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Internet Campaigning in the US and Japan: Battles in Cyber Space

Abstract:In Japan, campaigning over the Internet was once strictly prohibited, but this ruling was finally reversed for the 2013 election as a result of observations of the US presidential campaigns and the effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. The United States has few restrictions on Internet campaigning and a longer history of the use of the Internet in elections. Internet campaigns promote grassroots movements and connect politicians and voters. However, certain side effects have also appeared: (1) they have enhanced nationalism and polarization through selective contact behavior, (2) they are vulnerable to foreign interventions such as hacks, trolling, and micro-targeting, and (3) they increase the emotional use of words, a tendency that has progressed as media formats changed from party papers to penny papers, from radio to television, and from homepages to social networking systems. This paper will analyze election campaigns using the Internet, comparing the present state of the United States and Japan.