Social Media and Civil Society in Japan

Muneo Kaigo is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan. He was a Japanese ministry sponsored visiting scholar at Columbia University, US, from 2004 to 2005. His current research is centered on enhancing civil society and disaster preparedness through effective SNS usage development and on the positive and negative information aggregation and flows in cyberspace. He is the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre country representative for Japan.

The Japanese Internet Environment.- Social Media in Japan and the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake.- Japanese Local Government Facebook Profiles.- Civil Society, Social Media and Facebook usage by local governments: Birth of the Tsukuba Study and the Tsukuba Civic Activities Cyber-Square.- Promotion and Care of Online Communities: Necessary Elements for a self-sustainable online Facebook community: Self-Reliance of the Tsukuba Civic Activities Cyber-Square.- Who Leads Advocacy through Social Media in Japan?.- Conclusion.