This short presentation examines the effect of the quake, tsunami and nuclear incident at Fukushima on the media landscape in Japan. Specifically, it compares and contrasts centralized media and information sources, (exemplified by NHK), and distributed media and information sources (including twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Pachube, and others). The presentation was given at Roppongi Hill's breakfast talk event (http://twitter.com/#!/hillsbreakfast) on April 25th 2011, in Japanese, following the PechaKucha 15slides x 15secs format.

1. James Hollow
• 2001
• 2001 4 WPP Fellowship
• 2001 9
• 2002 11
• 2004 11
• CEO
www.alien-eye.com
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2. What the Japan Earthquake / Tsunami showed
us about media decentralization in Japan
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3. NHK’s natural disaster
response plan was executed
perfectly. Their tsunami
warnings alone, minutes ahead
of all other channels, probably
saved thousands of lives
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4. NHK believe they have
a responsibility to
maintain public calm, so
were careful to keep
emotion and sensation
out of their coverage,
including the Fukushima
Dai-ichi events and
commentary.
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5. Their post-disaster policy dictates
that they rotate the announcers
every hour to avoid viewers
becoming emotionally influenced by
or attached to any one personality.
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6. But relying on ‘official’
sources of information, they
cannot win 100% trust from
everyone, since many doubt
the transparency or accuracy
of government-related
sources.
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7. As a decentralized
system, social media
remained robust
throughout. When
mobile networks were
jammed after the quake
Social media helped
individuals connect &
local info to be shared
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8. But unlike NHK, their is
no emotional ‘control’,
evidenced by the panic
that spread on FB
among the expat
community in Tokyo as
the Fukushima incident
began, leading to an
estimated 300k fleeing
within 3 days.
Can assume that this
exodus was fuelled by
the very sensationalist
coverage of events in
the foreign media, and
pressure from family +
friends (via social media)
to leave Japan.
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9. But social media
enabled the most
emotive coverage of
the quake & tsunami,
some 20k first-hand
videos uploaded to
YouTube alone,
sharing the full
devastation to Japan
& the World,
together with their
gasps of horror....
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10. The web & social
media enabled an
array of innovative
approaches to relief
efforts: fund-raising,
people-finding,
volunteer
recruitment, crowd-
sourced translation
etc etc
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11. No one person can
perceive all of the
social media activity,
so people have to
make up their own
minds who/what to
follow to get their
information and
opinion. Unlike
NHK, these choices
are very much
influenced by
personality, social
reputation, the
limitations of
people’s own
network....
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12. The distrust of
‘official’
information
sources, relating
to radiation
levels & water/
food
contamination
has led to the
formation of
distributed
networks of
sensors,
managed
through the
web.
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13. But with ‘un-official’
sources of data, and no
over-seer, there is the
chance of grossly
distorted data influencing
the public. If validation
structures are set up, can
THEY be trusted....
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14. All this puts more pressure on the
end user to take responsibility.
This was happening already, but
the stakes are now higher, and the
speed of change is increasing.
This could be a hugely positive
trend for Japanese society. But if
instead, people decide, en-masse,
to follow the wrong people, then
it could be very damaging.
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15. Like with all types of
progress, the realm of
possibility expands, but the
effect on society and its
individuals depends on how
the potential is adopted, by
who, and with what
motivation.
Personally I hope that
Japanese citizens can seize
the opportunity to have a
bigger say in how Japan is
run, and the role it carves
out in the global community.
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