- 14 Mar 2002
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Tokyo Review sheds light on online rage storms disrupting local governance and inclusion projects in rural Japan. We have seen the impact in Kawaguchi, Saitama, where anti-Kurdish protests were often orchestrated from elsewhere:
Something new has begun to weigh on local governance in Japan: the logic of the attention economy. Municipal officials who once spent most of their time on routine services for residents now find themselves dealing with sudden surges of anger from people they will never encounter face-to-face. These flare-ups arrive without notice, jam phone lines and email inboxes, and then vanish almost as quickly as they appear.
What troubles local governments is not only the spread of false or misleading claims, but how rapidly online emotion can harden into organised political pressure. When the subject happens to be foreign residents, Muslim minorities, or projects meant to make a community more open, the strain shows most clearly. City offices often fail to keep up with a surge of online anger.
Something new has begun to weigh on local governance in Japan: the logic of the attention economy. Municipal officials who once spent most of their time on routine services for residents now find themselves dealing with sudden surges of anger from people they will never encounter face-to-face. These flare-ups arrive without notice, jam phone lines and email inboxes, and then vanish almost as quickly as they appear.
What troubles local governments is not only the spread of false or misleading claims, but how rapidly online emotion can harden into organised political pressure. When the subject happens to be foreign residents, Muslim minorities, or projects meant to make a community more open, the strain shows most clearly. City offices often fail to keep up with a surge of online anger.
How online outrage undermines local inclusion efforts in Japan – Tokyo Review
A specter is haunting local governance in Japan—the specter of the attention economy. Municipal officials, whose daily work usually revolves around routine community services, now find themselves confronting sudden waves of outrage generated by people they will never meet. These mobilizations...