Löschke A (2019)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Conference contribution, Conference Contribution
Publication year: 2019
Event location: Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University
Japanese counter-protesters against extreme far-right activism launched the new social movement “ban festivals on Japanese Internet right-wing activists” (netouyo ban matsuri) to tighten private censorship in cooperation with Internet Service Providers (ISP) in May 2018. The participants have systematically reported online content to ISPs which could be regarded as in violation of their guidelines. As a result, 640,000 videos and 2150 channels have been removed from YouTube and 69 Mio. tweets and 3300 accounts have been deleted on Twitter as of May 2019. Who did participate in the movement and show short-term and long-term leadership? How does this new activism differ from conventional leftist movements in post-war Japan? My presentation addresses these questions.
Taking a “small data” approach, I conducted an analysis of 3345 individual tweets with the hash tags “spring ban festival” and “winter ban festival” that were posted during two weeks at the movements’ peak. I examined not only the text of the tweets, but also images and websites which were attached to the main part of the tweets. I also took account of the meaning of tweets that include Internet slang as well as possible.
This presentation suggests that the ban festivals have been successful and differ from conventional leftists movements, because the participants have placed emphasis not on social justice or other leftists ideologies, but on their own amusement and connectivity through a sense of ironical humor. The amusement resembles that which Internet users find in an online fire storm. However, it should be added that the leadership within the ban festivals shifted from such pleasure-oriented non-political users to a small number of online leftists in six months.
APA:
Löschke, A. (2019). Ironic connectivity and gamification: Keys to online activism against hate speech in Japan. In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Nordic NIAS Council Conference “Digital Asia: Cultural, Socio-Economic, and Political Transformations”. Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University.
MLA:
Löschke, Ayaka. "Ironic connectivity and gamification: Keys to online activism against hate speech in Japan." Proceedings of the 12th Annual Nordic NIAS Council Conference “Digital Asia: Cultural, Socio-Economic, and Political Transformations”, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University 2019.
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