世論 What Japan Thinks

Official online party political activity is banned in Japan during election periods due to legal restrictions that I am not quite sure about, but that doesn’t stop people feeling the internet has a big effect on outcomes. Given that this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on japan.internet.com was conducted just after the US elections, I wonder how much thinking of America instead of Japan affected the outcome of this look at searching for election information.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 10th of November 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I don’t know how Japanese discussion works on the internet, but I was again extremely disappointed at the US coverage on the various social news sites, as the arguments focus around why one shouldn’t vote for the other guy rather than actually dealing with the issues. I still have little idea what Mr Obama plans to do, and given the state of the world economy these days, and given that I don’t believe he will keep all his promises, and given the size of the USA, I feel he cannot do much more than tinker at the controls for his first term.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever gathered information online regarding deciding who to vote for? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQs)	57.3%
No	42.7%

Q1SQ1: What kinds of contents did you refer to in order to decide who to vote for? (Sample size=172, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
News sites	140	81.4%
Party official web sites	46	26.7%
Politicians’ official web sites	40	23.3%
Popular political blogs	26	15.1%
Politics-related bulletin boards	23	13.4%
SNS politicial discussion areas	17	9.9%
Video sharing sites	15	8.7%
Other	2	1.2%
Can’t remember	12	7.0%

Q1SQ2: What kind of content the biggest effect on voting? (Sample size=172)

News sites	57.0%
Party official web sites	9.3%
Politicians’ official web sites	8.7%
Popular political blogs	4.7%
Politics-related bulletin boards	3.5%
SNS politicial discussion areas	1.2%
Video sharing sites	0.6%
None in particular	14.0%

Q1SQ3: Do you think that internet-based information and argument has a big effect on the outcome of elections? (Sample size=172)

Yes	51.7%
No	10.5%
Can’t say either way	37.8%