Electoral Campaigning and the Internet in Japan in the 2010S
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© Copyright 2017 Joshua Arnold Williams Electoral Campaigning and the Internet in Japan in the 2010s Joshua Arnold Williams A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2017 Reading Committee: Robert J. Pekkanen, Chair Philip E. Howard Sabine Lang Emma S. Spiro Program Authorized to Offer Degree: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies University of Washington Abstract Electoral Campaigning and the Internet in Japan in the 2010s Joshua Arnold Williams Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Robert J. Pekkanen The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies In the late spring of 2013, Japanese politicians passed a revision to their election laws that essentially unbanned the use of the Internet in electoral campaigns. This dissertation is composed of three independent, but thematically-linked studies revolving around the passing of this legal revision and its early effects on Japanese electoral politics. The first study is a process tracing of the factors that led to 2013 Public Offices Election Law (POEL) revision. It uses an institutional change framework which provides insight into both how and why the legalization happened when it did. This consider considers the implications of the 2013 legal change not only for election campaigning, but also for Japanese politics, media systems, and studies of institutional change. The second study is a quantitative analysis of the relationship between use of the social media platform Twitter by politicians and voting results. This study uses three distinct statistical methods and the unique circumstance of the 2013 POEL revision as the basis for its analysis of an original dataset built around all the candidates in the 2014 general election in Japan. The third study is a mixed-methods content analysis of an original dataset of tweets from Japanese politicians and candidates during the 2014 general election. Pulling the tweet history of more than 500 individuals, this study analyzes nearly one million Japanese language tweets from over a six-year period to try and determine what type of content, political and non-political, was posted during various time periods, including before and after the 2013 POEL revision and during the 2014 general election campaign period. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iv List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. v Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2. The Legalization of Digital Electoral Campaigning in Japan ....................................... 4 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 A Brief Primer on Institutional Change .......................................................................... 7 2.3 Background ..................................................................................................................... 9 2.3.1 Changing Japanese Political Systems ......................................................................... 9 2.3.2 Changing Japanese Mass Media Systems ................................................................. 12 2.3.3 Japan and Changing Communication through the Internet....................................... 14 2.4 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................ 17 2.4.1 The Changing Public Offices Election Law ............................................................. 18 2.4.2 The Legalization of Online Campaigning ................................................................. 21 2.5 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 47 2.5.1 Why was the POEL So Restrictive for So Long? ..................................................... 48 2.5.2 What Accounts For the Scope and Timing of the Liberalization of the POEL? ...... 49 2.5.3 What Changed in the POEL? .................................................................................... 53 2.5.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 54 Chapter 3. Does Twitter Affect Electoral Outcomes? The Case of the 2014 Japanese General Election ......................................................................................................................................... 60 i 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 60 3.2 Background ................................................................................................................... 62 3.2.1 Japanese Elections and Political Communication..................................................... 62 3.2.2 Internet Patterns and Electoral Success .................................................................... 64 3.2.3 Twitter ....................................................................................................................... 66 3.3 Research question ......................................................................................................... 70 3.4 Data ............................................................................................................................... 71 3.5 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 74 3.5.1 Method 1: Binomial Regression ............................................................................... 74 3.5.2 Method 2: Difference-in-Differences Analysis ........................................................ 77 3.5.3 Method 3: Matching .................................................................................................. 78 3.6 Results ........................................................................................................................... 79 3.6.1 Method 1: Binomial Regression ............................................................................... 79 3.6.2 Method 2: Difference-in-Differences Analysis ........................................................ 86 3.6.3 Method 3: Matching .................................................................................................. 87 3.7 Discussion and Concluding Remarks ........................................................................... 90 Chapter 4. Ramen and Rhetoric: Tweets from Japanese Politicians ............................................ 95 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 95 4.2 Background ................................................................................................................... 98 4.2.1 Twitter and Electoral Campaigns.............................................................................. 98 4.2.2 Twitter in the Japanese Context .............................................................................. 101 4.3 Research Questions ..................................................................................................... 103 4.4 Data ............................................................................................................................. 107 ii 4.5 Methodology ............................................................................................................... 110 4.6 Analysis and Results ................................................................................................... 116 4.6.1 General Data Patterns ............................................................................................. 116 4.6.2 General Tweet Content Patterns ............................................................................. 119 4.6.3 Tweet Content Patterns by Groupings .................................................................... 124 4.7 Discussion and Conclusion ......................................................................................... 138 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 142 Appendix A: Dataset Variables .................................................................................................. 154 Appendix B: Binomial Model Results ........................................................................................ 157 Appendix C: Difference-in-Differences (DiD) Results .............................................................. 161 Appendix D: Select Summary Statistics ..................................................................................... 165 Appendix E: Terms of Interest .................................................................................................... 166 Appendix F: Weighted Ratio of Terms to Tweets Content Comparisons .................................. 175 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1. Results of Simple Model Graphically ............................................................ 81 Figure 3.2. Media Model Results Graphically .................................................................