世論 What Japan Thinks

If you want to find a reason to dislike Japan, visiting 2 channel is probably the best place to start. This recent survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into the 2 channel bulletin board system found an awful lot of people use the place.

Demographics

On the 10th of July 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 74.9% of the sample were male, 7.3% in their twenties, 40.2% in their thirties, 38.1% in their forties, and 14.5% in their fifties.

The popular image of 2 channel amongst the portion of the gaijin internet users that I am familiar with is of it as a place of unfettered right-wing strongly-nationalistic hate-mongerers. A standing joke, based very much on fact, is that whenever a Japanese person commits a headline-worthy crime, the 2 channelers will dig up a Korean ancestor for them so as to deny the wrong-doer is one of “us”.

Having said that, I don’t really know what percentage of 2 channel (by volume or by frequency of access) is of that reprehensible kind. Do any of my readers have a feel for this?

Oh, and 2 channel is blocked at work by our firewall proxy, I think. I can’t check as they’ve just recently started asking people about why they accessed blocked sites, and I don’t fancy trying to explain that away!

Research results

Of the original sample, 263 people, or 79.5% had viewed the 2 channel site. They were asked the following questions.

Q1: How did you first come to visit 2 channel? (Sample size=263)

Found it through search results	40.3%
Friends introduced me to it	22.8%
Was introduced on another site	9.1%
Was introduced in a magazine, television	10.3%
Don’t know, can’t remember	15.2%
Other	2.3%

Q2: Where do/did you access 2 channel? (Sample size=263, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
From home	245	93.2%
From work	53	20.2%
From mobile phone when outside	24	9.1%
From net cafe, other external facility	19	7.2%
From notebook computer when outside	5	1.9%
Other	3	1.1%

Q3: Have you written messages on 2 channel? (Sample size=263)

Just read	88.2%
Sometime write	10.3%
Frequently write	0.4%
Other	1.1%

The text in the report suggested that the read-only percentage was very high, but I have seen the figure quoted for other boards that a posting readership percentage of 10% is good.