Using social media sometimes feels like attending a party or moving to a new city. You may know a few people there and a few of them may recognise you, but you're pretty much on your own. Friends will introduce you to their friends, and then it's your responsibility to build a network. And like at a party or in a new city, some places are harder to fit into, it's more difficult to meet people of a certain personality type, with certain interests.
Research projects require a great deal of work, and the best ones always showcase multiple perspectives in order to minimise the chances of appearing biased. Many news aggregators and their corresponding twitter feeds have presented Tokyoites' views of Tokyo after the Tohoku disaster began — these are the easiest sources to find — but few have highlighted individuals who do not seek the spotlight and are simply narrating daily life. The Twitter feeds and sites that I have chosen to follow do exactly this: They are either maintained by individuals or provide a less mainstream, less-attention-hungry look into Tokyo life.
The lists are in progress — I'm trying to find new people to follow who I'm not following already.
Twitter feeds (20):
1. @arudoudebito is a formerly American, now naturalised Japanese citizen who blogs and writes columns for newspapers around Tokyo. He tends to comment about how permanent residents are reacting to the events up in Tohoku and provides an interesting look into the life of a foreigner turned Japanese, addressing issues such as xenophobia in relation to the flyjin phenomenon.
2. @JPN_PMO is the English-language Twitter of the Japanese Prime Minister's Office. While it chronicles neither Japanese opinions nor reactions after the quake, the statements of one of Japan's most highly ranked individuals seem to both reflect and direct the way Japanese people are acting and feeling.
3. @quakebook is the Twitter feed of a crowd-sourced book that brings together peoples' stories of what they were doing on 3.11.2011. The maintainers of the feed often post tidbits from the submissions they receive, which are often firsthand reflections of the state of Japan.
4. @TheTokyoTimes brings together stories from Tokyo expats and is an open-submission news portal. It isn't sponsored by any major media organisations, which makes the articles they post much more personal and relevant to a Tokyo resident. By Tokyoites, for Tokyoites, it would seem.
5. @marcysensei is an anthropologist who studies Japanese minorities. Though she is not in Japan, the majority of her tweets focus on corporate reactions, job availability in Tohoku — and who officials are targeting for the dangerous ones — and crisis response. Through a mix of cited news articles, personal translations and links, she opens a window into the lower classes of Japan — those without a voice.
6. @japantimes_life is one of the more mainstream blogs on this list. They basically post stories from residents — they're similar to The Tokyo Times, but concentrate their efforts on linking to Japan Times' articles.
7. @Tokyo_Tom is a liberal expat who tweets the less-talked-about side of things.
8. @japanecho is the Twitter of a news site of the same name. Their feed highlights individual blog entries that might otherwise go unnoticed — often about how the earthquake is impacting the ability to do business in Japan and personal lives — and articles from their site.
9. @Matt_Alt quickly emerged as an authoritative English-speaking resource during the quake. He provides personal tidbits about his life in Tokyo and his reaction to other peoples' reactions, and translates pertinent information (such as press conference agendas) from Japanese to English (and vice versa).
10. @yurikageyama is an Associated Press correspondent in Tokyo. She writes about life in Tokyo and crisis control, and often reposts useful Japanese articles that I may have otherwise skimmed.
11. @JapanRealTime is the English-language Twitter of the Japanese Wall Street Journal. They focus on life in Japan from the expat perspective and often live-blog key events in Tokyo.
12. @HirokoTabuchi belongs to a New York Times correspondent of the same name who often tweets about Japanese stoicism and is known for her ability to provide a comprehensive insider's view of Tokyo from the Japanese perspective.
13. @JapanSecWatch doesn't focus on individual perspectives, but the maintainers tend to post content related to the military and how they are reacting, as well as information about the Japanese government's decisions — in English. It could be useful to see whether the military is reacting differently from the mass populi.
14. @tokyoreporter posts articles from Japanese tabloids and mass media that would otherwise go unnoticed by English speakers like me — many of these articles are about how the Japanese government's decisions are affecting the people, and how the people are taking these decisions.
15. @Mulboyne posts myriad articles in both English and Japanese that are relevant to individuals living in Japan, and is great at responding to questions and inquiries about the status quo.
16. @japansubculture focuses on underbelly of Japan and writes about how the more off-key characters of Japan have reacted to the disaster, such as the Japanese yakuza community. It's an interesting contrast to the news stories about NPOs and other charity organisations, which ignore the crime and dirtier parts of the disaster.
17. @jjwdmn translates informational tidbits from Japanese to English — the feed's tweets are usually related to how Japanese people perform crisis control. These one-sentence — rather, 140 character — summaries are useful to a non-native Japanese speaker like me, and the idea has a lot of potential so I want to see how it develops later on.
18. @TEPCO_CEO is a Twitter account that was started in response to TEPCO's seeming inability to keep their facts straight. While it is not maintained by the official TEPCO — they have their own Twitter — their tweets reflect one of the ways that Japanese people are perceiving the so-called nuclear disaster: laughing it off.
19. @JapanRebirth does exactly what their profile says: They translate Japanese tweets into English — their feed definitely reveals a lot about how Japanese people are taking the recent electricity cuts and government decisions.
20. @DailyYomiuri is last, but certainly not least. I figured that it would be good to include at least one major news source on here. Twitter forces news agencies to pick and choose their best articles, which I find is a great way to weed out the boring, space filler stories.
Blogs (10):
1. Tokyo Times (E) is a news portal of sorts that brings together all sorts of articles about the earthquake, but tends to avoid writing about things that the mass media has covered and beaten to death. They also offer a glimpse into the daily life of a Japanese expat.
2. Japan Focus (E) is a division of the Asia-Pacific Journal that concentrates its efforts on Japan's economy — lately they have been posting a lot about how the tsunami is affecting the personal lives of individuals and how said individuals are responding. The majority of their articles are more research-based, which makes it a welcome change from the hastily compiled news articles that have become so common.
3. Global Voices: Japan (E) is a somewhat crowd-sourced site that attempts to bring together bloggers and residents of various countries. Their Japan site features firsthand narrations — sometimes translated from other languages — and opinion pieces about Japan's recovery process. The site is unique in the sense that it doesn't only focus on English-speaking expats or permanent residents and often draws on sites such as Youtube to prove a point.
4. 808 Towns (J) is a Japanese blog that predominantly wrote about touristy things. Lately, however, the maintainer of the site has been writing about the social issues and problems that people have been encountering in the wake of the disaster. The maintainer tells her stories from a casual, narrative perspective, which makes it an entertaining (yet somber) read.
5. 57 no nukes (J) is a Tumblr site that was created to inform people about the ongoing anti-nuclear demonstrations and rallies taking place throughout Japan. The site provides schedules and instructions for potential participants, and links to useful information. Japan does not have a history of protesting governmental actions — or protesting at all — so I thought it would be interesting to follow this growing activist movement and to see just how dissatisfied some Japanese people are with recent administrative decisions — it would appear that some people have dropped the stoic tatemae.
6. Shirouto (J) is the mailing list for people interested in participating in the aforementioned anti-nuclear rallies. They link to various events that are unrelated to rallies — these usually support the activist cause. Again, I follow them because I think it will be interesting to see how this new generation activist movement unfolds.
7. Moms to Save Children from Radiation (J/E) is a site that was created for mothers who are concerned about their children being exposed to radiation and attempts to bring said individuals together. I found it curious that a site like this even exists, because the Japanese government has been going out of their way to state adamantly that there is no danger in the immediate areas outside of the exclusionary zones near the reactors.
8. DeMatter (J) is a site that debunks rumours about the situation up at Fukushima. While it is not directly connected to my research topic, reading about the exaggerated stories that are making their way through the Japanese community — and possibly influencing individuals' behaviour — is fascinating.
9. Time Out Tokyo (J/E) is a quickly growing online magazine that demonstrated its usefulness during the initial Tohoku earthquake. However, even after the quake, they remain a vital source for most expats in Japan and have interviewed people who are known for stirring up the status quo, such as the man responsible for the Koenji demonstrations. Their perspective is interesting, because they write for residents of Japan, rather than "foreigners," and the site is completely bilingual.
10. Datugen Info (J) hosts a calendar that lists upcoming nuclear protest events and links to online petitions. While this kind of site is not rare (Shirouto is quite similar), I chose to include it because it makes information of this type much more easily accessible.
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