In Japan however, such problems manifest themselves in unique ways.
[edit] Hikikomori
A prevalent problem in the land of the rising sun, Hikikomori, which refers to someone who secludes him/herself in his/her home or room to an excessive degree, is an increasing social problem in Japan, as there are an estimated more than one million young people who qualify as Hikikomori. (Rutledge, 2005) With a dominantly 80% of which are male, this cultural phenomena has been debated by many psychologists worldwide, who have pointed to many possible causes for the problem, such as school bullying, parenting problems, a declining economy, peer pressure and academic pressure. Notably however, during the time in which these Hikikomori shut themselves in, they spend their time watching TV or surfing the Internet, of which the Internet serves as their main form of social contact. (Gordon, 2000)
[edit] Cyber Bullying
Japan's perennial school bullying problem has also taken itself online, in which Mainichi News Japan reported that a total of 8037 reported cases of online slander or defamation was received by the National Police Agency in Japan last year, showing a 39% increase since 2006. The tactic most often used by the bullies include creating "underground school sites" that link to the official school site. Intended to provide forums for information exchange among students, the culprits would instead post up malicious content about their peers on the Internet, sometimes even offering cell phone numbers and addresses. (Connell, 2007) However, the largest and most prominent social problem in which the Internet is a direct form of communication appears to be online suicide pacts.
[edit] Internet Suicide Pacts
A disturbing trend has been noted among young Japanese towards the beginning of the 1990s, in which the Internet serves a social forum for people intending to commit Jisatsu, or suicide. A report by BBC Asia stated that the Internet was blamed as the root cause of online suicides, in which groups of people who seek to kill themself go online in search of a group or partner to perform the deed. When interviewed, the writer of the Tokyo stop suicide manual, Yukiko Nishihara, alleged that such Internet groups are "almost like a cult", and when people are "lonely and suicidal but afraid of death, they find these web sites which egg them on". (Harding, 2004)
[edit] References
Connell, Ryan (2007) Japan's schoolyard bullies go high-tech, teachers left eating virtual dust, Available from <http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20070517p2g00m0dm027000c.html> [Accessed 20th May 2001]
Gordon, Bill. (2000) Internet's influence on social interactions in Japan. Available from <http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/wwwpaper.pdf> [Accessed 20th May 2001]
Harding, Andrew. (2004) Japan's Internet Suicide Clubs, BBC Asia. Available from <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4071805.stm> [Accessed 20th May 2001]
Rutledge, Bruce. (2005) Kuhaku and other accounts from Japan. London, Chin Music Press. p 206.
[edit] Statistics of the economic usage of Internet in Japan over the past 5 years
The thriving Internet trade in Japan has also resulted in large profitable revenues for the Internet businesses. The tables below show that the internet has been becoming an important part of the Japan economy - with a significant increase in Internet usage has between 2000 to 2006. The amount of people purchasing goods over the internet has also been increasing at a steady rate since 2003, in which a big part of the internet usage in Japan is attributed to the cell phone users in Japan. By the end of 2005, there where 8.178 million people that where subscribed to mobile phone internet and a large increase in broadband subscriptions.
[edit] Internet usage statistics in Japan
| Year | Users | Population | % Population | source |
| 2000 | 47,080,000 | 126,925,843 | 37.1% | ITU |
| 2005 | 78,050,000 | 128,137,485 | 60.9% | C+I+A |
| 2006 | 86,300,000 | 128,137,485 | 67.2 | C+I+A |
[edit] Telecommunication Services (Numbers in 10,000s)
| Year | ISDN Subscribers | Cell Phone Subscribers |
| 2000 | 970 | 6094 |
| 2004 | 798 | 8700 |
| 2005 | 750 | 9179 |
[edit] Internet Subscribers in Japan (Numbers in 10,000s)
| Year | Cable | DSL | FTTH(Fiber to the Home) | Mobile phone Internet |
| 2004 | 296 | 1368 | 290 | 7655 |
| 2005 | 331 | 1452 | 546 | 8178 |
[edit] Purchases of goods and services through internet(in percent)
| year | by PC | by cell phones |
| 2003 | 36.8 | 7.4 |
| 2004 | 38 | 7.3 |
| 2005 | 39.7 | 8.6 |
[edit] References
Japan Internet Usage Stats and Telecommunications Reports, Available from <http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/jp.htm> [Viewed 15 May 2007]
(2007) Japan in Figures, Available from <http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/figures/index.htm> [Viewed 15 May 2007]
[edit] Political
This area of reseach looks at the development, implementation, and implications of an electronic government in Japan, and the reasons the Japanese government called for this form of electronic administration. The philosphy and strategy towards employing this style of administration is also addressed.
The “ E-Japan” Strategy and the development of an electronic government
Political Activism through the Internet- Case Study: “Network 21”
[edit] Group Members:
Ru Owyong S3148118
Laura McIntosh S3106902
Louis S3144019