Young Japanese have long found politics a snore. In a survey last year, only 4 percent of those between 20 and 24 expressed a strong interest in politics. It’s hard to fault them for being apathetic: in Japan’s stodgy culture, change occurs at a snail’s pace, and brash individualism is not appreciated. But with the advent of the Internet, the country’s PC generation is beginning to speak its mind. Nowadays there are dozens of political Internet forums in Japan, and they’re attracting a growing number of closet political buffs like Hisada. Takeshi Kuwamura, a 27-year-old Web-page manager, claims he’s not one of them. But he has started an online message board he calls “Dear Mr. Prime Minister.” People visit the site to write letters to the Japanese prime minister. “I didn’t try to achieve anything special,” says Kuwamura, “except to have the site reflect what regular people feel.”
There has been plenty of personal feeling on the digital underground in the days since ex-prime minister Keizo Obuchi fell ill. Last week on one political forum, one writer called LDP leaders a bunch of “money-hungry demons.” Another visitor complained: “Before the acting prime minister had the cabinet resign en masse, the physicians treating [Obuchi] should have officially explained his condition. What are they hiding?” And there was this tasteless remark: “Obuchi is in a coma. Now he is a real vacuum prime minister.” The comment was a cruel reference to Obuchi’s reputation for being a “vacuum premier,” meaning that he had no policy ideas of his own.
Political grousing does not come naturally to the Japanese. Mainstream newspapers and magazines publish “letters from our readers,” but they tend to be bland, heavily edited and written by older people. Not so on the Web, where almost anything goes. Kazuhisa Kawakami, a professor at Tokyo’s Meiji Gakuin University, says that the new medium has energized political discussion because it allows young people to exchange uncensored views. Kawakami adds that while older people may be appalled by crass comments, young people “know they cannot take everything they see online seriously.” Since Web posters hide behind pseudonyms, it’s hard to know who is frequenting the political sites. But analysts believe most visitors are in their 20s and 30s–the age group that constitutes three quarters of Japan’s 18 million Internet users.
Japan’s political parties are trying to grasp the Web phenomenon. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has a slick-looking home page and 16 different messages boards, which receive about 100 entries every day. “The boards are very important,” says Ichiro Nakayama, who heads the DPJ’s Internet operations. “We can see what people are talking about.” In five to 10 years, predicts Meiji Gakuin University’s Kawakami, politicians will find the Internet vital for campaigning, explaining policy positions and gauging public opinion. And online writers like Hisada will begin to recognize the power of their views. Digital populism has arrived.
