Hyperlinks on Japanese Politicians' Websites

Singapore.
The next speaker at ICA 2010 is Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki, who also notes the differences between different types of hyperlinks. Links on politicians' sites in Japan, for example, may connect to the politicians' constituencies, show their political affiliations, or facilitate the use of new media for supporter mobilisation. There is also a question of where links are located (on a separate links page or on the politicians' sites' front pages), of course, which points to their different level of impact.

Japan has a complex party structure, dominated by the Democratic Part of Japan (elite, personality-driven) and the Liberal Democratic Party (elite, strong ties with government and business); minor parties are New Komeito (mass, strong local ties) and the Japan Communist Party (mass, strong youth movement). Leslie examined a sample of politicians' sites, weighted according to representation in the lower house of the Japanese parliament, where DPJ and LDP are dominant, and coded the links on those sites according to the constituency, affiliation, and mobilisation functions.

Not all politicians' sites had dedicated links pages; around 25% to 35% didn't, for the major parties. For the constituency function, LDP politicians linked especially to local government (73%); for party links, DPJ and LDP politicians linked mainly to their own parties, at national and local levels; DPJ politicians also linked a lot to national and local politicians. Video links were more prominent for minor than major parties; Twitter was used by less than 10% of sites; nobody used Facebook. Mobile sites and personal blogs were more prominent for minor parties, as were email newsletters. DPJ politicians linked most to the parliamentary Diet TV videos.

So, the DPJ linkage patterns show a movement towards strong intra-party affiliation; the LDP appears to rely on traditional constituency powerbases. New Komeito and JCP attempt to mobilise through new media. Mobile sites, blogs, and newsletters may even be in the process of becoming traditional media by now.

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