Upload: 16 February 2019. Last update: 14 December 2019.

Even though I have an impression that the Japanese government is more being closed to the public or giving information one-sidedly, when we look at US and France, they are trying to reflect the public opinion by using the Internet and have political dialogue with citizens.

First in US, as Japanese citizens have been using it to stop the Henoko landfill, the White House has the petition site called We the People which was created by the former president Barack Obama[1]. It enables people to get a official response from the government if they could assemble “100,000 signatures in 30 days”[2].

As another case, France is now conducting the grand débat national (national grand debate) from 15 January to 15 March 2019 in terms of “local meetings”[3]. There are many debates held, for example the President Macron talked with mayors and students, and the Minister of justice had a debate in a prison[4]. On the website of the national grand debate, it says that people can organise and join local meetings, and also can post their propositions online.

In Japan, there are petition sites every person can start a project, but it doesn’t guarantee that the government responds like the one in US. And in the case of Henoko, Japanese used the American system meaning that Japan doesn’t have similar way of expressing opinions. The advancement of technology can reflect the opinion of the public to politics more efficiently if the system is set up. Even the cases of US and France I describes in this article, I think we can have better ideas and make a better system that the political system can assemble civil opinion effectively.

The scale of a society gets larger, it is more difficult to have transparency between the decision makers and citizens. The political dialogue between them is important and technology can be a solution to reflect public opinions to politicians effectively.

[1]Pew Research Center’s article on the background of the petition system. http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/28/the-background-of-the-we-the-people-website/ Accessed 15 February 2019

[2]https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ Accessed 15 February 2019

[3]https://granddebat.fr/# Accessed 7 February 2019

[4]http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2019/02/15/01016-20190215ARTFIG00289-grand-debat-les-detenus-font-entendre-leurs-voix.php Accessed 15 February 2019

The ratio of people gaining news from only the Internet and not watching TV is increasing. Think of the media’s situation in Japan, we can see the information gap between TV and the Internet. It means that the information shared from TV and the Internet is becoming different.

Especially when the current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in office, the world press freedom index by reporters without borders is much lower than other administrations. Even though Japan was ranked 11st in 2010[1], they were

22nd in 2011 and 2012[2].

53rd in 2013, 72nd in 2016 & 2017, and 67th in 2018[3].

Because of pressure from the government and self-censorship of media, the mainstream media, especially TV, do not play the investigative role so much.

However, when we look at the Internet, we can find huge amount of investigative, logical, and reasonable information on the regime. The internet community has been sharing much more critical information than TV.

Importantly, the logical and factual information shared by the Internet users are having larger proportion of the information the public has. It is not minority and those who using the Internet cannot bear watching what mainstream media cover when they are not getting into the investigative role. The sense of community on the Internet is increasing. In recent years, some journalists of newspapers have been working well, but weakness of journalism still remains. In order to live in a better society, journalism is one of the important aspects.

If Japan’s TV continue to behave this way, people will increasingly leave TV. The current situation that the Internet shares more useful information with the public is one of the reasons that people have been coming to prefer to use the Internet as means of getting news. The different information shared by TV and by the Internet causes the information gap between them.

[1]https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-2010 Accessed 15 February 2019

[2]https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-20112012 Accessed 15 February 2019

[3]https://rsf.org/en/japan Accessed 14 February 2019

When we take a look at the situation on YouTube, there are a lot of illegally uploaded videos. It’s been problematic and those are mainly TV programs. Even though several TV stations make some of their shows available on the Internet, the videos violating copyright has been being uploaded online.

The problem is that each tv station has each system providing video service. For example, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) provides the online service as NHK on-demand, another TV station Nihon TV has Nittere on-demand, and etc. (Though Nihon TV make their TV shows available on Hulu.)

However the strength of YouTube is a variety of videos gathered in just one platform which is much more convenient for audiences. Like in the current YouTube Premium, there are videos users need to pay for watching. Even if the current YouTube is not suitable for TV stations to put their TV programs on, the TV stations can negotiate. People now watch contents in their favourite time, the conventional style of TV is not practical in our life.

What matters is not whether TV stations use YouTube as their new platform or not, but the unification of the platform. For example, Japan’s TV stations make one platform although they have their own platform at present. Cooperating together to set up the largest video-sharing platform where people get together spontaneously will be advantageous in terms of monetizing and preventing illegal uploads. If they ask users to pay subscription fees per month or per video, it would be lucrative for TV stations and the scale gets larger, more and more audiences would gather.

They can put advertisements from enterprises per 15 or 20 minutes and they can also make some TV shows free to attract more viewers.

Given the current situation, we should think about and take actions for how we could prevent those uploaders and attract viewers on the right place.

A society can be expressed as a triangle. For example, when I organize it in terms of intellectual framework, the top is where those who are having great academic background, but the number is a few. As it descends to the bottom, it widens and the number grows.

The framework of a society which is signified by the triangle is extendable. Most of people live within the frame, but there are some people staying outside of it. The former is different from those who called Elites. Elites are located in the top of the triangle and those who take the (almost)best score in all subjects. They are within a framework and some of them are on the line of the border and pushing it to expand. Among elites, a handful of people can cross the line and move back and forth. However the difference is the vector of the power extending the frame. People outside of a framework pull the border to expand from the outside. They sometimes first make some their own areas developed themselves far from the society, but then connect it to it (= these are so-called genius). Some of them can also enters and leave the borders. On the other hand, Elites expand it from internal area. There is another type of people staying inside of the border pushing it even if they are not on the top in terms of academic background. Those stay nearby the frame.

Besides, many people are not conscious of the framework and spend their time within the frame. This is actually individual preference whether they eager to develop the society or not.

This theory can be adapted to the school situation. Famously Thomas Alva Edison dropped out from a primary school. But he is the person having great curiosity and made the greatest achievements in specific fields. And there’s no doubt that he is the greatest inventor. This means that only people taking the best grades in almost all subjects at school is not necessarily a case that people develop a society (or human history).

The powers from the internal and external expand our society and the frame is expandable.

Upload: 8 February 2019, Last update: 18 February 2019

In the press conference of the chief cabinet secretary, Hideki Uemura, the director of press room, often interrupts the questions to the spokesperson posed by Isoko Mochizuki who is a journalist working for Tokyo newspapers. This endangers the right to know of the citizens since journalists attending the conference are trying to gain deeper parts of news for the citizens.

Even Uemura sent an document pointing out that her questions are mistaking facts[1]. However, the questions posed by Mochizuki are logical and based on her factual investigations. I often think that the answer from the spokesperson cannot be a response to question. In the conference, the problem is not question of the reporter, but it is the answers of the spokesperson. The Uemura’s interruption have negative influence on our right to know. I would like him to explain in which part and phrase of her question is not accurate.

She has been stepping into deeper parts and trying to get valuable information for the public. It means that she is asking questions as a representative of the public. Japan’s journalism must not be defeated by the pressure. I hope that not just Mochizuki and other several good journalists, but also others should play more investigative role. In the meantime, citizens should get together to check whether our rights are working or not.

[1] Sentaku shuppan’s article on Yahoo! JAPAN ニュース. https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/article?a=20190201-00010000-sentaku-pol&fbclid=IwAR3gKvVnlz8GeMZVv5ZiiOW6qYZOUHwuKRbS_jm5n_mK4EQ-MwDJ72JhhBE Accessed 8 February 2019, & IWJ’s interview video to Mr. Uemura on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLwiKPKPgCc Accessed 8 February 2019