The Internet: An (other) agent that disseminates Japanese 'soft power' resources

Social Media Use during Japan's 2011 Earthquake: How Twitter Transforms the Locus of Crisis Communication

“…The current popularity of social media and their role in several disasters and events worldwide have raised new issues associated with crisis communication strategies. Through social media, the public's interest in peer-to-peer or citizen-centred communication has increased sharply, and the top-down pattern of crisis communication may have been replaced by a peer-to-peer form (Hsu et al, 2013;Bunyavejchewin, 2012;Sinnappan et al, 2010). Although many studies have examined social media use during crises, few have considered the question of how the role of traditional leadership facilitated by government organisations and mainstream media outlets is transformed within social media.…”