Twitter’s Participation In Japan Anti-Nuclear Demonstration Movements And Its Relevance To Politics

With social networks penetrate into all the aspects of human life deeply and the new social movements have rekindled in the21st century, social networks distinguished themselves in these social movements. The anti-nuclear demonstration movements have been hold in Japan and other countries around the world since the Great East Japan Earthquake in March11,2011. This demonstration movements have become a focus in social networks, such as Twitter, because of its long-time lasting, large population of participants and numerous and various kind of movements. In this paper, the participation of Twitter in Japan anti-nuclear demonstration movements will be described and analyzed from macro perspective and micro perspective. The analysis in micro view is based on the in-depth interview with active Japanese Twitter users who also have the experience of joining in the anti-nuclear demonstration movements. Through the in-depth interview, the Twitter using habits of these interviewees, their opinions over the anti-nuclear demonstration movements, the usage of Twitter during the demonstration movements and the effects on their political participation from Twitter will be discussed. Based on the above analysis, the reason why Twitter is more outstandingly made use of in Japan anti-nuclear demonstration movements than other social networks will be further discussed, under the communication model with some main factors.While as a information flow’s platform for Japan anti-nuclear demonstration movements, Twitter involves its users into the information flow of anti-nuclear. As a result, anti-nuclear participants are influenced positively on political things, including political standpoint, political passion, political action of the participants. Twitter is also likely to create virtual circle of political and social network among small communication group with friend-type companions. Moreover, with the collaboration from overseas mass media, Twitter shapes a certain information pressure to the Japanese government.