Andrea DiMaio

In my previous post reporting on my impressions from two and a half days in Tokyo, I highlighted some differences in the Japanese social fabric that strike me. In particular, the long working days and the little time families can spend together during the working week.

While reflecting about these, I could not help considering how different the impact and dynamics of social media must be here. Apparently Facebook and LinkedIn are not as popular as they are elsewhere. I was told that Mixi or 2Channel are far more widespread, but are based on anonymity, something that Japanese people still seem to enjoy more than others.

It goes without saying that, in a social context where family bonds are challenged by workaholism, where women are still far from achieving equal opportunities on the workplace and family dinner time where issues are faced and resolved is almost inexistent, a non-negligible aspect of social networks is sex-related. I was told that this phenomenon is becoming a real social problem enhanced by the addiction to mobile networks that facilitate encounters and sometimes incentivize young girls to meet for money. While I do not believe this is such a widespread issue as I was presented, it implies that social media in Japan may still have a rarely professional connotation and they are something government may have good reasons to stay away from rather than use and embrace.

Besides the sex-oriented use of certain networks (which happens almost everywhere, although maybe on a less worrying scale), the main issue that government may be facing in dealing with engaging citizens through social media is the preference for anonymity.

But is it really a problem? Most of the conversations with clients in other countries revolve around whether and how employees should engage in social network, whether what they state may be misrepresented as the official voice of government, whether a post should be treated as a public record.

If everybody is anonymous, while direct engagement is not really possible or useful, government can look at what issues tend to emerge in discussions. 2Channels in organized in several different forums and I was told that some government organizations already look into conversations taking place there.

It would be interesting to see whether government-driven engagement initiatives, such as inviting comments or starting a discussion on a government web site, would be more or less successful than in other countries where people have fewer problems in showing who they are on social media.

Late last year, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry run a pilot called IdeaBox to gather ideas about the Japanese e-government plan, and got a pretty good response (proportionally better than what US federal agencies got as a result of the Open Government Directive). Although this was on a relatively narrow topic, it may indicate a greater propensity of Japanese people to engage at government’s initiative. Somebody observed that this is in line with a somewhat more obedient attitude of Japanese people toward government, as opposed to what happens in many Western countries.

Recent prime minister changes and scandals in the country – which is approaching an election next week – have made transparency a top priority, and will probably fuel more open government activities going forward.

Like for other countries, I expect Japan to struggle with striking the balance between providing data and information to the public and recognizing the value of data and information that people themselves collect and share, as well as to look at the impact of government 2.0 beyond transparency and policy-making.

However I was positively impressed by the level and energy of discussion that took place among government officials at a small round table I attended last Thursday, where I presented the asymmetry of government 2.0 and suggested how boundaries will blur. I am eager to see how their program will develop and how similar or different from Western countries their version of government 2.0 will be.

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Category: social networks in government     Tags: government 2.0, Japan

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