Abstract
Since the use of social media in election campaigns was made legal in 2013, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have been widely adopted by candidates in Japan’s elections. This chapter examines how social media platforms were used in the 2021 election, looking at which candidates and parties chose to engage most heavily in online campaigning, and at the issues, policies, and narratives which the various parties’ candidates focused on in their social media messaging. LDP candidates are seen to have focused on the government’s track record and the success of the COVID-19 vaccination program, while mainstream opposition candidates’ online messaging largely focused on pocketbook and family issues. This chapter concludes with an analysis of the Twitter follower networks of both candidates and major media organizations, providing insight into the extent of affective polarization on social media during the 2021 election period.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barberá, P. (2015). Birds of the Same Feather Tweet Together: Bayesian Ideal Point Estimation Using Twitter Data. Political Analysis, 23(1), 76–91.
Barberá, P., Jost, J. T., Nagler, J., Tucker, J. A., & Bonneau, R. (2015). Tweeting From Left to Right: Is Online Political Communication More Than an Echo Chamber? Psychological Science, 26(10), 1531–1542.
Catalinac, A. (2016). From Pork to Policy: The Rise of Programmatic Campaigning in Japanese Elections. The Journal of Politics, 78(1), 1–18.
Curini, L., Hino, A., & Osaka, A. (2020). The Intensity of Government–Opposition Divide as Measured through Legislative Speeches and What We Can Learn from It: Analyses of Japanese Parliamentary Debates, 1953–2013. Government and Opposition, 55(2).
Druckman, J. N., Levendusky, M. S., & McLain, A. (2018). No Need to Watch: How the Effects of Partisan Media Can Spread via Interpersonal Discussions. American Journal of Political Science, 62(1), 99–112.
Fahey, R. A., & Camatarri, S. (2021). From Filter Bubble to Social Cleavage: Social Polarisation in Europe and Japan. In A. Hino & F. Foret (Eds.), Values in European and Japanese Politics. Routledge.
Greenacre, M. (2021). Correspondence Analysis in Practice. CRC Press.
Kobayashi, T., & Ichifuji, Y. (2015). Tweets That Matter: Evidence From a Randomized Field Experiment in Japan. Political Communication, 32(4), 574–593.
Lelkes, Y., Sood, G., & Iyengar, S. (2017). The Hostile Audience: The Effect of Access to Broadband Internet on Partisan Affect. American Journal of Political Science, 61(1), 5–20.
McKean, M., & Scheiner, E. (2000). Japan’s new electoral system: La plus ça change . . . Electoral Studies, 19(4), 447–477.
McElwain, K. M. (2008). Manipulating Electoral Rules to Manufacture Single-Party Dominance. American Journal of Political Science, 52(1), 32–47.
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2021). 令和2年国勢調査人口 (速報値) に基づく計算結果の概要 [Outline of Calculations Based on (Preliminary) Population Data from the 2020 National Census], Online: https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000757018.pdf
Miwa, H. (2017). Twitterデータによる日本の政治家・言論人・政党・メディアのイデオロギー位置の推定 [Estimating the Ideology of Japanese Politicians, Political Commentators, Political Parties, and News Media Using Twitter Data]. Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies, 33(1), 41–56.
Nishida, R. (2015). メディアと自民党 [Media and the Liberal Democratic Party]. Kadokawa.
Rosenbluth, F., Saito, J., & Yamada, K. (2011). Electoral Adaptation in Japan: Party Strategy after Electoral Rule Change. The Journal of Social Science, 62(1), 5–23.
Sobieraj, S. (2020). Credible Threat: Attacks Against Women Online and the Future of Democracy (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
Tkach-Kawasaki, L. M. (2003). POLITICS@JAPAN—Party Competition on the Internet in Japan. Party Politics, 9(1), 105–123.
Tonami, A., Yoshida, M., & Sano, Y. (2021). Online harassment in Japan: Dissecting the targeting of a female journalist (10:1164). F1000Research.
Williams, J. A. (2017). Electoral Campaigning and the Internet in Japan in the 2010s [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Washington], University of Washington ResearchWorks Archive, https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/39881.
Williams, J. A., & Miller, D. M. (2016). Netizens Decide 2014? A Look at Party Campaigning Online. In R. Pekkanen, S. Reed, & E. Scheiner (Eds.), Japan Decides 2014: The Japanese General Election. Palgrave Macmillan.
Wilson, A. E., Parker, V. A., & Feinberg, M. (2020). Polarization in the contemporary political and media landscape. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 34, 223–228.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fahey, R.A. (2023). Social Media in the 2021 Election Campaign. In: Pekkanen, R.J., Reed, S.R., Smith, D.M. (eds) Japan Decides 2021. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11324-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11324-6_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-11323-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-11324-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)