Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Election: 60% of Candidates Who Used Homepage, Facebook, Twitter for Campaign Lost

An interesting tidbit from Mainichi Shinbun (6/24/2013; part):

２３日に投開票された東京都議選では、落選者の方が告示前のインターネット活用に積極的な傾向があった。毎日新聞が今月３〜１０日に実施した候補者に対するアンケートで、ネットのホームページ（ＨＰ）、ツイッター、フェイスブックを三つとも使っている８９人のうち、約６割の５５人が落選した。告示前とはいえ、ネット上のアピールが得票には直結しなかったようだ。

In the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Election on June 23, it turned out the candidates who lost were utilizing the Internet more before the election announcement than the candidates who won. According to the poll of the candidates by Mainichi Shinbun from June 3 to June 10, there were 89 candidates who were using all three Internet platforms - homepage, Twitter and Facebook. 60 percent of them, or 55 candidates, lost in the election. The campaigning on the net didn't seem to result directly in votes.

According to the article, the above holds true for DJP. Probably the same for Boy-wonder's Japan Restoration Party whose 30-plus candidates almost all lost, and other minor parties that failed to send anyone to the Assembly.

But it was not so for Japanese Communist Party and Your Party, both of which doubled the number of successful candidates. 8 out of 17 JCP winners are heavy users of all three net platforms, so are 5 out of 7 Your Party winners.

Use of the Internet didn't matter at all in the end of LDP and Komei Party, low users of the net, as all of their candidates won.

So, Mainichi's observation that the net campaigning didn't result in actual votes may be premature. It may not be about the net but the party's appeal itself.

If you are not selling an attractive product that customers want, the amount you spend on advertisement is irrelevant.

Also, social media in particular tends to be an "echo chamber", where one follows and likes people with similar views and tastes. Maybe these net-user candidates deluded themselves as having much support in real world as in cyberspace.

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs Has Started Propaganda Campaign to Invite Foreign Social Medial Writers to Japan

(Applicants can download an application in Excel file at the Embassy's site. Go to the end of the post for more.)

Remember that harebrained project that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it would do after grabbing some extra money in the supplementary budget last year? Well it has just started.

"An Invitation Program to Japan for SOCIAL MEDIA WRITERS: Hello social media writers!--the Government of Japan invites you to participate in an opportunity to travel to Japan and share your experience through social media."

Here's the screen capture of the Facebook page of the Japanese Embassy in Canada:

The post (23 hours ago) says the following (emphasis is mine):

An Invitation Program to Japan for SOCIAL MEDIA WRITERS: Hello social media writers!--the Government of Japan invites you to participate in an opportunity to travel to Japan and share your experience through social media.

- objective: to share your impressions, positive experiences, and attraction to Japan through social media i.e blogs, Facebook, &Twitter. Witness a vibrant Japan as it recovers from the disasters of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
- visit places that would help you understand Japan's politics, economics, society, and culture + meet with persons in your area of interest
- area of interest: pop culture, fashion, design, science & technology, Japanese food culture, sports, academia, art, etc.
- You should have more than 1000 followers per social media profile. After returning to Canada, participants will be required to write at least three articles about their visit.
- duration: 7 days sometime after April 2012
- expenses covered: accommodation, travel to and from Japan, transportation in Japan, and accident insurance
- deadline: April 4.
Please find the application form & procedure @ http://www.ca.emb-japan.go.jp/canada_e/JapanCanada/2012/social_media_writers_april_2012.html

*Embassy of Japan may request candidates to visit the Embassy for an interview.

Please apply & spread the word!

The anon reader who gave me the link says the Embassy people (or whoever is managing their Facebook page) keep deleting the negative comments.

The Japanese people I know are all disgusted with the government scheme and they are extremely ashamed. And angry that their tax money is being used like this by their government.

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This is hilarious. I clicked on the link in the Embassy's Facebook post to take a look at the application form. IT'S AN EXCEL FILE! Are we still in the late 1980s, when companies that were very much behind the curve about computers were using Excel spreadsheet as word processor?

So these Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials do not even know how to create a simple form either in editable PDF format or web format, and they want to invite social media writers.

It was probably created by a local secretary who doesn't know anything about social media...

(What an atrocious color scheme... What has happened to the fine sense of design and color that the Japanese want to think they possess?)

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Free Trip to Japan for the Lucky 10,000 Foreigners Next Year

The Japan Tourism Agency under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is competing with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in giving away free trips to Japan to foreigners in the hope of "favorable" coverage on the Internet social media.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (10/10/2011):

観光庁は、東日本大震災後に激減している外国人観光客の回復を狙い、２０１２年度に全世界から、旅費無料で１万人の一般観光客を日本に招待する方針を固めた。

The Japan Tourism Agency has decided to invite 10,000 tourists from all over the world in the fiscal 2012, free of charge. The purpose is to help increase the number of visitors from abroad which has plummeted after the March 11 disaster.

募集は主にインターネットを通じて行い、応募者の旅行計画などが審査に合格すれば、日本への往復航空券を提供する。

The Agency will invite foreigners to apply via the Internet. If the application and travel plan is accepted by the Agency, the applicant will be given a free round-trip ticket to Japan.

　こうして来日する旅行者には、日本滞在中にインターネットで世界へ情報発信してもらう方針だ。日本国内の滞在が安全・安心であることを口コミで世界的に広げる効果を見込んでいる。旅行者にはこのほか、震災後の日本旅行についてアンケート調査をしたり、新たな日本旅行のモデルとなるような旅行プランを提案してもらったりする。事業費として、観光庁は１２年度予算の概算要求に１１億円を盛り込んだ。

The Agency plans to have these tourists broadcast information to the world during their stay in Japan via the Internet. The Agency is hoping the message of how safe it is to stay in Japan will spread to the world by word of mouth. The tourists will be asked to participate in the opinion survey on traveling in Japan after the March 11 disaster and to submit travel plans that can be used as a new model for travel in Japan. For the project, the Japan Tourism Agency is asking 1.1 billion yen (US$14.3 million) in the budget proposal for the fiscal 2012.

The fiscal 2012 year will start on April 1, 2012 in Japan.

So my readers outside Japan, watch out for the formal announcement on the Agency's website, which should come before that date: http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/en/index.html

I don't know if the Agency (or for that matter, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) has the "Plan B" - what if these foreigners do not tweet favorable impression? (Confiscating their return tickets, maybe, or send them off to "volunteer" somewhere north of Tokyo. Just kidding.)

The Agency's catchphrase is "Japan. Endless Discovery."

No kidding.

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Japanese Government to Invite Foreigners Who Have Large Facebook and Twitter Followers to Tohoku So That They Can Tell Their Followers "Japan Is Safe"

It's buried in my previous post about radioactive canned fish and wheelchair out of Tohoku as ODA, but this merits its own post because of its sheer absurdity.

(Who do you call someone who tweets, anyway?)

From Mainichi Shinbun (9/19/2011):

東日本大震災：「日本安全」つぶやいて　風評対策、海外からツイッター発信者ら招待

Tweet "Japan is safe" to dispel "baseless rumor": Japan to invite Twitterers from overseas

　外務省は、東京電力福島第１原発事故による日本の農 産物や観光などへの風評被害対策として、フェイスブックやツイッターなどソーシャルメディアの発信者を海外から招く準備に入った。世界で５億人以上が利用 するとされるソーシャルメディアが、中東政変などで大きな影響力を見せていることに着目した試験事業。被災地を回った発信者に、安全性や感動を伝えてもら うことで、風評被害の緩和を狙う。

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs have started to make preparations for inviting people from overseas who disseminate information via the social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as part of the countermeasures against "baseless rumors" that have damaged sales of Japanese agricultural products and tourism industry. More than 500 million people in the world are said to use the social media. The ministry has seen the great impact of the social media in the revolutions in the Middle East, and decided to use the social media to counter the "baseless rumor" by having people disseminate the messages of safety and favorable impressions.

　東日本大震災からの復旧に向けた１１年度第２次補正予算で、外務省は風評対策のため、１５億円を計上した。外務省として初めての発信者招待は、この対策の一環。

In the second supplementary budget for the fiscal year 2011, the ministry obtained 1.5 billion yen for the countermeasures against "baseless rumors". This plan to invite Facebook and Twitter users with large followers is part of the countermeasures.

　１１月ごろから、欧米や中国、中東などから、読者の多い発信者約１５人を数回に分けて、福島、宮城、岩手県などに招く方向で、在外公館を通じて参加者を選ぶ。

Starting November, the ministry will invite the total of about 15 people over time from Europe, the United States, China and the Middle East who have large Facebook or Twitter followers. They will be selected by the Japanese embassies and consulates overseas, and they will be invited to Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures.

　ソーシャルメディア関係者が、日本に好意的な書き込みをする保証はないが、外務省の担当課は「現地に足を運び、特産物を食べてもらった上での発信だけに、風評ではない信頼性の高い内容になる可能性が高い。迅速、大量、広範囲に情報を届けることもできるはず」と期待。さらに、海外の新聞やテレビ関係者を数十人ずつ被災地に招き、より広範囲に日本の農産物、観光情報を発信したい考えだ。

There is no guarantee that these social media users will disseminate messages that are favorable to Japan. But the section in charge of the project at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is hopeful that "They will send out messages after they actually visit the places and eat the local specialty food. We believe that the messages will be more credible, not the baseless rumor. The messages will be sent out fast, in great numbers, and widely". In addition, the Ministry will invite foreign media - newspapers and TV stations - to the disaster affected areas, so that they can send out information on Japanese agricultural products and tourism to a wider audience.

　風評対策事業ではこのほか、日本産品の安全性を伝える著名人のテレビコマーシャルを海外で流し、各国の在外公館で被災地産品の物産展や試食会の開催も計画している。

Other countermeasures against "baseless rumors" include airing TV commercials outside Japan using celebrities telling the foreign viewers how safe the Japanese goods are, and fairs and food tasting events at the Japanese embassies and consulates overseas that feature the goods and produce from the disaster-affected areas.

So the Ministry correctly identified the social media like Facebook and Twitter that played a significant role in the Middle East uprisings. What they have chosen to ignore was that the social media was used by the protesters as a countermeasure to the government propaganda, not the other way around.

Using the same budget, the Ministry is hiring two people with collage or graduate degrees to tweet in English on behalf of the Ministry, and take care of these social media foreign visitors when they come. The message that they should tweet is about how charming Japan is and how well it has recovered from the earthquake/tsunami disaster. The position is temporary, lasting 6 months starting October 3, and you are to work 5 days a week excluding weekends and holidays for up to 29 hours per week. One hour lunch break. English proficiency is a must.

If you think you've got what it takes to do the government propaganda, contact:

外務省外務省大臣官房広報文化交流部総合計画課　経理庶務班
電話番号：03-5501-8127
ファックス：03-5501-8126

I wonder who will appear in the commercials? Which celebrity will be purchased? Anyone that you would recommend?

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