Social and Cultural Meaning of Networks

Shinya ICHINOHEKeiwa CollegeNiigata, Japan

Background : Information Law

Made by Vincenzo Cosenza

Outline

• Social Media and its Impact• Social Media in Japan and East Asia• The Great East Japan Earthquake and

Networks

Social Media and its Impact

Differences among services

• Open or Closed• How to categorize

friends– Make Groups what

you want show (g+, Fb)– Make Lists which you

want to see (Tw)• Integration between

search and SNS

Social Media and Revolution• Social Media Supported Rebel Campaign happened

in Tunisia, Egypt and…– Moldova's "Twitter Revolution" April, 2009– #iranelection (Iran) #urumqi (China)

• Divided over the role of social media • Social Media is not the sole cause of revolution• Revolution in “Organizing” (by Daisuke TSUDA)– Connecting and organizing people to join in the

movement– Appealing their Legitimacy to ask for the support from

outside

UK

by NicobobinusPhoto by mpeake

Moscow

Occupy Wall Street (US)

By david_shankbone

Social Media in Japan and East Asia

Social Media in Japan and East Asia

• Gradually domestic providers lose their position

mixi

• Japanese SNS, started in 2004• It had the largest share (subscribers) in

Japan• But recently the leading position come

to be doubtful.

Mixi has already dropped from the top?

• Nielsen excluded visitors (clicks) from external links to mixi

Nielsen Netview, Nov., 2011

• Korean biggest SNS, Started in 1999• Owned by SK telecom

You too, Cyworld?

• Korea Times pointed out that Visitors of Facebook in Korea surpassed Cyworld.

Source: Rankey.com

• Sina weibo (Twitter Clone) has 100 million subscribers (Global: Twitter 300 million / Facebook 800 million)

by KESO

A new Twitter record made by Japanese: “Castle in the Sky”

Tabelog

• Manufactured (fake) comments on the famous Restaurant listing site “Tabe-log” (Eat Log)

• Some agents sold to restaurants the paid service to write good comments and ratings.

• Japanese Consumer Affairs Agency started investigation and Tabelog issued warning about 39 companies.

• Suggestion: Necessity to build reliable network in advance

The Great East Japan Earthquake and Networks

Photos by Rumiko Yoshida

Communication Restriction Control

平成 23 年版 情報通信白書 / White Paper on Telecommunications 2011

Blue: Restricted Red: Connected

Search “Earthquake” on Yahoo! Japan

Source: Yahoo! Japan Staff Blog

Outside Tohoku

• Social Media were used by many people in Tokyo Area– Especially about train delay and other specific

topics– Realtime Search by Google ( suspended last july)– Firehose (Streaming API) Provided by Twitter

NHK allowed simultaneous distribution through Live Streaming serviceNico Nico Nama Housou( After unauthorized transmission)

Radiko, IP Simulcast Radio, temporally removed area restriction

Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant and Live Streaming

Photo by fumi

People wanted unedited sources about the accident.Niconico nama housou and Ustream streamedmost of all press conferences by government or TEPCO.

False Rumor: harmful materials in rain ?

ICHIHARA (Chiba Oil Factory) , 11th Mar. 2011, Photo: asahi.com

Somebody tweeted the rain after fire were harmful and was retweeted again and again

Which became more reliable?

Source: NRI “Research on Media Access associated with the disaster”, 29th, Mar., 2011

NHK (Public Broadcasting)

Portal Site

GovernmentBroadcasting Station (Private)

Social Media

University / Research Institute

Newspapers

Which became less reliable?

Government

Broadcasting Station (Private)

Social Media

University / Research Institute

Newspapers

NHK (Public Broadcasting)

Portal Site

Source: NRI “Research on Media Access associated with the disaster”, 29th, Mar., 2011

Google Person Finder

• Started 3 hours after the earthquake

• “crowd sourcing” trial– Papers put in the board of shelters

are shot, uploaded.– Their texts are input in the service by

users manually– They called cooperation through

Twitter – 5000 users contributed

• “We trusted people” (Masashi Kawashima from Google)

Project Fumbaro(hang on) Eastern Japan

• Amazon Wishlist was used to show what refugees need and users could send them soon.

Supporting Elder People

1. Younger people work and support for them

2. Set up more community radio station

3. Develop simple and easy-to-use device.

WX02A (Willcom)

Summary

• In South Korea and Japan, domestic web services (SNS) is losing their leading positions.

• As for Japanese context, social media is not deemed as tool of connecting people for social (political) movement in spite there are many tech savvy people.

• The Great East Japan Earthquake made us recognize the importance of social media together with traditional media to exchange localized and realtime information.

• In other hand, we need to consider how to support elder people continuously.