Abstract
How does information and communication technology (ICT) influence on a social bond beyond the borders between real and virtual spaces? This study explores how people use social media under serious social conditions, and how social media affects people’s behaviour after a disaster based on the case of the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami in 2011 in Japan. Under the critical situation where existing traditional media like phones, television, radio and newspapers did not work well, the Japanese exchanged and received information actively through social media. In fact, many disaster victims were rescued based on information via social media. It seems that those Internet media played an important role in fostering a social network and a social bond leading to generating social capital in the end. Corresponding to people’s need, social media provided various services to support people immediately after the disaster. On the other hand, however, there were endless disinformation and misinformation by using social media. How should we handle a flood of information ethically? This study examines the characteristics of ICT use under the disaster and reconsiders the role of social media in improving people’s lives as well as the difficulties in people bonding together from the perspective of information ethics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
According to the Japanese government white paper of 2016, the number of Internet users in Japan is around 100 million people and it accounts for 83.0% of the population in fiscal 2016 (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2016). However, this study refers to the data of 2010 in order to explore ethics and social media use at that time when the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake happened.
- 2.
For example, we read traffic accident news and see pictures showing the accident site online with our own eyes, but the news doesn’t give us any direct experience of the accident.
- 3.
In this context, the word “things” includes not only material things which you can physically access/touch, but also non-material things such as actions, phenomena etc.
- 4.
http://google.org/personfinder/global/home.html (Accessed 18 July 2017)
- 5.
This corporation was the only Japanese public broadcasting company involved in finding and checking on people in the damaged area.
- 6.
Google provides the photo service Picasa since 2002: http://picasa.google.com/intl/en/ (Accessed 21 July 2017). And also they offer “Google Person’s Finder” service since 2010: https://google.org/personfinder/global/home.html (Accessed 21 July 2017). In terms of message boards with handwritten message cards at a refuge in the Tohoku earthquake, see, for example, http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/kiroku311/chapter_02.html or https://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kfuji_taxi/62119114.html (Accessed 21 July 2017).
- 7.
References
Asai, Ryoko. 2011. “Social Media as a Tool for Change.” Paper presented at ETHICOMP 2011 (Proceedings: 44–50), September 14–16, at Sheffield Hallam University.
Coleman, James S. 1987. “Norms as Social Capital.” In Economic Imperialism: The Economic Approach Applied Outside the Field of Economics, edited by Gerard Radnitzky and Peter Bernholz: 133–155. New York: Paragon House Publishers.
Coleman, James S. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Editorial Office of Computer Technology コンピューターテクノロジー編集部. ed. 2011. Earthquake Disaster and Nuclear-driven Damage in the IT Age IT時代の震災と核被害. Tokyo 東京: Impress Japan インプレスジャパン.
Hayashi, Nobuyuki 林信行, and Yamaji Tatsuya 山路達也. 2012. The Great East Japan Earthquake, Information, Internet and Google 東日本大震災と情報,インターネット,Google. Available at http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/kiroku311/ (Accessed 18 July 2017).
Ichikawa, Hiroshi 市川浩. 1992. The Body as Spirit 精神としての身体. Tokyo 東京: Kōdansha 講談社.
Kobayashi, Akihito 小林啓倫. 2011. Disaster and Social Media 災害とソーシャルメディア. Tokyo 東京: Mainichi Communications 毎日コミュニケーションズ.
Lin, Nan. 2001. Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. 2011. 2010 White Paper Information and Communications in Japan. Tokyo: Gyosei.
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. 2016. 2016 White Paper Information and Communications in Japan. Tokyo: Gyosei.
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (2006). White Paper on MLIT in Japan, 2006. Tokyo: Gyosei.
Miyata, Kakuko 宮田加久子. 2005. Media to Build Up Social Bond きずなをつなぐメディア―ネット時代の社会関係資本. Tokyo 東京: NTT Publishing NTT出版.
Nagel, Thomas. 1970. The Possibility of Altruism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
National Police Agency 警察庁. 2017. “The Damage Situation and Police Actions at the Time of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 平成23 年(2011 年)東北地方太平洋沖地震の警察措置と被害状況.” Available at https://www.npa.go.jp/news/other/earthquake2011/pdf/higaijokyo.pdf (Accessed 18 July 2017).
Neubig, Graham, and Kevin Duh. 2013. How Much Is Said in a Tweet? A Multilingual, Information-theoretic Perspective. AAAI Spring Symposium: Analyzing Microtext: 32–39. Available online: http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/SSS/SSS13/paper/view/5698 (Accessed 28 July 2017)
Oldenburg, Ray. 1999. The Great Good Place. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
Putnam, Robert D. 1993a. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Putnam, Robert D. 1993b. “The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life.” American Prospect 13: 35–42.
Putnam, Robert D. 1995a. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital.” Journal of Democracy 6.1: 65–78.
Putnam, Robert D. 1995b. “Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America.” PS: Political Science and Politics 28.4: 664–683.
Sproull, Lee, and Sara Kiesler. 1986. “Reducing Social Context Cues: Electronic Mail in Organizational Communication.” Management Science 32.11: 1492–1512.
Sproull, Lee, and Sara Kiesler. 1991. Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Winner, Langdon. 1995. “Political Ergonomics.” In Discovering Design: Explorations in Design Studies, edited by Richard Buchanan, and Victor Margolin: 146–172. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Yamori, Katsuya 矢守克也. 2012. “Revisiting the concept of ‘tsunami tendenko’ 「津波てんでんこ」の4つの意味.” Journal of Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science 自然災害科学 31.1: 35–46.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by a grant from The MEXT Programme for Strategic Research Bases at Private Universities (2012–16) project “Organisational Information Ethics (S1291006)” and Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) “Research on Social Responsibility of Online Media Companies and Scholars in Exploring Human Behaviour (16K16169)”.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
ASAI, R. (2019). Social Media in a Disaster: Technology, Ethics and Society in Tōhoku in March 2011. In: LENNERFORS, T., MURATA, K. (eds) Tetsugaku Companion to Japanese Ethics and Technology. Tetsugaku Companions to Japanese Philosophy, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59027-1_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59027-1_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-59025-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-59027-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)