Japan Election Raises Social Media Campaigning Stakes

TOKYO, Feb 4  (Bernama-Kyodo) — The short campaigning period for Japan’s snap general election on Sunday is making social media strategy increasingly important for reaching voters, analysts say, with mixed results among veterans and newcomers alike.

Kyodo News reported that while the ruling Liberal Democratic Party soars in media polls with its leader Sanae Takaichi showing strength in her online engagement as prime minister, the new main opposition Centrist Reform Alliance appears to face similar social media challenges as its founding parties, and the emerging populist Sanseito party reports it is seeing diminished online reach compared with the previous national election.

In a country where the potentially decisive role of social media in elections came to be widely recognised only a few years ago, Takaichi already had a competitive edge when she called for the election just three months into office, having demonstrated a level of social media savvy rare among Japanese premiers.

“Ms. Takaichi seems conscious of how she wants to be seen,” said Takuma Ohamazaki, CEO of election consultancy J.A.G Japan Corp., citing her skills in appealing to the LDP’s base that had backed her mentor Shinzo Abe, a scion of a conservative political dynasty who was gunned down after setting a record as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.

She has also focused on projecting her personality in her online communications, such as through her use of her hometown dialect when appearing in video clips, Ohamazaki said.

Known for playing the drums in a band as a university student, Takaichi’s K-pop song drumming session video with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in January went viral.

The exceptionally high support rate for the Takaichi Cabinet has been linked to the 64-year-old’s “online stronghold,” a term brought to prominence by media startup head Katsuhiro Yoneshige to describe a support base created in the digital space through social media messaging, account followers and influential supporters.

Takaichi has 2.6 million followers on her X account, which she continues to use after becoming Japan’s first female prime minister in October.

In the seven-day period from Jan 23 when the House of Representatives was dissolved, Takaichi was the most mentioned party leader at 2.55 million posts on X, followed by Yoshihiko Noda of the Centrist Reform Alliance at 670,000 and Sanseito’s Sohei Kamiya at 570,000, a Kyodo News analysis using US firm Meltwater’s social media analytics tool showed.

The number of posts does not necessarily reflect voters’ support as they include content critical about the party leaders, the report added. 

Yet, media polls have shown the ruling coalition of the LDP and the Japan Innovation Party cruising to victory in the election, which Takaichi said she is staking her job on.

Established just days before the lower house was dissolved, the Centrist Reform Alliance, meanwhile, has faced negativity on social media questioning its existence, criticism of its “old-fashioned” name and misuse of its logo.

“They have to promote the party’s name, convey policies, and on top of that get voters to recognize its leadership team. In that sense, they’ve started with a disadvantage,” said Tadashi Mori, a professor of politics at Aichi Gakuin University.

The alliance’s difficulties in the online space appear to be a continuation of those faced by its founding parties, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, previously the largest main opposition, and the Komeito party, which split up with the LDP after 26 years of partnership as Takaichi took over as LDP leader.

The House of Representatives election was called at a time when the CDPJ was taking a hard look at its results in the House of Councillors election last summer that saw smaller opposition groups such as the Democratic Party for the People and Sanseito increase their seats partly due to campaigns with strong online footprints.

The formation of the new major opposition could have been a chance to inject fresh enthusiasm among voters, but the centrist alliance got off to a rocky start as it saw its new logo, a blue circle, being altered and spread online.

Some outlets reported users were sharing a similar logo that appeared to suggest links to China.

In a bid to turn negative attention into an asset, the alliance is producing self-deprecating content that acknowledges the backlash.

A video of co-leaders Noda, formerly CDPJ chief, and Tetsuo Saito, formerly Komeito head, responding to provocative questions about their decision to unite the two longtime rival parties and what some view as an outdated party name had over 600,000 views since being uploaded on Jan 18.

“It’s a case of ‘it can’t get any worse than this.’ There’s a kind of defiant attitude to their online strategy,” said Mori.

On YouTube, the Centrist Reform Alliance has around 110,000 subscribers, while the DPP has over 300,000, and Sanseito, founded in 2020 through YouTube recruitment, has around 570,000.

But Kamiya, who led Sanseito into gaining 14 of its 15 upper house seats last year with its “Japanese First” anti-globalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, told journalists on the campaign trail he feels “strange” about its recent online reach.

“We have bigger audiences than in the upper house race, party members’ enthusiasm is higher, but our posts don’t spread at all,” he said, adding that its reach on X is down to around a third of previous levels.

The small party’s woes may be linked to the lower house election’s single-seat constituency system, which has led it to field many candidates across the country but on the other hand has made it difficult to present charismatic “idol” figures, such as last year’s former jazz singer Sayaka Shioiri, according to Ohamazaki.

Ohamazaki said the current short campaign during a cold winter makes social media an appropriate means for speaking to voters.

A recent Kyodo News nationwide phone poll showed around 40 percent of voters said they place emphasis on social media when deciding whom to vote for, against 58 percent who said they do not.

“Core supporters may not care much about social media, but for undecided voters, it is the most effective tool. In this election, it may be the only tool that is truly effective for appealing to them,” Ohamazaki said.

— BERNAMA-KYODO

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