Dumbwalking (Link) is now an international menace and joke -- though it seems the proper American term for the activity is the neutral "distracted walking." (Link)
A propos of which, this seems to be dumbwalking in Vietnamese. (Link)
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Shoe, Meet Other Foot
A U.S. Navy SEALs-adoring, English speaking Japanese by the name of Sato is trolling the prime minister's Facebook page (Link - J) this morning, leaving comments all over the place, calling the PM a traitor, commanding the PM to fall into Hell if Mr. Abe does not order Japan's (non-existent) special forces teams to slip into North Korea and retrieve all the abducted Japanese held there right now.
Mr. Prime Minister, I hope this clarifies the point that the "leftists" you have heretofore so publicly despised (Link) are the very least of your problems.
While we are on the subject of reporting by Yuka Hayashi, please check out her story on Tokyo Metropolitan District Governor Inose Naoki's submergence of his mourning for his wife in order to lead the TMD's successful bid for the 2020 Olympics (Link).
I have long praised Inose's commitment to change and accountability in government. To this I must now add a dedication to the role of leader beyond the call of duty. He is clearly as self-sacrifing a public servant as has ever graced a government office in this blessed land.
Not bad for a non-politician/non-bureaucrat, an author of non-fiction books on infrastructure spending and literary biographies.
To his wife, whose sudden death this summer was kept quiet until after the dust settled in Buenos Aires, I can say naught but requiescat in pacem.
Mr. Prime Minister, I hope this clarifies the point that the "leftists" you have heretofore so publicly despised (Link) are the very least of your problems.
While we are on the subject of reporting by Yuka Hayashi, please check out her story on Tokyo Metropolitan District Governor Inose Naoki's submergence of his mourning for his wife in order to lead the TMD's successful bid for the 2020 Olympics (Link).
I have long praised Inose's commitment to change and accountability in government. To this I must now add a dedication to the role of leader beyond the call of duty. He is clearly as self-sacrifing a public servant as has ever graced a government office in this blessed land.
Not bad for a non-politician/non-bureaucrat, an author of non-fiction books on infrastructure spending and literary biographies.
To his wife, whose sudden death this summer was kept quiet until after the dust settled in Buenos Aires, I can say naught but requiescat in pacem.
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
The July 21, 2013 Election - Those Damn Internets
This summer's House of Councillors election will be Japan's first full-fledged online and social media election. The rules on Internet communications have been loosened, albeit not banished (One example of a legacy rule, reinterpreted for the new age? How does "during the campaign, while it is not illegal to forward an email from a candidate, it is illegal to print out that email on paper and hand distribute the paper printout" strike you?) For example, the first face-to-face (and possibly only) debate between the party leaders took place not in a terrestrial broadcast studio or at the National Press Club, but on a glitzy and demeaning stage provided by the Nico Nico Douga streaming site. (Link - J)
We have travelled very far from the dignified, controlled political presentations of even just a few years ago.
Three consequences of the new, Net-based campaign:
1) It will be both easier and harder to track the campaigns of individual candidates and their supporters.
More of what the candidate is doing and saying will be available for everyone to peruse at near zero cost.
However, with the plethora of videos, blog posts and tweets means there will be all the more political dross to wade through.
2) Japan’s mainstream media, print and broadcast, will be fighting a desperate and futile battle to pull politics back into their orbits.
NHK tried its best during its morning’s newscast to highlight purported abuses of net communications and how they may have affected election outcomes in South Korea, where Web participation is higher and the barriers on Web campaigning are lower.
The problem -- and it is a huge one for the major news media conglomerates, who have heretofore retained their vitality and relevance in Japan -- is that prime minister Abe Shinzo is enamored of communicating through the Internet. The Net has allowed Abe to be himself (whining that no one pays attention to him; thundering at any who dare criticize him) with neither the presentation of his ideas nor his attitude being challenged by those damn, pesky, back-stabbing journalists.
Speaking of which (being enamored of the Net, not back-stabbing journalists) the PM has moved beyond the confines of Facebook and is now striding the halls of LinkedIn.
3) As with any new toy, there is little awareness of the limits or levels of safe play. The July 2013 elections will likely be the coarsest, most heated and most dispiriting in history, despite the outcome being largely decided (the latest Yomiuri public opinion poll results are accessible here) and the lack of divisive national issues. Already this year there have been a number of kerfuffles over government and political figures losing their all sense of decorum in social media. (For one example of twittery, see - Link)
The levels of abuse and ranting in this upcoming campaign (which officially kicks off on the 4th) will likely change the views many hold of this blessed land's politics, yours truly not excepted.
We have travelled very far from the dignified, controlled political presentations of even just a few years ago.
Three consequences of the new, Net-based campaign:
1) It will be both easier and harder to track the campaigns of individual candidates and their supporters.
More of what the candidate is doing and saying will be available for everyone to peruse at near zero cost.
However, with the plethora of videos, blog posts and tweets means there will be all the more political dross to wade through.
2) Japan’s mainstream media, print and broadcast, will be fighting a desperate and futile battle to pull politics back into their orbits.
NHK tried its best during its morning’s newscast to highlight purported abuses of net communications and how they may have affected election outcomes in South Korea, where Web participation is higher and the barriers on Web campaigning are lower.
The problem -- and it is a huge one for the major news media conglomerates, who have heretofore retained their vitality and relevance in Japan -- is that prime minister Abe Shinzo is enamored of communicating through the Internet. The Net has allowed Abe to be himself (whining that no one pays attention to him; thundering at any who dare criticize him) with neither the presentation of his ideas nor his attitude being challenged by those damn, pesky, back-stabbing journalists.
Speaking of which (being enamored of the Net, not back-stabbing journalists) the PM has moved beyond the confines of Facebook and is now striding the halls of LinkedIn.
3) As with any new toy, there is little awareness of the limits or levels of safe play. The July 2013 elections will likely be the coarsest, most heated and most dispiriting in history, despite the outcome being largely decided (the latest Yomiuri public opinion poll results are accessible here) and the lack of divisive national issues. Already this year there have been a number of kerfuffles over government and political figures losing their all sense of decorum in social media. (For one example of twittery, see - Link)
The levels of abuse and ranting in this upcoming campaign (which officially kicks off on the 4th) will likely change the views many hold of this blessed land's politics, yours truly not excepted.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Prime Minister Abe On Facebook
The Asahi Shimbun insists that we pay for English language content (Link). Non-Japanese speakers have had to therefore wait for Toko Sekiguchi's account to learn about the Prime Minister's losing it when Tanaka Hitoshi chided the Abe administration for creating the impression of a rightward tilt in Japanese politics.
Right off the bat, though it was a non-sequitur, the prime minister was right about Tanaka's having been wrong about returning the abductees to North Korea. For the North Koreans to get double-crossed in a brutal, calculating way -- by the Japanese, of all people -- taught Pyongyang to not underestimate the mental tenacity of opponents -- a lesson the new DPRK leadership has, over the course of this last year, seemingly had to learn all over again.
More important, however, is what Abe's lashing out at critics has shown about his character.
First, that despite all the buffing from the message masters at home and allies in Washington, Abe remains insecure and reactionary, with an ability to descend into name calling when challenged. (Link)
Second, that those closest to him still think him a child:
Abe is 58 years old and prime minister. That he could still be, in the eyes of those closest to him, a "hot-blooded youth," should give everyone pause.
How much the Facebook posts actually reflect Abe's thinking, and how much is the product of pugnacious, defensive aides (and I am looking at you, Seko Hiroshige) hiding behind the PM whilst lobbing metaphorical bombs at "oppositionists" (Link), is a reasonable question.
Third, there is nothing more delicious than Abe being told by Koizumi Shinjiro, a man half the PM's age, to conduct himself in manner more becoming to his office.
Fourth and finally, someone might want to write about how the denizens of this famous land still, at this late stage of the game, lose themselves in social media -- lolling about in the ids they keep so hidden in other forms of discourse.
While we are on the subject of politicians and Facebook, can someone who knows Democratic Party of Japan leader Kaieda Banri tell him that it is OK to remove scurrilous and irrelevant comments from his Facebook page? It may be a sign of a noble character to suffer the slings and arrows of every single lunatic who spews out his venom, then hits the "send" button. However, no one should have to tolerate the vile abuse being dumped on Kaieda's posts.
Japan PM Facebook Foray Draws Allies, Arguments(Link)
JapanRealTime
In the year since he opened his Facebook account, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has embraced the social media site in a way that's unlike any of his predecessors, praising it as a direct channel to the public...
[snip]
In a newspaper interview, Hitoshi Tanaka, an ex-diplomat who played a crucial role in the negotiations between Tokyo and Pyongyang over the return in 2002 of five Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1970s, voiced his concern that the prime minister’s recent comments on wartime history and his push to revise the constitution were being perceived as Japan's "rightward tilt" by the international community.
Mr. Abe went on the offensive on his Facebook page, reminding his nearly 367,000 "followers" and some 4,800 "friends" that Mr. Tanaka claimed 11 years ago that the abductees should be eventually returned to North Korea as initially agreed to with Pyongyang. Mr. Abe called Mr. Tanaka's decision then "a decisive mistake for a diplomat," dismissing him as "unqualified to speak about diplomacy."
Right off the bat, though it was a non-sequitur, the prime minister was right about Tanaka's having been wrong about returning the abductees to North Korea. For the North Koreans to get double-crossed in a brutal, calculating way -- by the Japanese, of all people -- taught Pyongyang to not underestimate the mental tenacity of opponents -- a lesson the new DPRK leadership has, over the course of this last year, seemingly had to learn all over again.
More important, however, is what Abe's lashing out at critics has shown about his character.
First, that despite all the buffing from the message masters at home and allies in Washington, Abe remains insecure and reactionary, with an ability to descend into name calling when challenged. (Link)
Second, that those closest to him still think him a child:
Other lawmakers weighed in on the row. Economy Minister Akira Amari tried to downplay the round of name-calling, explaining this week that the 58-year-old prime minister is a "hot-blooded youth" whose endless duties have left him high-strung.Amari, who has been gaffe-central in the Abe Cabinet through his inexplicable desire to tell the truth behind the fictions (Link) may have finally talked himself out of a job, post-House of Councillors election, with this last unhelpful "explanation."
Abe is 58 years old and prime minister. That he could still be, in the eyes of those closest to him, a "hot-blooded youth," should give everyone pause.
How much the Facebook posts actually reflect Abe's thinking, and how much is the product of pugnacious, defensive aides (and I am looking at you, Seko Hiroshige) hiding behind the PM whilst lobbing metaphorical bombs at "oppositionists" (Link), is a reasonable question.
Third, there is nothing more delicious than Abe being told by Koizumi Shinjiro, a man half the PM's age, to conduct himself in manner more becoming to his office.
Fourth and finally, someone might want to write about how the denizens of this famous land still, at this late stage of the game, lose themselves in social media -- lolling about in the ids they keep so hidden in other forms of discourse.
While we are on the subject of politicians and Facebook, can someone who knows Democratic Party of Japan leader Kaieda Banri tell him that it is OK to remove scurrilous and irrelevant comments from his Facebook page? It may be a sign of a noble character to suffer the slings and arrows of every single lunatic who spews out his venom, then hits the "send" button. However, no one should have to tolerate the vile abuse being dumped on Kaieda's posts.
Labels:
Abe Cabinet,
Abe Shinzo,
Amari Akira,
Kaieda Banri,
Seko Hiroshige,
social media
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