The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 47 | Number 1 | Article ID 3649 | Nov 26, 2011

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Indignez-Vous! ‘Fukushima,’ New Media and Anti-NuclearActivism in Japan　　「腹を立てよ！」フクシマ、新しい伝達手段、日本における反核運動

Nicola Liscutin

Indignez-Vous! ‘Fukushima,’ NewMedia and Anti-Nuclear Activism inJapan

Nicola Liscutin

Good-bye Gempatsu Demo. From: Sekai karagempatsu nakusō konsāto burogu1

Indignez-vous! Get angry, resist and fightagainst the blatant social injustices in ourworld! Thus Stéphane Hessel, the 93-year oldFrench former Resistance fighter, called on theyouth in France, and everywhere else, in hisinspirational pamphlet published in France in2010. It has since been translated into dozenso f l a n g u a g e s , t h o u g h n o t y e t i n t oJapanese.2 Indignation, for Hessel, provided thefundamental motivation for the Resistancemovement in Nazi-occupied France, and hefinds plenty of reasons for outrage today.

Following Hessel’s cry for a non-violent,democratic uprising, young Spanish protestorsnamed their movement ‘the Indignant.’Although Hessel does not draw explicitly on hisphilosophy, it was Spinoza who highlighted inhis Ethics and, especially, in his unfinishedPolitical Treatise (both published posthumouslyin 1677) the motivational power of indignationincited by ‘some common injury’ that goadsc i t i z ens t o r evo l t aga ins t t hose i nauthority.3 ‘Human beings,’ in Spinoza’s

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influential formulation, ‘are led more by affectthan reason’ – from which follows that ‘themul t i tude ’ i s l ed by ‘ some commonaffect.’4 Spinoza wisely anticipated that ‘thepower of the commonwealth, and its right, arediminished insofar as it offers causes for morehuman beings to conspire together.’5

Anti-nuclear activism in Japan has grown atastonishing speed in response to theFukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis and itshandling by the authorities. Over the pastmonths, not a week has gone by without anti-nuclear protests taking place somewhere inJapan (see the nation-wide action calendar(http://datugeninfo.web.fc2.com/)). InSeptember, an intriguing array of new andestablished citizens’ movements had called foran ‘anti-nuclear action week’ that was packedwith rall ies, lectures, symposia, f i lmscreenings, exhibitions and various otherevents. On 9.11, protests were staged acrossJapan, with three demonstrations in Tokyoalone. The action week culminated in a c.60,000 people rally in Meiji Park on September1 9 ( l i n k(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/1231))kicking off a movement to collect 10 millionsignatures for the Sayonara Gempatsu petition(link (http://sayonara-nukes.org/shomei/)).Given that by the summer, forgetting seemedalready to have begun, at least beyondTōhoku,6 the nation-wide spread of theseprotests and their demographics areremarkable: from seasoned demonstrators tothe many who confessed that this was theirvery first protest action; from families bringingtheir toddlers and children, to teenagers,students, freeters, the middle-aged, andpensioners. These demonstrations may still besmall by comparison to the largest historicaldemonstrations, but as Karatani Kōjinemphasized in his speech at the Shinjuku rally,‘by demonstrating we create a society that willprotest.’7 He urged the Japanese to at last ‘own’their fundamental democratic rights byexercising them. It now looks as if many

Japanese have taken Karatani’s rallying cry toheart, for anti-nuclear events continue acrossthe country and across the social spectrum.

Are we witnessing the formation of a‘multitude’ in Japan rallying around the issue ofnuclear energy and rising up against the‘atomic village’ (gempatsu mura)8? This mightbe wishful thinking. Yet, the ‘ikari’ (anger)signs on the many flags of the large Fukushimacontingent, and the quotes from Indignez vouz!on some posters, at the Sayonara Gempatsurally bespoke the very real sense of indignation(with more than just a nod to people’s uprisingsin Arab countries, Spain, or Greece). Even themainstream media could no longer afford toignore this impressive anti-nuclear powerdemonstration, which drew individuals andorganizations from all over Japan to gather inthe capital and place center stage the plight ofthe victims of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclearcrisis in particular, and the nuclear powersystem in general. This indignation - theoutrage at being ‘abandoned’ (hōki sareteshimatta) by the forces of the ‘atomic village’ –appears to fuel the development of new formsand movements of resistance in Japan. In orderto affect change, this fairly loose network ofanti-nuclear activist groups has to ‘connect toact’9 and shape as it were, ‘a strategy ofindignation.’10 To these ends independentalternative media are playing an importantrole, as I hope to show in this paper. I shallfocus here on forms of participatory/civicjournalism through Internet-based TV media,which pos i t ion themselves betweenintervention (media activism) and alternativenews production; between promotingawareness - ra is ing and wi tness ing/documentary record-keeping, and which, insum, contribute significantly to the formation ofnetworks of solidarity. Typically, these mediaa im to encourage peop le to become‘mediactive’11 and to participate in, or createtheir own, issue-based social networks. Incomparison to Canada and the US, civicjournalism (and public access media) is still a

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fairly recent phenomenon in Japan. Eventss ince 3 .11, however , have given thedevelopment of Japanese civic media a strongpush and highlighted the importance of theirrole as social intermediaries (and networkingmediators) for a citizenry that has grownfrustrated with the information politics of thestate and its allied mass media.12

Research on the connections between newmedia and (new) social movements – the waysin which social movements utilize ICTs(information and communication technologies)for protest, and the ways in which ICTs affectthe formation and structure of socialmovements – has been flourishing over the past10-15 years. Studies on the ‘network society,’on the associations between networks,communication and social movements(Castells13, Diani14), on cyberprotest and mediaactivism (van de Donk et.al.15; Kellner andKahn16) or alternative, ‘we’ and Indy-media(Atton17; Couldry and Curran18; Bowman andWillis19; Pickard20; Lievrouw) – to list just afraction of the recent research areas – haveof fered important ins ights in to theconsequences of the new communicationtechnologies and their utilization on politicalprocesses, and contributed significantly to thedebate on whether new media have (or will?)radically transformed democracy. But asseveral researchers admit, the theory on newmedia and social movements is fated to beoutrun by both the rapid development of ever‘newer’ communication technologies (and theirusage) and the recent proliferation of people’suprisings around the globe. For example, themany excellent studies of alternative mediathat focus largely on Indymedia – both thephenomenon and the brand – created in thecontext of the anti-globalization protests at theWTO Meeting in Seattle in 1999. But the role ofmobile live-/video-streaming technologies orTwitter in communicating, and reporting on, forinstance, the uprisings in Arab countries or, forthat matter, the new anti-nuclear activism inpost-3.11 Japan have yet to be fully analyzed.

My investigation aims at contributing someempirical material and qualitative analyses tothe enquiry into the usage and (potential)effects of live-/video-streaming alternativemedia.

To grasp the possibilities, and make sense ofthe complexities, of these new (visual)mediation technologies and their adaptation byalternative, independent media outlets, I havefound three studies particularly useful:Lievrouw’s concept of mediation and heranalyses of the ‘genres’ of new media (2011)21;Deuze’s work on ‘participation, remediation,and bricolage’ as ‘principal components of adigital culture’ (2006)22; and Castells’ seminalstudy Communication Power (2009), in whichhe argues that ‘power is primarily exercised bythe construction of meaning in the human mindthrough processes of communication enacted inglobal/local multimedia networks of masscommunication, including mass self -communication.’23 I return to these studiesbelow, but want to look briefly here at thoseconcepts developed by Castells, which haveprovided motivation and framework for mymodest study of independent, Internet-basedTV media in Japan and the ways in which thesealternative media seek to intervene in the‘communication networks that organizesocia l ized communicat ion. ’ 2 4 In thec o n t e m p o r a r y n e t w o r k s o c i e t y ,‘programming/reprogramming’ and ‘switching’(i.e. connecting different) networks are,according to Castel ls , the ‘ two basicmechanisms’ by which power is exerted andsustained.25 ‘Programming’ refers to ‘the abilityto generate, diffuse, and affect the discoursesthat frame human action.’ ‘Switching’ refers tothe control over connecting different networksf o r t h e p u r p o s e o f ‘ s t r a t e g i ccooperation.’26 While corporate global networksof mass communication (Castells uses as oneexample Murdoch’s media empire) hold muchnetwork-making and programming power andseek to preserve their hegemonic position byswitching and gatekeeping, the new digital

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communication technologies also facilitateinteractive, horizontal networks which‘decisively increase the autonomy ofc o m m u n i c a t i n g s u b j e c t s v i s - à - v i scommunication corporations, as the usersbecome both senders and receivers ofmessages’ and enable the emergence of whatC a s t e l l s c a l l s ‘ m a s s s e l f -communication.’27 Castells’ propositionconcerning practices and goals of mass self-communication seems particularly pertinent tomy investigation. In fact, it prescientlyanticipates the reprogramming efforts of thenew media I scrutinized for this paper:

‘… by developing autonomous networks ofhorizontal communication, citizens of theInformation Age become able to invent newprograms for their lives with the materials oftheir suffering, fears, dreams, and hopes. Theybuild their projects by sharing their experience.They subvert the practice of communication asusual by squatting in the medium and creatingthe message. They overcome the powerlessnessof their solitary despair by networking theirdesire. They fight the powers that be byidentifying the networks that are.’28

The poetic, emotional tone of Castells’ call tofully utilize the opportunities afforded by massself-communication might surprise, but afascinating and challenging strand of his studyexamines ‘the interaction between emotion,cognition, and political behavior’29 in order tounderstand ‘how power is constructed in ourminds through communication processes.’30 Tot h i s e n d , h e d r a w s o n t h e w o r k o fneuroscientist Antonio Damasio as well asaffective intelligence theory in the field ofpolitical communication research, both ofwhich highlight the primacy of emotions andfeelings – what Spinoza called affects andaffectations – and not reason, in motivating(and prompting) people to act in particularways or to take decisions. This means that the‘most powerful symbols are found in picturesand sounds that tap into primary group

experiences of things that promote pride orsatisfaction or tap into reservoirs of fear orrevulsion. … Meaning is invested with emotion.It is far distant from cool rationality.’31 Castellsinvestigates the role of emotions in shapingpolitical behavior with two case studies fromthe opposite ends of the spectrum ofcommunication power: namely the mobilizationof patriotism and anxiety in connection with theUS government’s campaign for the Iraq War in2003, and citizens’ anger (or, as Spinoza wouldterm it, indignation) which, mediated bymobile/wireless communication technologies,dramatically altered the outcome of theSpanish elections in 2004. The latter exampledemonstrates that citizens can (and do) resistspecific framings of information offeredthrough mass media and political statements,and instead construct autonomous networks ofcommunication to circulate alternativeinformation, images … and emotions. Myinterest in examining the activities ofalternative, Internet-based TV/live-streamingmedia in Japan derives precisely from suchquestions: how do these media constructnetworks of communication, frame messages,and seek to influence hearts and minds withinthe context of the ongoing Fukushima Daiichinuclear crisis?

Chal lenging the Gatekeepers o fInformation

Thanks to the wealth of insightful andinformative articles on the natural and nucleardisasters in Japan published over the last eightmonths in The Asia-Pacific Journal, it isunnecessary, I believe, to detail at length thebackground against which new citizens’movements have taken shape, and alternativenews and social media have achieved suchprominence. It may suffice to point out that inits aftermath, ‘Fukushima’ – now globalshorthand for the latest major nuclear disaster– not only exposed the systemic shortcomingsof the risk calculus on which the ‘safety myth’of nuclear power rests, but crucially the

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‘institutionalized non-coping’ when ‘residualrisk’ manifests as catastrophe.32 A horrified andstunned Japanese public watched, andespecially in Fukushima and neighboringprefectures suffered, as the collusion betweennuclear industry, politics, regulatory bodies(e.g. NISA, NSC), scientists (goyō-gakusha),and mass media became blatantly obvious inthe withholding of vital information; haphazardevacuation measures; arbitrary raising ofradiation exposure limits; inadequate, belatedr a d i a t i o n m o n i t o r i n g a s w e l l a sdecontamination efforts, and the list goes on.Kodama Tatsuhiko summed this up succinctlyin his well-known critical statement to aparliamentary commission in July, and hascontinued since to critique administrative andpolitical failings.33 Ulrich Beck defines such‘organized irresponsibility’ as ‘the coexistenceof responsibility [Zuständigkeit] and impunity[Unzurechenbarkeit] – to be precise,responsibility as impunity.’34 It is, Becksuggests, a logical outcome of the ‘centralcontradiction’ of modern society, exemplifiedby nuclear power, namely ‘the fact that theworld is confronted by large-scale threatswhose origins lie in the triumphs of modernsociety (more industry, new technologies)’ butwhich are threats of a potentially self-annihilating scale that ‘have cancelled theinsurance principle, not only in the economicsense, but also in the social, medical,psychological, cultural and religious senses.’35

Precisely because the all too close linksbetween the aforementioned sectors of the‘atomic village’ became so conspicuous in theconcerted attempts of controlling information(most visibly in the joint press conferencesgiven by Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO), government ministries and regulatorybodies), public distrust vis-à-vis their safetyassurances grew in tandem with demands forthe ‘truth’ in the form of reliable information.At least to those people with some knowledgeof nuclear power plants, it became clear quitequickly that neither the nuclear power plant

operators nor the government ministries andregulators were offering the full picture of thenuclear disaster and its effects on thepopulation. The government lamely arguedlater that this was meant to prevent theoutbreak of a panic … Also, TEPCO, thegovernment, and NISA may well have beenincapable of providing comprehensiveinformation given the fairly large number of‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ asto what (had) happened inside the reactors andfuel pools.

The Japanese mass media, regarded as the fifthcolumn of the ‘atomic village,’ supported theofficial strategy of downplaying the nucleardisaster thereby showing themselves at thetime, as little more than the mouthpiece of thegovernment and TEPCO.36 The trouble is thatthey occupy the hugely influential , i foccas ional ly Kafkaesque ro le of thegatekeepers to information. Their audiences,especially in Fukushima Prefecture, whoseaccess to news was severely restricted due topower-cuts, interruption of newspaperpublication and delivery services and who,understandably, wanted to believe thatconditions were not as bad as they looked,were quite receptive to those safety assurancesuttered by government representatives andallied scientists … with sometimes direconsequences.

In their recently published book Hōdō saigai‘gempatsu-hen’37 [Journalism-made disaster:the nuclear power chapter], independentjournalists Uesugi Takashi and UgayaHiromichi level fierce criticism against theJapanese mass media which, in their view,effectively deserted the population they weresupposed to inform, by silently withdrawingtheir staff behind a 50-km evacuation line (incontrast to the official 20-km evacuation zonethen set up by the government for the peopleliving around Fukushima Daiichi). While forseveral weeks after 3.11, the mass mediasuspended investigative journalism on site, i.e.

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within the 50-km zone, they nonethelesspromulgated the government’s line that therisk of radiation escaping from the reactors andthus the risk of irradiation to the population ofFukushima and the Tōhoku and Kantō areaswere ‘minimal.’ Thus, in the early days of thedisaster, it was up to independent Japanese andforeign journal ists 3 8 to gather data,impressions, testimonies, and visual materialfrom within the 20-km evacuation zone and toprovide, together with independent expertssuch as Koide Hiroaki, Takeda Kunihiko, andGotō Masashi, information on the situation inFukushima. This coincided with the rapidlyincreasing number of people within andwithout Fukushima Prefecture, who turned toInternet and Twitter for information: the blogs,lectures, interviews of Koide, Takeda and,eventually, Noro Mika of the NGO Bridge toChernobyl became highly influential sources fora public that felt abandoned by mass media andgovernment.

What was (and still is39) meant to be tightlycontrolled, i.e. the official dissemination ofknowledge, led unintentionally to the openingup of a space, in which alternative news/socialmedia and movements such as the Citizens’Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) suddenlybecame crucial providers of independent,critical information. Here, I shall focus on a fewrepresentative examples of these alternativeinformation providers. I have selected these,firstly, according to their level of open accessand independence and, secondly, by followingLeah Lievrouw’s useful categorization of five‘genres’ of alternative and activist media.Lievrouw distinguishes these five genres –c u l t u r e j a m m i n g , a l t e r n a t i v ecomputing/hacking, participatory journalism,mediated mobil ization, and commonsknowledge – on the basis of the ‘differentdomain[s ] o f soc ia l l i fe , cu l ture , ortechnological practice’40 to which each of thesegenres is related. Each genre has a specific,though not fixed, form and purpose. Forinstance, ‘participatory journalism’ typically

takes the forms of online news services, blogs,Indymedia or, as in this study, of independent,live-streaming TV media, whose purpose is tooffer alternatives to mainstream reporting andopinion making. The social domain to whichthis genre relates is obviously ‘news,commentary, and public opinion.’ ‘Commonsknowledge’ has, in Lievrouw’s definition, thepurpose to mobilize ‘outsider,’ independentexpert, or amateur knowledge and to share thisk n o w l e d g e i n a n o p e n - s o u r c e l i k emanner.41 She emphasizes that these genresare ‘active, dynamic modes of communicationand expression that change with their users’circumstances and interests’ as well as with theadaptation of ‘newer’ communicationtechnologies.42 I shall focus on two genres inparticular, participatory journalism and whattakes, in my view, a form of ‘commonsknowledge,’ but will also draw on some of therelevant features of ‘mediated mobilization’.

Alternative, Internet-based TV media sharesome practices with ‘traditional’ mass media interms of the formats they produce (e.g.reportage, interviews) and an ‘archival habit’that is, a ‘sustained commitment and reliablerecord-keeping in order to function effectivelyas a credible information source.’43 However, interms of their values and ethos, these newmedia differ from mainstream Japanese mediain two important respects: first, they firmlybelieve in the maxim that ‘true’ democracy canbe achieved and sustained only ‘if citizens areengaged in an interactive process of socialinquiry.’44 Second, they regard ‘journalism as akind of collective inquiry into public life, aprocess of interactivity in which contributorsinfluence one another.’45 Thus, unlike thegatekeeping editorial model of mainstreamjournalism that rests on the binary ofprofessional producers of news vs. recipientswho are to be educated and guided, these newmedia with their emphasis on interactivitystrive for a practice of ‘journalism-as-participation’ in which, potentially, every usercan become a contributor and ‘citizen

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journalist.’ Indeed, numerous bloggers,YouTube and Twitter users draw freely on thecontents of these Internet-based TV media toselect , combine with other news andinformation items, reassemble and remediate,in a kind of bricolage46, such contents for theirown purposes. Later in this paper, I shallprovide an illustration of how these processeswork. Practices of participation, horizontal, i.e.non-/anti-hierarchical lines of communicationas well as connectivity, which these alternativemedia outlets cultivate, articulate with thechanged viewer/user expectation that hasbecome even more pronounced in theaftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster –namely the expectation of not just to be spokento, but to be heard.

These Internet-based TV media usually operatein a media-mix mode (e.g. using Twitter andother social media alongside their broadcasts),and one may well argue that Twitter has beenof greater importance since the ‘triple disaster’of 3.11. My focus on alternative TV-mediaderives from the observation that as timepasses and the tension between forgetting andremembering increases, visual mediation of theFukushima Daiichi disaster and nuclear issuesappears to gain in significance.47 This, I wouldargue, can be attributed to the affective powerof images (and sound) in generating feelings ofempathy, identification and solidarity, but alsoof indignation.

The Power of Shared Knowledge

When images of the explosions in theFukushima Daiichi reactors began to flicker onTV screens and mobile phone displaysaccompanied by official assurances that all wasunder control and no harm would come to thepopulation, many people in Fukushima and theTōhoku and Kantō regions experienced whatCastells calls ‘an extraordinary level ofcognitive dissonance,’ which is to say, a hugegap between the fear-triggering force of theimages and the framing of official statements.

They thus turned to Internet and Twitter foralternative sources of information. As manyreadily admit today, they had so firmly believedin the safety myth propagated by the mighty PRapparatuses of Japan’s nuclear power industrythat until 3.11, they had not sought (nor seenthe necessity) to educate themselves,independently, about Japan’s nuclear powerplants (NPP). However, those explosion imagesresonated with memories of images and storiesof the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (thoughinterestingly not with the nuclear bombs ofHiroshima and Nagasaki). Many Japanesecitizens then threw themselves into learningabout nuclear power and nuclear disasters.

Let me therefore begin this examination withan organization that dedicates itself to sharingindependent expertise about nuclear energy:The CNIC, Citizens’ Nuclear InformationCenter (Genshiryoku shiryō jōhōshitsu), basedin Tokyo is an established non-profitorganization that since 1975, has been active in‘collecting and analyzing information related tonuclear energy including safety, economic, andproliferation issues and to conduct studies andresearch on such issues.’48 Until the FukushimaDaiichi disaster, CNIC mainly used theirh o m e p a g e ( h t t p : / / w w w . c n i c . j p / ) ,printed/downloadable newsletters, and ‘publiceducation seminars’ to inform the public abouttheir research and findings. After 3.11,however, their staff and researchers wereoverwhelmed by hundreds of telephone andemail requests for information on theFukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The hugedemand for reliable, independent informationthreatened to paralyze CNIC’s work, as SawaiM a s a k o e x p l a i n e d a t a r e c e n tsymposium.49 CNIC then decided to set up theirown ‘news’ program on Ustream, an easy-to-use, versatile and cheap live-casting and onlinevideo-streaming technology that becameavailable in Japan in 2010. From March 12 to20, CNIC held daily press conferences inJapanese, and for the Foreign CorrespondentClub in Tokyo in English. These were usually

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around 90 to 120 minutes in length. AfterMarch 20, these press conferences continuedon a regular basis or as the emergence of newsdictated, but were eventually replaced by‘CNIC News’ and programs on specific issuesor interviews with various expert guests.

The press conferences were aired live onCNIC’s Ustream.tv Internet channel as well asrecorded for its YouTube, and Vimeo videoarchives, thereby dramatically acceleratingCNIC’s outreach and multiplying the number ofits ‘viewer-users.’ Since the server capacity of aUstream channel can (and in fact did) hamperaccess of large numbers of viewers, CNIC pressconferences and news bulletins weresimultaneously broadcast live on otherInternet-based Ustream or video streamingchannels such as JunsTV, videonews.com, orWeb Iwakami, thus reaching even more people.Because of the multiple, simultaneousbroadcasting outlets for CNIC news, it isdifficult to estimate the actual number of CNICviewers, but at the height of the FukushimaDaiichi crisis, CNIC news programs appear tohave been compulsory viewing for many peopleand, it should be added, journalists in Japan.There may well have been 1-2 million viewerswho watched the programs regularly. Thecontents of their press conferences were,moreover, disseminated in tweets and blogs:crucial information on the nuclear crisis thusspread at high speed across a growing,potentially nation-wide, social-networkingcommunity.

T h a n k s t o v i d e o a r c h i v e s(http://www.cnic.jp/english/topics/safety/earthquake/fukushima.html), these press conferencesand ‘CNIC News’ can still be watched today.They offer intriguing insights into theprocesses by which events, as they unfolded atFukushima Daiichi, were analyzed, ‘translated’and edited into concise, yet detai ledinformation material for CNIC’s pressconferences, to then be remediated by Twitterusers, blog authors, independent media, and

foreign mass media. The strength of CNICnews programs lies undoubtedly in theirrecourse to solid expert knowledge. Forinstance, at the aforementioned pressconferences held daily for the ForeignCorrespondent Club until March 19, GotōMasashi, a former nuclear engineer of Toshiba,who had been involved in designing and testingcontainment vessels of reactors such as thoseat Fukushima Daiichi, was one of the speakersinterpreting the available data on the state ofthe reactors cores and vessels for the presentjournalists and Ustream watching audiences.On some of CNIC’s news programs, formerToshiba nuclear engineer Ōgura Shirō andSakiyama Hisako, former head researcher atthe National Institute of Radiological Sciences,joined Gotō. As early as March 15, Gotō withhis knowledge of the containment vessel’sdesign suggested that ‘meltdowns’ seemed tohave occurred in reactors no. 1 and 3, a factthat TEPCO and the government carefullyavoided stating, and to which TEPCO admittedonly two months later. The press conferencesand news programs of the first weeks wereaccompanied by statements and petitions(March 18, 28, and 31), in which CNIC urgedthe government and its Nuclear SafetyCommission (NSC) to acknowledge the risk ofirradiation, evacuate people at least up to azone of 30 km, increase monitoring within andbeyond the 30-km zones, and release fullinformation. None of this, as we know, thenhappened, with the result that many people inFukushima Prefecture (and beyond) wereexposed unnecessarily to radiation, and had todecide by themselves whether to evacuate‘voluntarily’ (jishu hinan), i.e. without anyfinancial support or right to compensation.

Importantly, CNIC’s untiring efforts indisseminating information on the crisis,functioned as a kind of intensive course onnuclear power for Japanese citizens who, likemost of us (and most mainstream journalists),had little, if any, knowledge of the workings ofa reactor, of meltdowns, radioactivity,

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millisievert and becquerel, the risks of externaland internal irradiation and so forth. From lateMarch onwards, CNIC News were broadcastevery other day, sometimes every day, withSawai Masako as anchor-woman and oneexpert guest focusing for around two hours inconsiderable detail on a particular issue.

Sawai Masako

As early as March 26, for instance, the expertwas the aforementioned Dr Sakiyamaexplaining in lay terms the fallout of iodine andcesium from Fukushima Daiichi, and thepotential risks for the health of the affectedpopulation. CNIC (as well as OurPlanet-TV)also offered live-stream and recorded seminarson how to use Geiger counters and dosimetersand how to interpret the measurements. Theseprograms were especially aimed at empoweringworried citizens to conduct their own radiationmonitoring.

The no-frills setting for these news programs isprovided by a simple seminar-room on thepremises of CNIC, with a whiteboard forprojections of visual material. The camera-angle positions the viewer quasi in the frontrow of that classroom, thereby enhancing the

‘real time’ effect of this educational program.Perspective, visual quality, and the occasionaltechnical hiccups the viewer can witness,resemble the viewing experience of home-videos, but this informal setting – that isfollowed through in the usually casualappearance of Sawai and her guests – also putsthe (anxious) viewer at ease. While thebroadcasts over the first couple of weeks after3.11 were tangibly tense and rather formal,CNIC News today rather feels like sitting downwith a group of like-minded people having aserious conversation about nuclear issues. Thedecisive difference between CNIC News andnews or educational programs on mainstreamTV channels is that CNIC’s programs areinteractive in that questions which viewerstweet or email, are answered in ‘real time’ inthe show or form the subject for a subsequentprogram. Moreover, Sawai and her guestsseem to take all the time needed to explore andexplain a complex subject: there is no sense ofpressure of running overtime, no explanatoryor editorial shortcuts. Instead, Sawai often actsas an ordinary viewer questioning her expertguests on our behalf, in order to assure that thepresentations are readily accessible andunderstandable. Through this emphasis onpublic participation, more and more viewerscame to be involved in the knowledge buildingand information dissemination processes. Onthe other side, CNIC could expand itscommunity of followers and supporters forcampaign issues. For instance, the negotiationsbetween CNIC and government and ministryrepresentatives on issues such as the serioushealth risks to which the workers at FukushimaDaiichi are exposed, or the rather arbitraryraising from 1 to 20 millisieverts of the annualradiation exposure limit for people inFukushima, were broadcast live in theirentirety and apparently triggered a deluge ofgovernment-cr i t ical tweets. The ‘20millisievert’ issue, in particular, not only incitedsevere criticism from Japanese and foreignexperts, but also a fervent campaign that,mediated by these Internet-based TV media and

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Twitter, came to be supported by a multitude ofnational and international NGO/NPOs as wellas concerned individuals.

CNIC has managed throughout the crisis tomaintain and, actually, strengthen itsreputation as an authoritative, scientific,independent organization that pursues its aimsthrough the dissemination of knowledge andgood old lobbying work and to these ends, hastapped into the benefits of Internet-basedvisual media as well as social media such asTwitter. The main target of CNIC’s criticalwork is the nuclear industry and the relatedregulatory bodies, as CNIC attempts to undothe ‘safety myth’ of nuclear power throughknowledge building. Furthermore, the variouscampaigns show that CNIC seeks to changeJapan’s energy policies usually by way ofestablished political processes and institutionsas compared, let’s say, to movements such asShiroto no Ran’s No Nukes or the SayonaraGempatsu network, which aim to challenge thetop-down political realities of Japanesedemocracy, as well. By sharing its expertisethrough live-streamed seminars and news,CNIC’s efforts have an emancipatory,empowering effect on concerned citizens andmany of the new anti-nuclear groups, whichclearly grew in numbers and strength as theirunderstanding of the scientific, environmental,and medical issues caused by the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear disaster increased. Turning tocivic journalism and live broadcasting thusfundamentally altered CNIC’s networkingpractices, and enhanced its educational missiontremendously.

Participatory Journalism I – ‘CitizenBroadcasters’

Japanese mass media – one of the five columnsof the ‘atomic village’ – are the target ofcritique, resistance and oppositional activismfor a number of Internet-based, independent,civic TV media and, of course, innumerableblogs50 and other social media sites as well as

dozens of print publications. These critical newmedia have highlighted the shortcomings in themass media’s reporting on the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear crisis and attempted to fill thesignificant information gap they left.51 I shallconcentrate on two independent, Internet-based TV media organizations – Web Iwakamiand OurPlanet-TV. Both organizations areindependent with regard to their concepts ofbroadcasting and journalism and, crucially, inrelying entirely on donations of users andsupporters, or income through workshops(OPT), symposia and publications as well as thework of volunteers. That is to say, unlike massmedia companies and their outlets, they areindependent of, and their programs free from,advertisements. Furthermore, their programsare free to watch and, unlike Nico Nico Dōga, abig, commercial player on the live-streamingand video-sharing market but also the non-commercial Videonews.com, do not requireregistration in order to enjoy their live andrecorded programs.52 However, users wishingto comment on, or contribute to, the programsof Web Iwakami and OurPlanet-TV need toregister online in a way similar to YouTubeusers.

Web Iwakami and its IWJ (Independent WebJournal) were established by the freelancejournalist Iwakami Yasumi, and began usingone Ustream channel in spring 2010 (link(http://iwakamiyasumi.com/)). The IWJ motto is‘True Democracy,’ and its main tool is direct,unedited, and ‘real time’ broadcasting, whichaims at enabling viewers to form andcontribute their own opinions. To this day, WebIwakami broadcasts live the complete pressconferences of TEPCO as well as governmental,ministerial and some local administrations’press conferences, of which mainstream mediausually provide only small sound-bites or editedsummaries.53 One might wonder about thebenefits of watching these press conferences,given the information value of what TEPCO andthe government have been willing to release.However, as most independent journalists and

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media are barred from attending these officialpress club meetings, Web Iwakami’s livebroadcasting has been essential viewing forindependent media keen to know the fullcontents of those meetings and to access thisinformation at the same time as mainstreamjournalists. Though working freelance since1987, Iwakami Yasumi has acted as a newscommentator for several mainstream radio andTV media and appears to have press clubaccreditation. So after 3.11, his dedicated IWJteam camped out for weeks in the pressroomsof TEPCO and the government, covering andlive-streaming the press conferences at allhours.54 Besides, Iwakami (together withTanaka Ryusaku and Terasawa Yu) was quiteconspicuous at some of these press conferencesby relentlessly asking critical questions thatneeded to be asked but usually weren’t bymainstream journalists. Thus, Web Iwakamifunctions as a valuable information ‘hub’ forother independent (and foreign) media. Equallyimportant, IWJ keeps a complete archive of allthese press conference videos on its websiteand could thus catch out, more than once,politicians trying to deny their earlierstatements. The ‘archival habit’ of IWJ mightseem, at first sight, a bit erratic as not all of itsprograms are recorded and archived. A closerlook reveals, however, that IWJ archivesalongside the said official press conferences, allcitizens’ symposia and workshops, which it haslive-streamed. IWJ thus provides a (free)recording service to these citizen groups andNGO/NPOs of the proceedings of their ‘talk’events, and it does so in the explicitly statedrecognition that ‘information/knowledge ispower.’

After 3.11, Web Iwakami increased the numberof its ‘general’ channels initially to nine. Oncethe anti-nuclear power movement gatheredpace and demonstrations became morefrequent and widespread, IWJ added in networkfashion a staggering 93 regional channels tocover events from the 47 prefectures ofJapan.55 Each day’s broadcasting schedule is

continuously updated and is shown on thew e b s i t e( h t t p : / / i w a k a m i y a s u m i . c o m / u s t r e a m -schedule) as well as communicated by Twitter.On the sum of its channels, Web Iwakamistreams on average 4 to 6 programs per day.Much of the live broadcasting for theseregional channels is carried out by local IWJvolunteers56 who are easily recognizable bytheir proudly displayed IWJ press armbands.The conspicuousness of these IWJ broadcastersat all nuclear issue-related events visiblytransformed IWJ into a media brand. Castellspoints to ‘the importance of branding in thesource of the message’ for establishing arecognized ‘trust network’ – it appears thatIwakami has managed to build this trust in hismedia brand in a very short time.5 7 ForIwakami, an avid user of Twitter, combiningUstream with Twitter is essential to turn thereal t ime broadcasts into interactiveconversations among users and participants.Thus, Iwakami’s 80.000 or so followers onTwitter will be alerted to the next live-streaming, can comment in real time on whatthey experience or watch, re-tweet hismessages, or add further information.According to Iwakami, his followers come fromall age groups and many are middle-agedpersons or pensioners, some of whom, feelingempowered by Web Iwakami’s participatoryapproach, have organized local lecture eventswith the man himself and joined local protestmovements. Some are said to have eventravelled to Tokyo for the September 19 rally.These ardent supporters also actively help tokeep Web Iwakami financially afloat throughd o n a t i o n s . [ 5 8 ](file:///C:/Users/Cliff/Desktop/Liscutin/Liscutinf.ukushima.media%201.m.docx#_edn58) Thewidening support for IWJ is clearly due toIwakami’s strategy of rigorously addressingboth topical, ‘big’ political (e.g. NuclearEnergy, TPP, Okinawa) as well as social issuesthat are insufficiently (or not at all) covered bymainstream journalists. For instance, IWJshowed the arrests of protesters at the

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Shinjuku rally on September 11, interviewedsome of the rally organizers, and broadcast thepress con ference f rom the Fore ignCorrespondent Club, where Karatani, UkaiSatoshi, Oguma Eiji, and Amamiya Karinprotested against the unlawful arrests andstressed the importance of upholding citizens’constitutional right to demonstrate (link(http://iwakamiyasumi.com/archives/12891)).59 It seems fair to say that in its programming andcrucially, in its framing of news, IWJ not onlye n v i s i o n s b u t s t r i v e s t o e n a c tdirect/participatory democracy.

The ‘live broadcasting citizens’ (chūkei shimin),as Iwakami calls them, follow various events ofactivist movements with their smartphonecameras or webcams, and feed the images theyrecord live into the regional IWJ Ustreamchannel, which can, however, be watchedanywhere on the net. The result conveys, evenif the image quality is sometimes shaky,60 astrong sense of participation, of sharedconcerns and activism, of a common event. Thev iewer in Tokyo can now observe ademonstration in, say, Fukushima city orOkinawa as it happens. For the nation-widedemonstrations on June 11, for example, IWJteamed up with OurPlanet-TV and OperationKodomo to simultaneously live-stream theprotests taking place at over 40 locations. Astudio in Tokyo manned by IWJ and OPT staffcoordinated the multi-channel live streamingand commented on the actions shown fromdifferent locations in Japan. The result of thisconcerted effort to network both the broadcastsand the demonstrations can still be seen in thearchived videos of OurPlanet-TV – (link(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/1117)).The design of this webpage combining 46YouTube video screens on a single page,visually constructs a multitude – a comingtogether of a diversity of people protestingagainst the politics of the national and global‘atomic villages.’ That multitude extendsoutward from the 60,000 participants in thedemonstration to sympathizers throughout

Japan. By some adjustments to the page, theInternet savvy viewer can build a wall ofscreens not unlike the wall of monitors in ahuge newsroom.61 Likewise, participants at oneof the three demonstrations in Tokyo onSeptember 11 could watch, on the irsmartphones scenes from those taking place inother parts of the country.

The significance of being filmed/being watched– that is, being visible – in shared time weighseven more heavily, when those activists’ eventsare ignored by main-stream media and arethus, as Jeff Kingston suggested, ‘un-happened.’62 On the one side, live broadcasting,even though its view is only partial, conveys theimpression of witnessing a ‘whole’, ‘authentic’event taking place within a shared time. On theother side, the variety of life-streaming videoshighl ights the existence of mult ip leperspectives on a news story or event. Thenationwide, yet individual coverage by IWJ staffo f a n t i - n u c l e a r m o v e m e n t s , t h e i rdemonstrations, and other notable activities,thus contributes significantly to the formationof a sense of community (or, indeed, multitude)of anti-nuclear activists at a time when theirnumbers are indeed growing throughout Japan.Conversely, local anti-nuclear groups can befairly certain that their protests will be coveredby IWJ, or they can live-stream it onto an IWJchannel by themselves. In other words, IWJcoverage visualizes, visually mediates, and‘switches’ networks of anti-nuclear activiststhroughout Japan, and thereby assists ingenerating and cultivating a collective identity.A functioning network is certainly essential tofashion a strong and effective nationwide anti-nuclear power movement and to support localgroups who, unbeknownst to the majority ofJapanese, have been fighting for years, oftendecades, against the construction andexpansion of nuclear power plants in theirlocale.63

Just when I began to wonder, whetherproviding an alternative, civic media platform

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for live, unedited broadcasts of official pressconferences on the one side, and of protestsand events of anti -nuclear and othersocial/political activism on the other, reallysuffices to inform and mobilize people, networkand support social movements, and toencourage participatory democracy, IWJlaunched a new, pre-recorded, and editedprogram that dramatically alters, or perhapsexpands, IWJ’s practices of intervention andmediation. Iwakami’s new interview series ‘Ahundred people, a hundred stories’ commencedon November 7, and is shown on IWJ’s UstreamChannel 9 on weekday evenings during ‘prime-t i m e , ’ i . e . f r o m 9 p m J S T ( l i n k(http: / /www.ustream.tv/channel / iwj9)) .Realizing Iwakami’s idea ‘to make people’svoices visible,’ each installment of the series isdedicated to one person living in, or havingevacuated from, Fukushima Prefecture. Theinterviews are designed to provide insights intothe complex, a lways painful choicesFukushima’s inhabitants have been forced tomake since the Fukushima Daiichi nucleardisaster shattered their lives and livelihoods or,at least, turned turned them upside down. Sofar all of the interviewees appear to come fromareas outside the mandatory evacuation zones,e.g. from Iwaki, Koriyama, Nihonmatsu,Fukushima city and surrounding areas, andtherefore would have (had) to opt for voluntaryevacuation – or ‘running away’ (nigeru) as itseems to be regarded by some in theircommunities. This is a highly sensitive subjectthat is largely, if not completely, avoided byJapanese mass media and thus, very littleknown outside of Fukushima: ‘Voluntaryevacuation’ is an issue that is dividingcommunities and neighborhoods, ripping apartcouples, families, and friends and, as variousexperts argue, puts children’s and adults’health at risk, when all that should matter isthe human right to a life free of harm and thus,‘the right to relocate’ (hinan no kenri).64 As thesecond interviewee ponders – a young eco-farmer who moved with his wife and small kidsto Hiroshima Prefecture shortly after 3.11 –

this is a life-changing dilemma that potentially,any inhabitant of Japan might be forced toencounter given the combination of a largenumber of nuclear power plants with thefrequency of earthquakes in Japan.

IWJ’s interview program is in equal measuremesmerizing and distressing to watch, as manyof the interviewees are palpably (and visibly)torn between feelings of responsibility, anxiety,rootedness, and loyalty, and many of them actor have acted against reason (in the criticalscientific sense). Although one does feeloccasionally like a voyeur peeping in on atherapy session (e.g. interview no. 3 and 5 –l i n k(http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18371228)),the visceral intensity of the interviews certainlyengages the viewer’s heart and mind. Itbrought back to my mind Spinoza’s definition of‘indignation’ as ‘hatred toward him who hasdone harm to another’ and the affectiveimitation inherent in being ‘indignant at himwho has injured one like us.’65

The camera angle in these interviews is suchthat the interviewee directly faces the viewerand thus frames the interview as a conversationbetween the interviewee and us/Iwakami.Iwakami, who conducts the interviews, cannotbe seen and on the whole, his questioningcannot be heard, as his questions are projectedas surtitles at the side of the image or betweenthe ‘chapters’ of the interview. The age rangeof the interviewees so far lies between mid-20sto mid-50s years of age, with an equal numberof women and men interviewed. The socialbackground of the interviewees seemsrepresentative, too: single/married men andwomen, single mothers, young and middle-agedfathers, farmers, businessmen and -women,full-time housewives/mothers, DJ, barman andan aspiring Buddhist priest. The hits of each ofthe recorded/archived versions of the first teni n t e r v i e w s ( l i n k(http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18371228))currently varying from 1,544 to 7,485 hits

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(unrelated to the order of screening) and thenumber of tweets connected to eachepisode,66 seem to indicate that the stories ofcertain interviewees gather more interest andpossibly invite more empathy or identificationthan others. But it is much too early to drawconclusions, not least because there areanother 90 interviews to be broadcast. The lowviewing figures so far – the direct broadcastshad little more than 1.000 viewers each – arerather disappointing but may change as wordabout the series spreads through the Twitter-and blogo-spheres. The NPJ (News for thePeople of Japan) webpage recommends theseries for viewing and provides the hyperlink;likewise the Save Child blog. But are thesestories perhaps considered too personal, or notspectacular enough, to generate wider interestamong IWJ users? In true Iwakami fashion, theinterview ser ies is a huge project ofinterpersonal communication and memory workthat seeks to expand and affect viewers’understanding of the plight of Fukushima’scitizens. It asks viewers to engage with thesepersonal, yet representative stories, to connectwith them emotionally and socially as people‘like us.’

As mentioned earlier, IWJ’s approach stronglypromotes active participation, interpersonalcommunication, connectivity, and creativity.While mass media construct their imaginednational ‘community’ in a hierarchical relationas a passive audience for their commercialproducts of ‘news’ and ‘information,’ Iwakamiin his vision of ‘true democracy,’ insists on acommon right to free information and,crucially, horizontal lines of communicationwith the aim to shift power (i.e. the power ofinformation/knowledge) to ever expandingnetworks of users. In an environment of closelycontrolled official communication andinformation, such a shift is of enormoussignificance. Web Iwakami is designed tofacilitate ‘communicative autonomy’ which, asCastells puts it, ‘is directly related to thedevelopment of social and political autonomy, a

key factor in fostering social change.’67

Participatory Journalism II – ‘Connect toAct’

OurPlanet-TV (OPT, www.ourplanet-tv.org(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/)), founded in2001 and led by the charismatic ShiraishiHajime, a former Asahi journalist, takes a more‘traditional’ journalistic approach in itsemphasis on investigative journalism and theformats i t produces ( i .e . reportage,documentary, interview). The professionalediting of its videos, the provision ofaccompanying descriptive texts to its programsas well as the studio setting for its broadcastsfurther add to the ‘traditional’ feel: OPTbroadcasts look ‘just like’ other TV newsreports or serious interview programs but witha decisive critical edge to the subjects it covers.OurPlanet-TV is a recognized, registered NPOthat relies on membership fees, donations, andincome generated from consultation work andits intensive courses/workshops on civicjournalism. It is firmly committed to a civicjournalism agenda by providing information ona wide range of social issues usually notcovered in the mainstream media, by trainingaspiring citizen journalists and running a publicaccess media center, advising NGOs on the useof visual media to document their ‘societalcontributions,’ and by explicitly inviting citizensand civic organizations to contribute news,videos and ideas for programs. OPT also selectsand broadcasts documentaries produced byfree lance journalists on its channel. Asemphasized on their website ‘Free speech is atthe core of OurPlanet-TV. Empower yourself tomake a stand and bring about change!’

OPT has its own YouTube and Ustreamchannels, accessible through its homepage, butsince July 7, its weekly flagship program‘ContAct’ (i.e. Connect to Act) can also bewatched on the commercial satellite TVchannel Asahi-Newstar, which enhances itsaccessibility and visibility.68 Moreover, OPT

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archives all its programs and thus has a sizablet reasure - t rove o f pas t repor t s anddocumentaries searchable by subjectcategories. OPT’s (recorded) programs providea good example of remediation processes, inwhich they function as significant nodes inexpanding the network of ‘anti-nuclear’movements. OPT videos can be foundembedded on a large number of Japanese andEnglish-language blogs and ‘nuclear issue’websites, are re-circulated by YouTube users,some of whom add English, French or Germansubtitles to OPT’s videos, or sometimes re-editand cut them together with other material fornew videos. In other words, despite its perhaps‘traditional feel’, OPT programs are not merelysources of information, but also provide thebases for new forms of organization throughcommunication. That is, the programs becomesource materials for new, creative actionscarried out by a highly diverse group of userswho, nonetheless, have shared interests andconcerns, identify or empathize in one way oranother with the contents and images of OPT’svideos, and want to communicate theirunderstanding of the programs among theirown, individual social networks. I shalldemonstrate these processes with a particularexample of an OPT program later.

A fervent concern for social issues, for makinga stand, guides OPT’s editorial decisions as towhich themes they will investigate andbroadcast. This approach is clearly reflected intheir intensive coverage of the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear crisis: as of November 2011,OurPlanet-TV has broadcast around 90documentaries, interviews, press conferencesas well as lectures on the Fukushima disasterand nuclear energy, of which around 40 videosare concerned with the consequences ofnuclear disaster on children’s lives and health,and about 15 reports/interviews concern theplight of the workers at Fukushima Daiichi.This remarkable archive of video footage iscomplemented by some 50 news bulletins (i.e.written texts) accessible on OPT’s website. Of

course, this footage is increasing by the day.

As early as March 22, OPT broadcast the firstinterview conducted by Watai Takeharu withone of the Fukushima Daiichi workers (link(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/921)),and five more interviews with T-san followed.Also in mid-March, OPT offered broadcastingtime-space to the six independent JVJAphotojournalists, who had investigated the areaof up to 3 km around Fukushima Daiichi: onMarch 19, OPT’s Shiraishi interviewedMorizumi Takashi and Toyoda Naomi, who lookever more exhausted from their five-day tripinto the high-contamination zone of Fukushimaas they report their spine-chilling findings (link(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/912)).Not only did this brave photojournalist teamfind levels of radiation in Futaba-machi onMarch 13 that exceeded the measuringcapacity of their Chernobyl-tested Geigercounters (namely, higher than 1 millisievert perhour), but they also found people still cyclingthere, because they had understood radiationlevels in Futaba-machi weren’t thatdangerous.69 Moreover, when Morizumi andHirokawa Ryūichi measured, almost by chance,in Tsukidate (close to Date city) on March 15,they registered 60 microsievert per hour and inItatemura over 100 microsievert per hour.Itatemura’s inhabitants were evacuated fromMay 15 -- that is, two months later! Watchingtoday this OPT video of historical importance,one cannot help but wonder how audienceswould have reacted, had Morizumi/Toyoda’sreport been shown on NHK news back then, inmid-March. Would Itatemura have beenevacuated earlier and its people thus savedfrom unnecessary irradiation? Would peoplehave protested earlier and more vehemently?Futile questions, I suppose, but what this pointsat is the critical mass – in terms of viewer/usernumbers – that independent media need inorder to affect change in public opinion, butwere still short of at the time. However, thecase of Itatemura (and other ‘hotspots’) and,crucially, the plight of Fukushima’s children,

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became one of those decisive turning points forindependent media like OPT, which have sincegained significant numbers of new userssearching for reliable information and localnews that cannot be found elsewhere.

OPT has come to the fore in raising awarenessabout the situation of Fukushima’s inhabitantsand mediating/mediatizing the development ofwhat one might call citizens’ self-helpmovements such as the Fukushima Network forSaving Children from Radiation (Kodomo ohōshanō kara mamoru Fukushima nettowâku –link (http://kodomofukushima.net/)). From thevery beginning of the anti-nuclear protests,‘kodomo o mamore’ (save the children!)became the central rallying cry around whichpeople from all age groups and differentbackgrounds gathered. ‘Children’ became therather overdetermined symbol employed tounite diffuse groupings of the anti-nuclearmovement and to motivate a large variety oftheir activities. Children not only came tosignify the ultimate ‘Fukushima’ victim as thosemembers of society most vulnerable toirradiation (together with pregnant women),and those who most clearly placed Japan’sfuture at risk but, moreover, their plightsignified everything that felt wrong about thestate’s way of dealing with the crisis. Thepowerful images of children petrified as theyare checked for irradiation by people in masksand full protective gear, therefore, should beseen as/in juxtaposition to the ‘cute-fication’ ofnuclear power in cartoon figures like ‘Pluto-kun’ that the nuclear industry’s PR machineslong churnd out to reassure nuclear power’ssafety. Surveying both the media activism andthe various protests of anti-nuclear activistsrelated to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Iwould argue that no other symbol has suchaffective power and therefore, incites andsustains such widespread indignation as‘children.’ The discourse on ‘children’ thusprovides one of the most effective tools toreprogram communication networks and toconnect (i.e. to switch) different networks of

social movements.

The implicit and explicit support OPT’s reportslend Fukushima parents concerned about theirchildren’s welfare, has been invaluable in anenvironment where voicing such worries hasoften been criticized as scaremongering,spreading false and damaging rumors,disloyalty or betrayal of one’s community, or ashysterical behavior.70 Speaking up publicly, letalone demonstrating for the right to relocate inFukushima City or Koriyama meant taking therisk of being shouted down or shunnedpublicly. Yet things have changed over the lastcouple of months, as the Kodomo o Mamorumovement grew stronger, more confident andwas instrumental in shaping the nation-widenetwork of ‘anti-nuclear’ parent activists. Sowhereas, for instance, only a tiny group ofpeople turned up on September 11/12, at theprotest in Fukushima City against theinternational conference sponsored by theNippon Foundation and organized by thedenialist government advisor YamashitaShunichi, the event in Fukushima City ‘NakuseGempatsu 10.30 Taishūkai’ on October 30 drewa crowd of a hundred thousand, according tothe organizers.

The 35 plus videos OPT broadcast on the issueof children’s welfare in Fukushima and theKanto region thus chart, from the perspectiveof the citizens, the development of theFukushima Kodomo o Mamoru network, as itgathers pace in its fight against the ‘organizedirresponsibility’ (or perhaps disorganizedirresponsibility) of the state. When significantlevels of radioactivity were discovered in Aprilin the prefecture’s two biggest cities,Fukushima City and Koriyama, parents beganto worry increasingly about the wellbeing oftheir children. And so when MEXT (theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology) on April 19 decided out of theblue to raise the exposure limits to 20millisievert per year, to avoid, as many suspect,costly and complex evacuations for the citizens

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of those cities and other Fukushima areasoutside the 20km zone, indignation turned intooutrage and concerned parents got together toprotest and establish a ‘self-help’ network. OPTfollowed the parents as they descended uponMEXT demanding a meeting and answers as tothe scientific and medical (not to speak ofethical) rationales behind the 20-fold increaseof radiation exposure limits; their counterpartsare a group of rather helpless looking, juniorM E X T r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s ( l i n k(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/1012)).71

Even today, the 90-minute video recording theparents’ anger and the MEXT representatives’embarrassed silence has lost none of itsdramatic force. If anything, it is even moreheartbreaking in view of recent bizarreevents.72 OPT continued to broadcast the manysubsequent meetings between the FukushimaKodomo o Mamoru network (supported byGreen Action Japan and Friends of the EarthJapan) and representatives of variousministries. One meeting attracted particularattention, namely that between children fromFukushima and Koriyama on the one side, andrepresentatives of MEXT and the cabinet’sNuclear Safety Agency on the other, of whichOPT edited a 30 minute program (link(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP2LCHHnero)).73 The children, of primary and junior highschool age, are impressively eloquent in theirquestioning of government policies and theirdemands for ‘group/class evacuation’, and theyshow themselves utterly unimpressed by thebureaucrats’ evasive and rather patronizingreplies. From this program and its many yearsof experience of teaching filmmaking tochildren, OPT developed its most recentexciting project: a documentary about, andfilmed by, these very children and theirclassmates (see project description and a callf o r f u n d i n g a thttp://www.indiegogo.com/ourplanettv). This 2-hour documentary is in progress. It isscheduled to be screened in January 2012.Together with the ‘A hundred people, ahundred stories’ interview program of Iwakami,

this OPT documentary is designed to offerinsights into the hearts and minds ofFukushima inhabitants and Fukushimaevacuees. These witnessing, testimonialprojects of OPT and IWJ aim to influence theongoing debates about the Fukushima Daiichinuclear crisis and its consequences, andequally important, to stem the tide offorgetting.

Back in April, OurPlanet-TV set out toFukushima to investigate the situation – to myknowledge, it was at that time one of the veryfew media, even among the independent ones,who made the effort to meet and speak withpeople living in Fukushima City and Koriyama,i.e. in non-evacuation areas. OPT producedsome insightful and moving reports about theday-to-day worries and problems of Fukushimateachers, parents and their kids (e.g. this link(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/1028)).This OPT report was subtitled in English andhad in its YouTube version alone around 15,000viewers. It seems to have inspired a number offoreign media (e.g. Al Jazeera English, theGerman public TV channel ZDF) to follow thesestories up with their own reportage. OPT’sShiraishi also visited the city of Nihonmatsu tointerview its mayor, Miho Keiichi, who hadcreated quite a stir among politicians,bureaucrats, and the ‘goyō gakusha,’ by single-handedly deciding to organize whole-body-count examinations for children and pregnantw o m e n o f h i s t o w n ( l i n k( h t t p : / / w w w . o u r p l a n e t -tv.org/?q=node/1071)).74 In the interview,Mayor Miho passionately pleads for theunquestionable priority of life (over politics)and in ever so polite language challenges theofficial medical adviser to the prefecturalgovernment, Yamashita Shunichi, who, in earlyMay, had given one of his infamous speechesabout the ‘safety’ of radiation to the bewilderedcitizens of Nihonmatsu.75

During the course of her research in theNakadōri area of Fukushima Prefecture, that is,

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the area outside the evacuated zones between40 and 80 km from Fukushima Daiichi,Shiraishi heard many stories about childrenshowing ‘unusual or abnormal’ physicalsymptoms. To investigate this further, OPTdesigned a questionnaire (still on its website(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/1118))to collect data about what appeared to be low-radiation-related effects on children’s (andadults’) health. The investigation wasannounced on June 17 in OPT’s ContActprogram and the questionnaire publicized onits webpage, Facebook page as well as bytwitter to all of OPT’s followers. Over 500questionnaires were returned. OPT thendedicated a special program on July 14 to thesemedical issues, in which Shiraishi discusses thedisturbing findings with Noro Mika, director ofthe NPO Bridge to Chernobyl (Chierunobuiri eno kakehashi). This 30-minute program ofOurPlanet-TV entitled ‘Hōshanō de hirogaruihen: Kodomotachi ni nani ga okite iru ka?’(English subtitled version: ‘Unusual phenomenaspreading with radioactivity: what is happeningto children?’) has become the most influential,widely watched and remediated broadcast OPThas so far produced on the Fukushima nuclearc r i s i s ( l i n k(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/1167)).It is worthwhile taking a closer look at thecirculation and remediation history of thisparticular video, as it provides a goodillustration of how a fairly small, sociallyengaged new media outlet like OurPlanet-TVcan influence and potentially change thepublic’s perception of the situation inF u k u s h i m a a n d i t s r e a c t i o n t o t h econsequences of the nuclear disaster.

As mentioned earlier, OurPlanet-TV hadreached an agreement with the commercialsatellite TV-channel Asahi Newstar. On July 14,the program was therefore broadcastsimultaneously on OPT’s Ustream channel(accessible both on its website and through theUstream main-site) as well as on AsahiNewstar, where it was repeated on July 15 and

16. No figures are available as to how manypeople watched the program on the satelliteTV-channel, unfortunately. In its YouTubeincarnation alone, it had 114,567 views (as ofNov. 9) – this is a pretty good figure but stilllow compared to the number of views, whichthe video of an interview with Koide Hiroaki orthe parliamentary statement of KodamaTatsuhiko garnered. Details of the programwere also disseminated by OPT tweets as wellas on the online news-page ‘The News’(h t tp : / / the -news . jp / ) ed i ted by theaforementioned Free Press Association ofJapan, of which OPT is a member. A string of431 tweets with comments registered on theOPT website – again, for a single OPT programthis is a high number of tweets, but averagecompared to the number of tweets some WebIwakami programs attract. However, once thevideo was uploaded on YouTube and Ustream,the circulation of the program accelerated:first, it was taken up and mirrored on a largenumber of video-sharing sites such as NicoNico Dōga, Gakkō TV, videowatchr.com, ASEED-TV.org76, and Himawari Dōga to namejust a few, where it gathered yet morecomments. There are 123 sometimes lengthycomments attached to the OPT YouTubeversion, to which another 800 or so need to beadded from the above video-sharing sites alone.

The YouTube video of OPT’s program thencame to be embedded into a mind-bogglingnumber of blogs (i.e. around 46,000), first andforemost the widely consulted/read Save Child(link (http://savechild.net/)) and NPJ (News fort h e P e o p l e i n J a p a n ; l i n k(http://www.news-pj.net/)) but for example also,perhaps astonishingly, on the ‘Social News’website of Rakuten, the biggest onlineshopping operator in Japan, which promises toprovide news that cannot be found inmainstream media.77 The re-circulation of theOPT program on the Rakuten side may beregarded as an example for ‘the majorcommercial interests … at play’ on the Internet,which is not, as Kahn and Kellner stress, ‘qua

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infrastructure essentially participatory anddemocratic.’78 While some of the blogs onlyoffer a short description and the hyperlink forthe video, others comment in some detail onthe program, give it a different spin, criticizeits message, recommend it to their friends, oroffer their impressions for further discussion.The ‘original’ program thus travels in a kind ofripple effect through the vast spheres of theJapanese social network sites forming a long-lasting, potentially infinite conversation on thesubject. Following ‘netiquette norm,’ theseblogs reference and connect up with blogs oftheir peers as well as other ‘online affinitygroups’ that coalesce around particular issues –in this case, radiation effects on children.Bloggers are thereby creating or shapingdynamic ‘ne tworks o f i n te r l ink ingsolidarity’79 and, it should be added, of empathyand indignat ion. Fol lowing the widedissemination of the OPT program, in whichNoro Mika had urged that children fromFukushima, especially those already showingsymptoms, should at the very least spend thesummer break in a healthier environment faraway from Fukushima Daiichi, the number ofNGOs and individuals from other areas of Japana n d f r o m a b r o a d w h i c h o f f e r e d t oaccommodate Fukushima children over thesummer, increased markedly. The criticalquestion remains whether the government, too,will respond to the wave of indignation that theprogram produced.

At that stage, the conversation was Japanese-language based and did not yet go ‘global.’ Oneblogger, whose website has the charming title‘Brainwash’ , then made the effort totranscribing the entire Japanese text of theprogram. This might seem insignificant, but thetext was obviously referenced by the JapaneseYouTube user ‘tokyobrowntabby,’ who added,in mid-October, her English translation assubtitles to the video. This YouTube userdescribes herself as Japanese, living in Tokyoand planning ‘to create as many English-subtitled videos as I can, regarding the ongoing

Fukushima crisis.’80 She uploaded the subtitledvideo on YouTube on 20 October (l ink(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_O2j_f43P4&feature=channel_video_title)) and thustriggered another, English conversation wavethree months after the broadcasting of the OPTprogram. In contrast to the short-span newsvalue which mainstream media usually affordany one item of news, a story remediated andcirculated through new/social media can, andwill, remain a topic for conversation for as longas the participating social network users deemit significant. This significance can be bothpersonal (for the individual user) and social(e.g. for a group or groups of activists). Thenetworked memory of an OPT or IWJ story isthus significantly longer (and perhaps moreintensive) than of reports by mass mediaoutlets, and less ‘perishable’ than some newmedia researchers assume.

Observing tokyobrowntabby’s YouTube channelon November 1, her subtitled English version ofthe OPT program went from 566 to 7,892 viewswithin just 12 hours. How did that happen, youmight ask. Apart from her 185 (+) subscribers,who are likely to have watched this video andrecommended it in turn to their ‘friends’ and‘followers,’ the subtitled video (like the firstJapanese version) has been mirrored by otherYouTube users, re-circulated in a still ongoingseries of embeddings on English-languageblogs most notably EX-SKF, Enenews.com, theEurope-based site radioactive.eu.com, andwn.com (World News Inc.), tagged on variousfacebook pages, or sent out as email alerts tof r i e n d s . F u r t h e r m o r e , t w o o ftokyobrowntabby’s foreign YouTube peers thenadded the French81 and German82 subtitles toher video and uploaded these new versions ontheir respective YouTube channels onNovember 1, 2011. From there, the video withFrench subtitles was picked up and remediatedon over 300 French-language blogs; theGerman version … and so on and so forth. Ofcourse, this works also the other way round:some foreign mainstream media might be

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surprised to find their ‘Fukushima’ reports withJapanese subtitles on YouTube and thendisseminated throughout the Japanese anti-nuclear blogosphere. Among the foreignfavorites for such subtitled re-circulation onYouTube and Japanese blogs are hard-hittingreports by the correspondents of the Germanpublic TV channels ZDF and ARD …83

Outlook (in lieu of a conclusion)

The dynamic processes of remediation and re-circulation of this one OPT program onirradiation symptoms in Fukushima children,reveal how ‘networks of interlinking solidarity’come into being, are sustained and widenedthrough collaborative activities that cultivatecollective (issue-based) identities.84 Theseprocesses can be observed in all of the newmedia explored in this paper, that is to say, inthe contents produced by CNIC, OPT and IWJand refigured and disseminated through socialmedia communities that coalesce around awhole range of Fukushima Daiichi related andanti-nuclear issues. Collaboration is one crucialaspect in these communication/mediationprocesses suggesting, as Castells and othernew media scholars have argued, that thenetworked communication technologies reflect(and are adapted to) the network structure of anew social movement and not the other wayround: a social movement’s ‘articulation overthe Internet’ becomes ‘both its organizationalform and its mode of action.’85 The perhapssmall, but nonetheless representative, exampleof OPT’s program and the Internet-basedremediation and communication processesthrough which it has been ‘networked,’demonstrates how alternative media outletssuch as OPT can intervene in, and subvert, theimage and information manipulation by massmedia: OPT conducted an investigation on atopic (i.e. low-level radiation effects) thatremains utterly ignored by mainstream mediabut that speaks directly to public opinion. Thesame is valid for IWJ’s latest interview seriesthat intervenes in the official silence, with

which the plight of ‘Fukushima’ victims iscloaked. Thus, by producing and distributingthese programs through alternative, horizontalcommunication networks, OPT and IWJimplicitly shed light on the informationstrategies of the mass media (and the ‘atomicvillage’) and reprogrammed the public debatewith their message that clearly touched a nervein the public hearts and minds.

While I would not go so far as to attributedirectly to OPT’s program the coming-togetherof diffuse groups of ‘kodomo o mamoru’proponents in the nation-wide organizationformally established in late summer, it cancertainly be argued that alternative media suchas OurPlanet-TV, Web Iwakami and others notexamined here function as crucial nodes in theemergent networks of anti-nuclear activism andas important faci l i tators in shi f t ingcommunication power to their followers, users,and contributors, i.e. the people. In most cases,the new anti-nuclear movements can rely onthese Japanese independent civic media tomediate, visually and verbally, their fears andhopes, their concerns, debates, protests anddemands, and to share these mediations withthe proliferating ‘networks of interlinkingsolidarity.’ As Lieuvrouw emphasizes in herstudy of Alternative and Activist Media, ‘it isprecisely this intersection and blending ofmessage and channel, material and social,means and ends, offline and online, that is thedistinctive characteristic of mediatedmobilization.’86 To what extent, and in whatways, such mediated mobilizations can affectbroad(er) social change, are questions thatfuture/further research will have to address. AsI hope to have shown, Web Iwakami andOurPlanet-TV are clearly instrumental inempowering an increasing number of people tobecome ‘mediactive’ in response to theFukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis and the‘organized irresponsibility’ of the ‘atomicvillage.’ Whether this empowerment andmediated mobilization will, ultimately, translateinto active majority support, or rather demand,

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for a decisive shift in energy policies fromnuclear to renewable energy, remains to beseen.

Nicola Liscutin is currently a Visiting ResearchFellow at the University of Tokyo.

Recommended citation: Nicola Liscutin,'Indignez-Vous! ‘Fukushima,’ New Media andAnti-Nuclear Activism in Japan,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 47 No 1, November21, 2011.

Articles on related subjects

See the full l ist of articles on the 3.11earthquake tsunami and nuclear powerm e l t d o w n : l i n k(https://apjjf.org/Japans-3.11-Earthquake-Tsunami-Atomic-Meltdown)

• Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Fukushima andOkinawa – the “Abandoned People,” and CivicEmpowerment. Add hot link

• Jeff Kingston, Ousting Kan Naoto: The Politicsof Nuclear Crisis and Renewable Energy inJapan (https://apjjf.org/-Jeff-Kingston/3610)

• Chris Busby and Mark Selden, FukushimaC h i l d r e n a t R i s k o f H e a r t D i s e a s e(https://apjjf .org/-Mark-Selden/3609)

• Hirose Takashi, Japan’s Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster Syndrome: An UnprecedentedF o r m o f C a t a s t r o p h e(https://apjjf .org/-Hirose-Takashi/3606)

• Winifred A. Bird and Elizabeth Grossman,Chemical Contamination, Cleanup andLongterm Consequences of Japan’s Earthquakea n d T s u n a m i(https://apjjf .org/-Winifred-Bird/3588)

• Kodama Tatsuhiko, Radiation Effects onHealth: Protect the Children of Fukushima(https://apjjf.org/-Kodama-Tatsuhiko/3587)

• David McNeill and Jake Adelstein, Whath a p p e n e d a t F u k u s h i m a ?(https://apjjf .org/-Jake-Adelstein/3585)

• Koide Hiroaki, The Truth About NuclearPower: Japanese Nuclear Engineer Calls forAbolition (https://apjjf.org/-Koide-Hiroaki/3582)

• Chris Busby, Norimatsu Satoko andNarusawa Muneo, Fukushima is Worse thanChernobyl – on Global Contamination(https://apjjf.org/site_manage/details/japanfocus.org/-Chris-Busby/3563)

• Paul Jobin, Dying for TEPCO? Fukushima’sN u c l e a r C o n t r a c t W o r k e r s(https://apjjf .org/-Paul-Jobin/3523)

• Say-Peace Project and Norimatsu Satoko,Protecting Children Against Radiation:Japanese Citizens Take Radiation Protectioni n t o T h e i r O w n H a n d s(https://apjjf.org/-Say_Peace-Project/3549)

Notes

1 Image of ‘ikari’ flags of the Fukushimaparticipants at the Sayonara Gempatsudemonstration on September 19, 2011 –c o u r t e s y o f t h i s s o u r c e(http://c-zenko.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2011-09-19).

2 Stéphane Hessel (October, 2010), Indignezvous! Montpellier: Indigène editions. TheEnglish edition appeared in February 2011; theAmerican edition: Time for Outrage: Indignezvous! was published by Hachette Book Group inSeptember 2011. Worldwide sales of Hessel’spamphlet have topped 3.5 million.

3 Baruch Spinoza (1677), Political Treatise, III,9.

4 Political Treatise, IV, 1. Emphasis added.

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5 Political Treatise, III, 9.

6 See for example Mōri Yoshitaka’s thoughts inhis article ‘From Shaking Islands: A NationDivided’ in Cultural Anthropology – Hot Spots:3.11 Politics in Japan; 2011-07-27 availablehere (http://culanth.org/?q=node%2F412) - lastaccessed 2011-09-13. ‘Do not forget’ was alsovery much the tenor in the speeches by OchiaiKeiko and Mutō Ruiko at the ral ly onSeptember 19.

7 ‘Demo suru koto de demo suru shakai wotsukureru desu.’ Karatani Kōjin speech atShinjuku Alta, September 11, available onY o u T u b e(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylWQlrHQ4Gk&feature=related) last accessed 2011-09-13.

8 ‘Atomic village’ – gempatsu mura – refers tothe collusion between nuclear power industry,government, regulatory bodies, allied scientists(the so-called goyō-gakusha), and the massmedia. The lawyer Utsunomiya considers thejurisdiction (courts and judges) to be part ofthe ‘atomic village,’ too.

9 This is one motto of OurPlanet-TV, on whichmore below.

1 0 Negri/Hardt (2009), Commonwealth.Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Pressof Harvard University Press, p. 236.

1 1 Coined by Dan Gillmor, a pioneer ofparticipatory journalism and author of We theMedia (2004) and the said Mediactive (2010).

12 For (self-)reflections on the role of new mediain the wake of 3.11 see for example the volumeRiarutaimu media ga ugokasu shakai edited byYagi Nobuyo et.al. (Tokyo Shoseki, September

2011) as well as Jiyū Hōdō Kyōkai ga otta 3.11edited by the Free Press Association of Japan(Fusosha, October 2011).

13 Manuel Castells (1996), The Rise of theNetwork Society. And (1997), The Power ofIdentity; both Oxford: Blackwell.

14 Mario Diani (2003), ‘Networks and socialmovements: A research programme.’ In Dianiand Doug McAdam (eds.), Social movementsand networks: Relational approaches tocollective action. Oxford University Press, pp.299-319.

15 Wim van de Donk, Brian D. Loader, Paul G.Nixon and Dieter Rucht (eds.) (2004),Cyberprotest: New Media, citizens and socialmovements. London and New York: Routledge.

16 Richard Kahn and Douglas Kellner (2004),‘New media and internet activism: From the‘Battle of Seattle’ to blogging.’ In New Media &Society, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 87-95. And (2005),‘Oppositional Politics and the Internet: ACritical/Reconstructive Approach’ reprinted inLeah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone(2009), New Media, Vol. IV: Social Institutions,Structures, Arrangements. Sage Publications;pp. 270-291.

17 Chris Atton (2004), An Alternative Internet.Columbia University Press.

18 Nick Couldry and James Curran (2003),Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media ina Networked World. Rowman and Littlefield.

19 Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis (2003),WeMedia: How audiences are shaping thefuture of news and information. Reston, VA:The Media Center at the American Press

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Institute. Retrieved November 2, 2011:http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/

20 Victor W. Pickard (2006), ‘United yetautonomous: Indymedia and the struggle tosustain a radical democratic network’ in Media,Culture & Society Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 315-336.

21 Leah A. Lievrouw (2011), Alternative andActivist New Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.

2 2 Mark Deuze (2006), ‘Participation,Remediation and Bricolage: ConsideringPrincipal Components of a Digital Culture’ inThe Information Society No. 22, pp. 63-75.

23 Manuel Castells (2009), CommunicationPower. Oxford University Press, p. 416.

24 Castells (2009), p. 53.

25 Castells (2009), p. 45.

26 Castells (2009), p. 53.

27 Castells (2009), p. 4.

28 Castells (2009), p. 431.

29 Castells (2009), p. 5.

30 Castells (2009), p. 4.

31 D. Leege and K. Wald (2007), ‘Meaning,cultural symbols, and campaign strategies’quoted in Castells (2009), p. 191.

32 See Ulrich Beck (2009), World at Risk.

Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 27-9.

33 See, for example, Kodama’s contributions onthe two-hour program ‘Radiation and food’ onAsahi Newstar of October 1, 2011 (link(http://savechild.net/archives/10355.html))

34 Beck (2009), pp. 193-4; emphasis in original.For other important perspectives on the issueof ‘irresponsibility’ in relation to the nucleardisaster see for instance the article byTakahashi Tetsuya, ‘Gempatsu to iu gisei noshisutemu’ [The sacrificing system of nuclearpower] in Asahi Journal, no. 5071, 2011-06-05,pp. 10-14; the conversation between NishitaniOsamu and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, ‘“Fukushima”ga aburidasu watashitachi no kyōtsū no mirai’[Our common future that ‘Fukushima’ hasbrought to light] in Sekai, no. 821, 9-2011, pp.70-78.

35 Beck (2009), pp. 30 and 27. At first, however,it was not so much Beck’s concept of a global‘risk society’ that came to my mind, whenreflecting upon conversations with anxiousparents and angry eco-farmers in Fukushima,but Giorgio Agamben’s thoughts, in his HomoSacer (1998), on how ‘good life’ (in theAristotelian sense) comes to be stripped ‘bare’in a state of exception.

36 For a compelling critique of the role of themass media in the expression of ‘organizedirresponsibility’ see Sakai Naoki, ‘“Musekininn o t a i k e i ” m i t a b i ’ [ ‘ T h e s y s t e m o firresponsibility’ third time round] in GendaiShisō, vol. 39-7, no. 5, 2011, pp. 26-33.

37 Uesugi Takashi and Ugaya Hiromichi (July2011), Hōdō saigai ‘gempatsu-hen’ Tokyo:Gentosha.

38 Among the first to investigate the area

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around Fukushima Daiichi from March 12/13were Hirokawa Ryūichi, chief editor of thejournal Days Japan, Morizumi Takashi, ToyodaNaomi, Watai Takeharu, all members of theJapan Visual Journalist Association, DavidMcNei l l , and Donald Weber . In la teMarch/early April, Jinbō Tetsuo, founder of theinfluential Videonews.com, and otherindependent journalists as well as MizushimaSatoru of the right-wing Channel Sakura,followed them. Jinbō Tetsuo’s report on hisjourney into the evacuation zone had close to 1million views in its YouTube version (I’mgrateful to Michael Penn for alerting me to thepopularity of this video), considerably morethan the earlier OurPlanet-TV report ofMorizumi and Toyoda, to which I shall returnlater.

39 The government launched a costly programto screen and counter-act allegedly falserumours about the ‘Fukushima’ crisis and itsconsequences on Twitter, Facebook and othersocial network sites. On this issue, see thestatement by Fukushima Mizuho at a dieta s s e m b l y o n J u l y 2 5 , 2 0 1 1 ( l i n k(http://www.youtube.com/user/tokyobrowntabby#p/u/24/CbleCWkZSnw))

40 Lievrouw (2011), p. 19.

41 Lievrouw (2011), p. 23.

42 Lievrouw (2011), p. 22.

43 Lievrouw (2011), p. 147.

44 David Ryfe and Donica Mensing (2008).‘ Pa r t i c i pa to ry j ou rna l i sm and thetransformation of news.’ Paper presented at theannual meeting of the Association forEduca t i on i n J ourna l i sm and MassCommunication (AEJMC), Chicago, August 6.

L i n k(http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/7/1/5/8/pages271585/p271585-19.php) last accessed on 2011-10-03. P.19.

45 Ibid. Ryfe and Mensing draw here on thevision of participatory journalism John Deweyproposed in his famous debate with WalterLippmann in the 1920s.

46 See Mark Deuze (2006), ‘Participation,Remediation, Bricolage: Considering PrincipalComponents of a Digital Culture.’ In TheInformation Society no. 22, pp. 63-75.

47 In recent weeks, screenings of ‘nuclear issue’related documentary and feature films in Tokyo(but also at the Yamagata film festival or thescreenings of Kamanaka Hitomi’s films) aresolidly sold out, usually oversubscribed.Admittedly, my focus on visual media alsoderives from my current research project onsuch ‘Fukushima’ related films and their publicreception.

4 8 C N I C w e b s i t e(http://www.cnic.jp/english/cnic/index.html) lastaccessed on 2011-09-14.

49 The symposium was entitled ‘Media o uramuna, media o tsukure!’ – echoing the watchwordof Indymedia ‘Don’t hate the media – becomethe media!’

50 Two interesting blogs should be mentionedhere: firstly, that of the investigative journalistK i n o s h i t a K o u t a ( l i n k(http://blog.goo.ne.jp/nagaikenji20070927)), therelated ‘Radiation Defense Project’ (link(http://www.radiationdefense.jp/?lang=en)) andits very large Facebook group ‘FukushimaDaiichi Gempatsu o kangaemasu.’ Secondly,

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the Eng l i sh - Japanese b log EX -SKF(http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/), which offers awealth of important news, information andinteresting comments on the ongoing‘Fukushima’ crisis.

51 For about two months after 3.11, most of theJapanese mass media (both TV channels andthe press) just reiterated official statements (incondensed form) without, apparently, everchallenging any of the information they weregiven by TEPCO or the government orundertaking their own investigations. As theinformation manipulation became conspicuous,however, some TV production companies (e.g.for NHK ETV) and especially, Tokyo Shimbunand Mainichi Shimbun began to offer criticalnews and their own investigations. On thisissue see also the aforementioned book byUesugi and Ugaya, as well as the symposia onthe subject of ‘gempatsu to media’ organizedby the magazine Tsukuru, and published innumbers 7 and 9/10 of the magazine.

52 Though Web Iwakami apparently consideredchanging over to a subscription channel before3.11.

53 In the first weeks after 3.11, Nico Nico Dōga,too, live-streamed \ press conferences withTsuda Daisuke remediating them for Twitter.On request of virtually all big public andprivate TV stations (including NHK, Fuji TV andTBS), Nico Nico Dōga also streamed on itsInternet-based channels the programmes ofthese stations and apparently reached a recordnumber of viewers, some 15 million people. SeeNanao Kō (2011), ‘Higashi Nihon daishinsai tonikoniko namahōsō’ in Jiyū Hōdō Kyōkai (eds.),J iyū Hōdō Kyōkai ga otta 3.11, p. 56.Videonews.com also live-streamed some of thepress conferences.

54 During the first weeks after the nuclear

disaster, TEPCO frequently held its pressconferences in the middle of the night, forwhatever reasons.

55 Web Iwakami set up the 93 regional channelsin time for June 11 and the anti-nuclearprotests scheduled for that day, three monthsafter the disasters.

56 Already in June, Iwakami had recruited 200local volunteers from among his Twitterfollowers. Iwakami Yasumi (2011), ‘“Jōhō nominshuka” – “Chūkei shimin” ni sasaerareta3.11 hōdō’ in Jiyū Hōdō Kyōkai (eds.), Jiyū HōdōKyōkai ga otta 3.11, p. 43

57 Manuel Castells (2009), p. 419.

58 Iwakami Yasumi (2011), ‘Sōshal jânarizumuno kanōsei’ in IT Hihyō vol. 2 (May 2011), p.47.

59 On this issue, see also David McNeill’s article‘The right to peaceful protests’ in The MainichiDaily News of October 18, 2011, l ink(http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20111018p2a00m0na011000c.html) last accessed2011-10-22.

60 However, workshops to teach keen citizenslive broadcasting, launched in October, mighthelp to improve video quality.

61 See also the iPad installation of the 6.11d e m o n s t r a t i o n s ( l i n k(https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=236312146413518&set=a.236312116413521.62260.234386703272729&type=1&theater)).

62 Jeff Kingston, 'Ousting Kan Naoto: ThePolitics of Nuclear Crisis and Renewable

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Energy in Japan,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol.9, Issue 39 No. 5, September 26, 2011.

63 Recently, the efforts of these local groupshave won recognition through the increasinginterest in Kamanaka Hitomi’s documentaryfilms such as Hibakusha, Rokkasho murarhapsody, and Mitsubachi no haneoto to chikyūno tenkai (aka Ashes to Honey).

64 The Fukushima Network to Save Childrenfrom Radiation and its supporters, e.g. Friendsof the Earth Japan, Green Action Japan, havebeen fighting for months for this ‘right torelocate’ and for TEPCO/governmental‘evacuation compensation,’ but the governmentcontinues to drag its heels on this urgent issue.The definition of ‘hinan no kenri’ is based onevacuation rights and levels of irradiation ofareas around the Chernobyl NPP. For a conciseoverview of the issues see Green Action Japan’sb l o g(http://fukushima.greenaction-japan.org/2011/08/03/wanted-the-right-to-relocate-—-growing-radiation-exposure-and-the-july-19-citizen-government-talks-in-fukushima/#more-1372).Moreover, extensive documentation can befound on the Friends of the Earth Japan ‘hinann o k e n r i ’ w e b l o g(http://hinan-kenri.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/).

65 Spinoza (1676), Ethics, II/157 P22. Emphasisadded.

66 Range of hits as of November 19, 2011.

67 Castells (2009), p. 414.

68 OPT, IWJ and other independent media havebeen campaigning for years to be given ‘publicaccess’ channels on public television as well asfor equal access to press club conferences.

69 The 20 km zone was declared a no-go areaonly on April 22!

70 See for instance, Hirokawa Ryūichi (2011),Fukushima: gempatsu to hitobito. IwanamiShoten, pp. 123-177; Sotooka Hidetoshi (2011),‘Fukushima: Fuan no chi o aruku’ in Sekai vol.9, no. 821, pp.172-182; and in particular, theinterview with Nakate Seiichi, the founder ofthe Fukushima Kodomo o mamoru network onO P T ( l i n k( h t t p : / / w w w . o u r p l a n e t -tv.org/?q=node/1214)) And, of course,Iwakami’s new interview program mentionedearlier, ‘A hundred people, a hundred stories’on IWJ Channel 9.

71 In its YouTube version, the program had over60,000 views as of November 19, 2011.

72 See for instance the stories of children’sirradiation symptoms on the aforementionedblog by Kinoshita, or this hair-raising video of aparliament session on September 29 (link(http://savechild.net/archives/9494.html)) -- anabbreviated version with English subtitles canb e f o u n d h e r e(http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/10/fukushima-children-humiliated-for-not.html). As the EX-SKF blogger says, ‘watch it at your own risk!’… followed by another similar story (link(http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/10/tochigis-tactics-to-sell-its-beef-make.html#comments)).

73 Web Iwakami broadcast this meeting as wellas the subsequent press conference thechildren gave in their entirety, parts of whichcan be found on YouTube and have beensubtitled.

74 In its YouTube incarnation, this interview had22,300 hits.

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7 5 OPT also broadcast live Yamashita’spresentation and Q&A session in Nihonmatsu(For the latter with English subtitles see thisl i n k(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlypvPRl6AY)). Well known is also the following YouTubevideo with excerpts from Yamashita’s talks( w i t h E n g l i s h s u b t i t l e s(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOgaBUDFeb4)).

76 A SEED-TV stands for Action for solidarity,equality, environment and development.

77 A Google search with the specific title of theprogram gives 214,000 results, though many ofthose are redundant duplicates.

78 Richard Kahn and Douglas Kellner (2009),‘Oppositional Politics and the Internet: ACritical/Reconstructive Approach’ in Leah A.Lievrouw & Sonia Livingstone (eds.), NewMedia – Vol. IV: Social Institutions, Structures,Arrangements. London: Sage Publications, p.274; emphasis added.

79 Kahn/Kellner (2009), p. 282.

80 See the ‘about’ column on tokyobrowntabby’sY o u T u b e p a g e(http://www.youtube.com/user/tokyobrowntabby).

8 1 F r e n c h v e r s i o n : L i n k(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtLYproD6Zg)

8 2 G e r m a n v e r s i o n : L i n k(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zp4D6lzCqA&feature=channel_video_title)83 For example, the following ZDF program(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aAE-QBmC1VA) whichreceived 144.317 views in its Japanese version;o r t h i s W D R ( A R D ) p r o g r a m(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bevc_YG_cbE&feature=watch_response) which receivedalmost 70.000 views in its Japanese version.

84 See Lieuvrouw (2011), p. 174-176.

85 Castells (2009), p. 340; emphasis added.

86 Lieuvrouw (2011), p. 161.