Fearing the Obama Effect

As Kim Jung Hoon, a Keio University professor who is lobbying for liberalization of the Japanese Web, puts it, Japan "is ruled by a very stable and old political system." Kim says that "politicians, bureaucrats, the media and big business are all very tightly interconnected. Basically they want to suppress and eliminate any possibility for change. And the Internet is a major source of change."

Japan's nonconfrontational culture probably also plays a role. Despite the proliferation of blogs in the country, there is a notable lack of political polemic online—in remarkable contrast to neighboring South Korea, where the fates of heads can rise and fall on the whim of a fiery Internet culture. Even when Japanese politicians are allowed to post what they want—namely, outside campaign periods—the results are still strikingly tame. "It's so weird," says Kumi Yokoe, a political analyst and e-government expert. "Why don't Japanese politicians talk about what's going on in the [legislature]? It's always about who I met, what I ate. For that you don't need a Web site."

The average age of Japanese politicians also doesn't help. According to Hiro Kishi of Keio University's Graduate School of Media Design, "so many politicians are older, in their 70s. It doesn't even occur to them to make use of the Internet." Yokoe agrees: "Older politicians don't want to allow … people to make donations via the Web. They worry that if they have such a law, people will only vote for young politicians."

At least one force is pushing hard for change, however: the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). "The LDP has a fixed notion that the [wider use of the] Internet would benefit the DPJ," says party member Kan Suzuki, who sits in the upper house of Parliament. And the numbers seem to bear him out: Suzuki cites a recent online survey conducted by Yahoo Japan that showed that 79 percent of Internet users polled said they hoped to see the DPJ win the upcoming election (while polls of print-media users find the two parties roughly tied). Suzuki says Japan's ruling party has watched Obama's remarkable success in harnessing the Internet with fear. "Obama and the LDP stand at opposite ends when it comes to election campaigns. The LDP would not want to see the [Obama phenomenon] happen here."

Like it or not, however, signs of change are beginning to emerge. Politicians have begun discovering the power of YouTube and similar sites as ways of generating buzz. During recent municipal elections in Tokyo and Osaka, some Web enthusiasts used video-sharing sites to post videos of candidates' speeches even during campaigning. Other Netizens updated the Wikipedia pages of certain candidates in defiance of the ban. The police sent warnings to offenders, but no arrests were made.

Internet users are also finally starting to flex their muscles. Kim is the initiator of a group called The Contents Association, which is pushing for gradual reform of the telecommunications bureaucracy to allow for greater checks and balances. He also advocates "spectrum reform," the auctioning off of space on the airwaves—much of which is now being freed up as Japanese TV broadcasters shift to fiber-optic networks—to new wireless providers as a way of bringing greater diversity to the Japanese Web. For his part, Kanda, the frustrated candidate, agrees that the pressure to reform the outdated election law is growing by the day. Given his own experience, however, he's not holding his breath.

© 2008