OhmyNews Japan Ready to Launch
Despite cultural challenges OhmyNews Japan is hopeful
Next month OhmyNews Japan will be ready launch. Its staff look forward to this event with both high hopes and some trepidation.
OhmyNews Japan hopes to copy the successful model of OhmyNews in Korea which has virtually create a media revolution of sorts. Citizen journalism has taken South Korea practically by storm.
“Can it be done in Japan?” is one of the major issues facing OhmyNews Japan
Shuntaro Torigoe who has been named chief editor of OhmyNews Japan is eager to accept the challenge before him. Shuntaro Torigoe unfortunately could not attend the conference this year but in his stead was Hirano Hideki.
Some difficulties he will face he mentioned in his speech read by Hideki at Session 8 of the 2006 OhMyNews Conference, Shuntaro summed in three points.
1) Attitude to Politics
In Korea, many citizens are very involved in politics often voicing their opinions and protests.
In Japan politics is often seen as a horse race. Many people are content with current Prime Koizumi. Those who are not are not very vocal.
2) Perception Towards Mainstream Media
Many Koreans mistrust the mainstream media whereas many Japanese regard the Japanese mainstream media quite highly.
3) Cultural Differences
Many Japanese are not comfortable expressing themselves or getting into heated confrontational discussions.
One of the target groups OhmyNews Japan hopes to attract is the youth among whom blogging is a widespread activity.
OhmyNews Japan hopes to recruit a number of citizen journalists from this young group in order to get a fresh and vibrant sound.
One concern brought up at the conference was the presence on OhmyNews Japan of foreigners living and working in Japan. There are many sites for foreigners in Japan but they are often in English and not read by many Japanese.
OhmyNews Japan has the potential to be a meeting ground for both Japanese and resident foreigners to hear other points of view and bridge certain cultural boundaries.
Another item of concern addressed was the level of outspokenness in social and political issues citizen journalists in Japan will reach. What topics will be too controversial to be covered? Will OhmyNews Japan simply become a celebrity gossip center of citizen journalism or a growing force of media awareness among the people?
Hideki stated he was particularly interested in the storytelling aspect of citizen journalism and hoped to develop that within Japan.
Will be OhmyNews Japan be a success? Shuntaro and his staff are optimistic.
Ganbatte Ne!
This is some interesting news… I wonder if it will even touch its Korean counterpart. I’m looking forward to watching how this will pan out, especially considering I will be spending much time in Japan for who-knows-how-long starting in a month…
July 18th, 2006 at 5:21 amJapan already has a site similar to OhMyNews. It is called JanJan (http://www.janjan.jp/, Japanese only) and features citizen-produced articles. Their “tagline” is (originally in English): “Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures.” (I think “Justices” is intended to mean “justice” as in “fair, moral and impartial treatmeant” rather than the plural of the word meaning “judge.”)
It’s a pretty lively site … though not as lively as the famous (infamous?) 2-Channel (http://www.2ch.net/2ch.html), where Japanese defy the stereotype that they are “not comfortable expressing themselves or getting into heated confrontational discussions.” The merciless flaming and raw discussions that can be read there are its “claim to fame.”
July 18th, 2006 at 9:57 amYeah, I think I attracted a few 2-Channel types on my Emperor thread last December
Emperor story and flame war
July 18th, 2006 at 10:05 pmGreat article on the Japanese Emperor… I just read it + the crazy comments. I guess I’m relatively new to Japundit, I’ve never seen any trolls on here until your article. It’s a good thing they’re blocked now!
But David, why did you keep responding to them, when it was so obvious that they were immature trolls? Not to mention they also lacked English reading comprehension skills? You should’ve just ignored them.
July 19th, 2006 at 4:11 amwhy? Because I’m a sick bastard who likes to watch nutters like that hang themselves with their own words and deeds.
Also it serves a very good example of the dangers of extremism - the inability to listen or compromise.
I found the whole experience very enlightening and very funny too.
The best part was when I was excuse of being a propaganda tool of South Korea. That’s classic!
July 19th, 2006 at 9:47 pmDavid Weber, I just read that crap for some reason, and you’re an idiot. Nobody hanged themselves with their own words or deeds. You’re just a moron and a troll who won’t answer a simple question. I would’ve punched you in the face for that crap if it was a real-life conversation, because you deserved it. I can’t imagine you having any friends.
Maybe it should’ve occured to you that bringing up the fact that “many feel that Japan has not seriously owned up to its past misdeeds while at the same time adding salt to the wound by putting forth history textbooks that gloss over some of these past horrendous actions” makes about as much sense as mentioning that some people think the moon landing was faked. It’s a delusion and just mentioning it gives it more credit than it deserves. Who the hell says “nutter” anyway?
July 20th, 2006 at 2:15 pmIt’s actually a sad comment on the state of society nowadays: what usually happens in these “flame wars” is that one (or more) extremely simple-minded person focuses the discussion on an irrelevant personal attack in the form of a mindlessly repeated question (”Have you read the textbook or not?”).
I think it comes from the patently idiotic yet puzzlingly popular notion that “how can you criticize X if you yourself have never done X?” It happens a lot when people try to say that someone’s friend’s painting or poem is a piece of trash: “well, let’s see YOU paint a picture!” is the idiot’s response.
Think about it (which they don’t; hence the problem): if the requirement for expressing an opinion on something was “being proficient at producing it,” we would have an extremely narrow and one-dimensional intellectual world.
But I guess that’s what the idiots want.
Don’t let the “nutters” get you down, David:smile:
July 20th, 2006 at 3:30 pm[...] Japundit » OhmyNews Japan Ready to Launch OhmyNews Japan hopes to copy the successful model of OhmyNews in Korea which has virtually create a media revolution of sorts. Citizen journalism has taken South Korea practically by storm. “Can it be done in Japan?” [...]
July 21st, 2006 at 1:46 pmyou’re welcome to try to punch me in the face, paul, but somehow I don’t think you have the guts - stick to anonymous posting, my chum.
I can’t imagine you having any friends
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:20 am:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Thanks for making me laugh, Paul! You nutter, you!
[...] So will OhmyNews succeed in Japan? According to an interesting post at Japundit, the new chief editor himself, Shuntaro Torigoe, sees 3 barriers: 1) Attitude to Politics In Korea, many citizens are very involved in politics often voicing their opinions and protests.In Japan politics is often seen as a horse race. Many people are content with current Prime Koizumi. Those who are not are not very vocal. [...]
July 24th, 2006 at 12:52 am