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3.11 East Japan Great Earthquake and Twitter : Focusing on the Relationship bewteen SNS and Anti-Nuclear Movements

  • 日本硏究
  • 2014, (37), pp.273-295
  • Publisher : The Center for Japanese Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Japanese Language and Literature
  • Published : August 20, 2014

KIM, Hyojin 1

1고려대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In this article, I analyze the changes of Twitter from entertainment tool to information media in terms of the 3.11 East Japan Great Earthquake, including its influences on the anti-nuclear movements. After the start of its service in 2008, Twitter has increased its influence in Japanese society as one of the powerful social media, characterized as interactive and real-time media, . It is 3.11 East Japan Great Earthquake, however, that Twitter has been reevaluated as highly useful information media through active co-operation with mass media by Twitter users and the emergence of new user groups such as mothers searching for more accurate and reliable information. While severely criticized on the spread of false information and rumors and ‘slacktivism,’ users’ dependence on SNS without substantial efforts for helping earthquake victims the one hand, Twitter has successfully worked as a ‘new public sphericule’ (Glitin 2002) especially in terms of anti-nuclear movements. This function of Twitter as a ‘new public sphericule’ can be exemplified in three ways: 1) the active usage of Togetter, the Japanese curation service of Twitter, 2) the emergence of unofficial Twitter accounts of nuclear plants and their anti-nuclear activity such as monjukun_bot and plutokun_bot, and 3) the creation of network for anti-nuclear movements on Twitter. These cases still show the potentials of twitter, which has been functioning as a grassroot media for sending messages of anti-nuclear movements. But at the same time, the political potentials of Twitter has not studied in Japanese academia yet, which probably reflects Japanese people’s weak perception on political participation through SNS. As conclusion, twitter is expected to function as reflecting the interaction between internet and politics since 3.11.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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