I recently realized that the way of people getting information changed from passive to active in terms of viewers. In the past (and now), when we read newspapers and watch TV, we receive the information, each day by paper delivery or just turning on TV. But, after the Internet came out, we search information in the search engine of Google, yahoo!, YouTube, etc. We spontaneously obtain information.

People hoping watch movies and other programs join Netflix by paying per month. Also, in Japan, there’s a medium called NewsPicks specializing business news. People now can choose a medium depending on their preference without waiting broadcasting hours of each program.

Some may think that in the time when there’s no Internet, people were choosing TV program on their own. That is true but the emergence of the Internet enabled people to choose his/her favorite one from a wide range of stocks online. I would say that the time people were just watching TV without choosing what they want was longer than the current situation. In that context, as people watch programs by their preference, they subscribe media even if it cost subscription fees like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.

In the meantime, not just watching favorite programs, but it is sure that we need to have a online community that covers what’s mainly going on a society. This is covered by the headline of Yahoo!, Google News, and the timeline of Twitter, for example. Since these can cover up the necessity of information in our life, we often hear that the younger generations do less watch TV than the past.

Upload: 27 January 2019, Last update: 17 June 2019

As technology develops, our life is getting digitalized. Computer literacy is necessary for each of us now. Workers manage documents by computer, students make essays on laptop, and so on. However, there’s threat of cyberattack and being stolen information.

For example, we would see many news of cyberattack into the government data base or other confidential data sources in the future. In our life level, right now banks are becoming paper-less. In Japan, people were using paper-bankbook, but now it is managed on the Internet. We can see out bank account on the web, in the meantime as it actually happened before[1], we have a risk of being scanned bank information. Previously, I remember Japan had a case that a web page identical to the actual bank website which was collecting bank-user information. And as another case, hackers attacked university servers and got personal information of university professors and students.

In the modern digitalized world, there’s always threat of cyberattack. Certainly technology would govern our world more and more, but the importance of analogue would still remain. Confidential information might be better to kept in safe in analogue because of no risk of cyber attack. I will not be surprised if in the future people return to analogue life again.

[1] As the following website warned, URL was sent by email which asks people to fill out their bank information to log in their bank account on the almost same website as the existing bank web. https://www.spread.or.jp/phishing/2016/08/29/2604/ Accessed 17 June 2019

Among Japanese people, I realize that quite many people are not aware of importance of journalism. Journalism which provides deeper news to the public is important for democracy.

As UN special rapporteur David Kaye came to Japan several years ago and published his report, journalism in Japan is facing crisis. The main roles of journalism are that providing investigative information to citizens, prevent corruption of the power including the government and major corporations and so on. Journalism against the power is basic structure and there’s always tension between them, but I think a lof of people in Japan do have less awareness of the importance. Especially even among Japanese journalists, it seems that the number of investigative journalists is not enough. What is really surprising is that some people are condemning several journalists who are doing great job at press conference as interrupting or disturbing it. If investigative journalism doesn’t work, misconducts and wrongdoings happen easily. In order to make the politics clean and not allow corruption, the role of journalism is significant and should be encouraged.

In addition, the consciousness of Journalism as watch dog is too weak in Japanese society. Some people criticize the mainstream media are on the side of the government. Especially, controversial incidents were the former chairperson of NHK said “When the government says right, they cannot say left”[1] and the remark of the former Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications implying that the government can suspend the broadcasting if TV program is politically biased. The independency of media is not protected in Japan and this is influencing negatively on Japan’s journalism.

Most importantly, journalism is beneficial to every person for a country. Each person needs to catch up with news which is not manipulated and comes from media protected independency. Like some independent media organisations in overseas countries, for example, Democracy Now! and Korean Center for Investigative Journalism – Newstapa, investigative media organisation not sponsored by major corporations but citizens might be trend for journalism. I don’t think journalism in Japan is investigative enough except some limited number of journalists. Not only journalists, but every citizen has to be paying attention to what those who having power are doing. I hope we can get our of this crisis soon.

Footnote

[1]ANNnewsCH. (2016). 物議醸したNHK籾井会長　任期満了で退任決まる(16/12/06). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsiuskfmBH4 Accessed 25 January 2018

Fake news is often spread via social media, but there’s a aspect of preventing fake-news in a case that a influential person uses them.

Traditionally weekly magazines publish articles on celebrities’ scandals or gossips. But in recent days, I often see that some of those information are denied by celebrities themselves. At present, almost all the famous people are having their own media which they can express their own comments like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

In these days, a Japanese weekly magazine made an article on the most famous Kabuki actor. The article says he doesn’t get along with another famous actor. The former posted his comment on his blog saying the article is not true.

It depends on the kinds of articles magazines report, but when it comes to some articles which use quite dubious information, the celebrities can post counterargument convincing their fans that the article is not true. Since weekly magazines need to get attention from readers, they look like exaggerating the topics. However, as the article was denied on his blog this time, now those articles came to not make sense. Publishers would even get condemned by the fans of a person written on the article. Generally fake-news is spread via the Internet, but in this case social media help preventing fake-news.

Apart from the case above, there’s another one that social media as a means of expressing his/her own words has significant importance. Recently there was an incident that a member of popular idol group was attacked by men. Later she criticized the insufficient action of the company she belongs on the Internet. As Japanese sociologist Noritoshi Furuichi commented on TV show, the social network services helped her express her own words.

Establishment of social network services as a means of expressing own statements can help people suffering from lack of place to mention their words and reduce the spread of fake-news. This is one of the benefits the technology brought.

The principle of non-hierarchy will be getting more important and essential in the future or even the present. In various scenes, hierarchy causes a lot of problems. Commonly, in a workplace where the decision-making is top-down, opinion exchange between the top and the bottom is almost impossible and workers in lower level come to have complaints. As the scale of a company gets bigger, it’s not wise to have hierarchy. This can be adapted to a political case, particularly, this article tells the case of France and Japan.

For example, in Japan, the current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe doesn’t hold press conference regularly and doesn’t talk in public so often. Even if he talks in public, those are kind of one-side talking and I have an impression that he is not so good at getting along with citizens via media. Those his attitudes causes grievances of his politics from the public accumulated more and more. Recently he appeared on TV for talking about US base in Okinawa, but because of his remarks on that show, he got more condemned. I feel PM Abe is not good at communicating with citizens via media and this is aggravating the trust between politics and citizens.

On the other hand, look at the case of French President Emmanuel Macron, he often speaks to the citizens. In the presidential elections, his debates with other candidates or commentators were impressive. Also, after the movement of yellow vests began and expanded, he gave his speech which was viewed by 23.06 million people in France according to Le Parisien[1]. Moreover, this week, he had the national grand debate broadcasted by franceinfo throughout the country. Those his exchange of opinions are important to get public understanding for politics.

The current French Macron’s model is the way the top is trying to getting closer to lower level and make the hierarchy less than the case of Japan in terms of political dialogue. From now on, we need to think about and implement systems for how we can eliminate hierarchy in our society. This could be solved partly by improving systems which will be helped by technology, but in other parts, we need to spontaneously raise awareness and make our best effort for this matter. What is the most important is the attitude of top to receive all of voices from others, especially the top needs to be closer to the lower and this would enable the concept of low to be disappeared. Especially Japanese PM Abe needs to change his mind and should listen to the public opinions.

[1]http://www.leparisien.fr/politique/gilets-jaunes-macron-mise-sur-l-apaisement-12-12-2018-7966398.php Accessed 19 January 2018