{"id":30849,"date":"2013-07-05T09:04:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-05T13:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=30849"},"modified":"2013-07-05T11:30:55","modified_gmt":"2013-07-05T15:30:55","slug":"wit-life-238-internet-use-in-japanese-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/05\/wit-life-238-internet-use-in-japanese-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #238: Internet use in Japanese elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIT Life<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/a> is <\/strong><\/em>a periodic series written<\/strong><\/em> by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/a><\/strong><\/em>to-ken<\/a> CIR, 2000-<\/strong><\/em>03). She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she sha<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>es s<\/strong><\/em>ome of the interesting<\/strong><\/em> tidb<\/strong><\/em>its and t<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>ends together with her own observations.<\/strong><\/em>\"\"<\/p>\n

Japan will be holding its Upper House elections (for half of the 242 seats) on July 21, and in looking toward this there have been reduced restrictions on Internet use for campaigning purposes.\u00a0 Previously this was not permitted for reasons such as fear of libel and identity theft.<\/p>\n

The two separate bills submitted to change this would enable candidates to use blogs and social media such as Facebook and Twitter during the 12-day campaign period for Upper House polls and the 17-day campaign for those of the Lower House.\u00a0 The difference between the two versions is that one allows voters to send out mail on behalf of their favored candidates, whereas the other limits the right to mail solicitation to political parties and candidates.<\/p>\n

In accordance with these changes, Japan’s parties have created a variety of tools for constituents to get to know their candidates and interact with them electronically.\u00a0 For example, the LDP is targeting the young smart phone generation with a game called “Abe-pyon” that has the Prime Minister jumping up to higher levels in the sky and ultimately acquiring a superhero cape.\u00a0 The DJP has produced an application that allows users to see a video of a candidate speaking when their smart phones are held up to the candidate’s campaign posters.\u00a0 Your Party is having constituents submit their ideas online and holding a contest surrounding this.<\/p>\n

However, experts wonder whether how much of an effect this Internet use<\/a> will have, particularly in regard to the older generation.\u00a0 In addition, there are still many regulations and more clarification is needed.\u00a0 In the end, some are saying the election will be decided less by Internet use than by how voters weigh in on Abenomics, the economic policies advocated by PM Abe.\u00a0 Some positive results from Abenomics are stock price increases, economic growth and larger bonuses from companies.\u00a0 Less beneficial side effects have included higher prices for goods, an increased fixed interest rate and financial deterioration.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see how events play out over the next two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. Japan will be holding its Upper House elections (for half of the 242 seats) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-81z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30849"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30882,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30849\/revisions\/30882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}