Blog #4 Tetsu Ozawa

They are not quite mentor because they motivate me to study my major by ignite my anger, hate, and any imaginable negative feelings. I am discussing how Japanese people use internet as a strong propaganda tools in Japanese society, and now, there is a “mentor” for Japanese young kids. There are two people and two homepages that influence Japanese student. One is the super-right wing politician Toru Hashitomo (http://www.hashimoto-toru.com/), one is also the super-right wing politician, and former air force officer Toshio Tamogami (http://www.toshio-tamogami.jp/), the other two homepages are called Hachima-Kikou (http://blog.esuteru.com/) and Kyoko-Shinbun (http://kyoko-np.net/). First of all, those two politicians are recognized as super-right-wing, that are keep justifying Japanese invasion of WWII, keep claiming that Nanjing massacre is a fake that is made up by Chinese government, and Japanese (as a race) is the most superior humankind that was chosen by the god. Then, why those two are important? Because those two politicians use Twitter in order to “teach” their followers that what is the “truth”. On the other hand, the two news sites often support those super right-wing politicians with spreading exaggerated or fake information that is insult Korea, China, the U.S. and even Taiwan (known as a Japan-friendly country). Especially, Kyokou-Shinbun means “Fake Newspaper” in Japanese, but still many of those Nationalist Japanese students believe in those “welcomed lie” rather than “inconvenient truth”. And more, I also consider that the Internet itself is also a Mentor for those Nationalistic movements, because all people more ore less may have nationalistic thoughts, but those ideas usually surprised by the people around them. However, internet let them connect with those Authorities and huge number of groups that are strong enough to justify their idea, and drive them into super-right-wing thought. This may be the process I must analyze and find some method to stop this cycle.

—-below this is not a part of assignment—-

this is totally off the topic, but Toru Hashimoto’s first name’s Chinese character is same as mine. I feel  ashamed a lot these days because of that fact 🙁

This is not the live action, but this theme is really interesting, so I chose this as a topic. Ghost in the Shell is the Animation movie which is directed by the Sci-Fi and Mech animator Mamoru Oshii. The setting is the future world that almost all human had an implant in order to improve the work efficiency. For example, Police and Military personnel has implanted eye that has integrated HUD like Google glasses, or office workers has a hand that can transform into more than 30 fingers to type quicker. And the main character Motoko Kusanagi actually IS a Full-Cyborg (except her brain). In this world, everything, even somebody’s memory, is accessible from external force because they are all connected to the huge internet systems. Characters sometimes even do not speak and send their messages to the other member directly. Because of those super high technologies, that world improved a lot because the work efficiency improved so much. However, there are some issues occurred because they rely on technologies too much. As I said, in this movie, somebody’s memory is accessible from outside, so sometimes hackers can replace somebody’s memory in order to use them as a part of their plot. Also the heroin Motoko struggled about her identity because she is full-cyborg-ed woman soldier. Because people can replace and change where their memories are stored from brain to the other platforms, this animations also argues about the basic question, “what is human?”. The technology may improve the efficiency, and makes human lives more comvinient, but it is possible that those technology will cause the other problems about the mental or psychological identities of human.

I guess this may be a good idea to post this in the blog.

This will be the article I’m thinking to present at next class.

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejis/journal/v23/n1/full/ejis201252a.html

I may add some pictures, comment or links I may use as an example.

Figure1. My online Identity.