Futures of Learning

Photo of Tokyo by Joi Ito under CC-BY

Japan has long been depicted as a country of gadget-fetishists that are continuously pushing the latest in digital culture, particularly of the marginal and miniaturized variety. Whether it is WIRED magazine’s Japanese Schoolgirl Watch, Time Asia’s feature on Gizmo Japan, or curiosity about Japan’s robot love, Western observers have often focused on technology as defining of Japan’s cultural identity.

These depictions of Japanese culture as both familiar and strange have been a common theme throughout the history of Japan’s intimate relationship with the West. While there are reasons to question the “techno-orientalism” (Morley and Robbins 1995) entailed in some of these depictions of technology exoticism, this image of Japan has been co-constructed by both Japan and its international interlocutors. As we saw in the case of Korea, Japan has worked to develop an identity as a tech-savvy nation, home to cutting-edge technology innovation and digital culture.

In the past decade, with the move towards mobile and networked digital media, Japan’s identity on the international stage has been undergoing a variety of shifts. Since the late nineties, Japan has become known for it’s heavy reliance on mobile media, with the majority of Japanese relying more heavily on wireless, handheld access than PC-based access. Japan is also unique in having a longstanding tradition of certain forms of media, gaming, and technology geek youth cultures that have blossomed with the advent of digital and networked media. Because of these characteristics, more than any other non-Western country, Japan has had a profile as a new media cultural exporter to other parts of the world. These topics will be covered in greater depth in upcoming posts. In this introductory post, we provide some background on the Japan context that has produced these distinctive technology cultures.

Japanese Technoculture in Context

In the decades after becoming an economic superpower in the seventies and beyond, Japan has become increasingly interconnected with transnational cultural and economic flows. Yet most Japanese still consider themselves part of an “island nation” that is racially and culturally distinctive and relatively homogeneous. In the contemporary era, Japan has continuously navigated a complicated identity as having a postmodern culture and one of the most “advanced” economies of the world, while also holding onto an identity as a “traditional” Eastern nation (Ivy 1995). Although 98.5% of Japanese citizens are ethnically Japanese (CIA World Factbook 2008), urban areas in Japan, particularly Tokyo, are increasingly international in character. Further, we have seen the growing exportation of Japanese cultural products overseas, first through video games, and more recently through pop art, anime and manga. In a widely cited article in Foreign Policy, Douglas McGray (2002) dubbed this a rise of Japan’s soft power and “gross national cool.”

In other words, urban Japan is highly cosmopolitan, and porous to international influence, while also being home to a distinctive cultural and technological imprint that is often successfully imported overseas. Over the years, the Japanese government and industries have made efforts to internationalize, with various degrees of success. Japan has been a dominant player in electronic gaming for decades, particularly in the console and handheld game markets. Japanese industries continue to dominate internationally in digital hardware such as cameras and displays, but has fared less well in online content and services. Although J-pop, anime and manga have become highly visible in international youth cultures, they still represent subcultural niche products that are not major export industries for Japan (Ministry of International Affairs 2008). Commentators have described this state of affairs a a “Galapagos effect” where Japan has developed advanced technologies and distinctive content in many areas that are unique to the Japanese ecosystem. Japanese mobile phones and services and much of the gaming industry are cited as examples of this Galapagos effect (NRI 2008).

Demographics and Technology Uptake

As of 2008, Japan has a population of 127 million, of which about 25% live in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Japan has a very high literacy rate of 99.8% with school enrollment at practically 100% (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication 2008). These statistics are one indicator of a national culture that is highly media savvy, which is guided by the cultural trends of the urban capital. Although youth culture is at the center of contemporary cultural trends in Japan, particularly those centered on media and technology, Japan’s is an aging population. As of 2008, 23.5% of the population is under 25 years of age, with 13.8% of the population under 15 years of age. In 1980, the number of those under 15 was 23.5%, one indicator of the rapidly aging population of Japan (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication 2008).

After the US and China, Japan is the third largest broadband country in the word, with 27.7 million broadband lines at the end of 2007 (shivya 2008a). The penetration rate for computers per household was at 85% in 2007. This number represents a substantial increase from the 2005 percentage of 36.2% (Internet Association Japan 2007). Internet access in 2008 was at 73.8% (Internet World Stats 2008). What is most distinctive about Japan from an Internet perspective, however, is the proportion of the population that accesses the Internet primarily from a handheld device. Ever since deployment of mobile Internet in Japan in the late nineties, Japan has led the world in the adoption of IP phones and 3G services . As of 2006, the majority of Japanese the handheld device as their primary way of accessing the Internet (shivya 2008b).

In the blog posts to follow over the next few weeks, Daisuke Okabe and I will provide more detail on these various dimensions of Japanese new media adoption. We look forward to your input and feedback!

References

CIA. 2008. World Factbook: Japan.

Hornyak, Timothy. 2006. Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Internet Association Japan. 2007. Internet White Paper 2007.

Ivy, Marilyn. 1995. Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

McGray, Douglas. 2002. ”Japan’s Gross National Cool.” Foreign Policy. May/June.

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication. 2008. Information and Communications in Japan.

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication. 2009. ”Popuation Estimates”

Morley, David and Robbins, Kevin. 1995. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. New York: Routledge.

NRI (野村総研). 2008. ガラパゴス化する日本.

Shivya. 2008a. “Japan: Internet Landscape.” Digital Media Across Asia.

Shivya. 2008b. “Japan: Mobile Landscape”. Digital Media Across Asia.