2023.Apr.12

REPORTS

Report on the First Event for the Publication of “Iine! botan o osu mae ni: jendā kara miru netto kūkan to media (Before Clicking the Like Button: Internet Space and Media from the Gender Perspective)” entitled “Who are ‘Influencers’?”

 

 On March 1, 2023, “Media and Diversity Forum (MeDi),” a sub-project of the B’AI Global Forum, held its first event to celebrate the publication of its second book, “Iine! botan o osu mae ni: jendā kara miru netto kūkan to media (Before Clicking the Like Button: Internet Space and Media from the Gender Perspective)” in a hybrid format.

 The event, which was hosted by MeDi and Akishobo and co-hosted by the B’AI Global Forum, featured three of the eight authors: essayist Keiko Kojima, who was in charge of the introduction and special talks; Professor Tohko Tanaka of the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at the University of Tokyo, who wrote Chapter 3, “Why Can’t We Have Calm Dialogue on Social Media?”; and Renge Jibu, a journalist and associate professor of the Institute of Liberal Arts at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who co-wrote Chapter 4, “Why Are There So Many Mistakes on Gender-Related Topics?” The speakers discussed the theme of “Who are “Influencers”?” while sharing their own media experiences.

 At the beginning of the event, they gave a brief introduction of the book including the background of the publication. Today, with smartphones in our hands, everyone has become a kind of media outlet. Consequently, each and every one of us is required to be aware of our responsibility as media and consider how the internet space works, its impact on individuals and society, and the power it exerts. This book was conceived as a guideline to living in such a media age, they said.

 In this context, the “influencer,” which was the theme of this event, provides a clue for considering the economic structure of the internet space, its impact on the audience, and the state of public opinion on the internet. In recent years, people called influencers have been engaged in a wide variety of activities online spaces including social media. However, different from the celebrities of the old media era, it is common for a person who is overwhelmingly well known and outspoken in one world to be a complete unknown in another. In this respect, today’s influencers are symbolic of the fragmented world of the internet.

 How do these influencers emerge? In this regard, the speakers focused on the act of clicking the “Like” button, which is something that everyone inadvertently does on the internet. They emphasized that clicking the “Like” button should not be considered merely as a way of expressing approval or support for someone’s post, but as an act of granting someone power to that extent. Furthermore, with the recent spate of uproar and slander on the internet, this act can at times be complicit in perpetrating harm, and at other times it can even be an act that hurts oneself. And those who accumulate a lot of “Likes” are referred to as “influencers” and gain significant power in the internet space.

 Journalist Jibu, who served as moderator for the event, asked Kojima and Tanaka respectively what changes have occurred in the media industry and academia as a result of the internet age and the emergence of influencers. Essayist Kojima, who has been working in TV and radio for nearly 30 years and experienced the spread of social media such as Twitter along the way, answered that the most significant change in the social media era is that the interaction with the audience has become very fast-paced. She also noted that unlike in the past, people with millions of followers have emerged and gained new power without appearing in mass media, and this has changed the entertainment business in Japan significantly. On the other hand, Professor Tanaka explained that a major change in academia is the increase in requests for articles to female researchers, as the response from the audience has become more visible online in the age of social media, whereas in the past, authors were almost exclusively male in academic journals. However, she also pointed out the negative aspects of social networking in academia such as the fact that the number of “Likes” has become excessively important, causing a situation in which even statements with questionable evidence could be accepted as true if they receive a lot of “Likes.”

 Kojima then referred to the statement of economist Shinichi Yamaguchi, with whom she had a special talk for the book, that “online public opinion is not public opinion.” According to Yamaguchi’s research, only 0.00025% of all users make negative comments on Twitter. Despite this, when such comments spread and cause an uproar, they tend to seem to be the “voice of the people.” Although it is easy to assume that “everyone thinks in that way” when looking at social media, Kojima emphasized that those opinions are not representative of everyone, and that a comment got a number of “Likes” does not necessarily mean we can trust it, so it is increasingly important to develop “number literacy” in the internet age.

 As described above, there is still much to be verified about the reality of what is happening on the internet and online public opinion, but why the uproar on the internet and influencers are nonetheless having an ever-increasing impact? The speakers pointed out that one factor is the way how existing mass media use the information on the internet. In recent years, topics that have gained momentum online have increasingly been picked up by TV and newspapers, and influencers on social media are also increasingly appearing on those traditional media. Although some of these include cases that are questionable in terms of news value and credibility, the speakers argued, the traditional media give endorsement to them by covering them. Furthermore, various other problems with the traditional media were also pointed out, including excessive reliance on social media to find stories, the use of influencers who make extreme statements for the sake of viewership ratings and page views, and news coverage that further magnifies the uproar on the internet.

 However, although the speakers had critically discussed what seems to be public opinion on the internet symbolized by “Like” so far, it does not mean that the value of these opinions or the significance of the internet discourse space has been totally denied. As Kojima mentioned, it is true that people who have not had their opinions heard in the political arena before have been able to acquire power and make their presence visible by supporting someone online, and there are certainly people who have become influencers through their support. In addition, according to Jibu, it was not possible before the advent of social media for dissenting opinions about the ruling party to be immediately delivered and demanded a response. On the other hand, Tanaka pointed out that with the spread of the discourse of “uproar on the internet,” even a proper criticism against a certain social issue or a united voice calling for correction could be downplayed as a mere “uproar.”

 Despite such ambivalence the internet has, as long as it has become an indispensable media in modern society and democracy, we should manage to get along with it. What is needed now to achieve this? The speakers said that it is required to have a thorough discussion about the mechanisms of social media and its effects on our bodies, minds, and desires, and that it is important to create rules and redesign the internet space little by little while it is still in its infancy. Moreover, Tanaka mentioned the unexpected importance of “etiquette,” which is not about laws and regulations, but about the need for each participant to display at least a minimum level of courtesy in order to maintain a positive online space. She also expressed the view that it is crucial to build a space for discussion not only through social media but also by combining it with a place where people can converse with each other in person.

 This discussion was further continued by a question from a participant, “In this age of Web 3.0, AI, and increasingly evolving virtual spaces, what kind of mindset is needed on users to still be able to coexist comfortably with others in the online society?” Kojima again reflected on her dialogue with Yamaguchi, and said that she was very much in agreement with his view that what is necessary is “philosophy” in an age when it is commonplace to encounter others away from our physical bodies, such as in the Metaverse, etc. She shared the insights she gained from her dialogue with him: “What is valuable, what makes us rich, what is precious to us? In this age when everyone is a media outlet, I want each and every one of us to have our own “philosophy” in managing the media. The more digital technology advances, the more indispensable such a starting point becomes.”

 This event was an intriguing time, starting from the angle of “influencers” and expanding the discussion to the relationship between the internet and traditional media, and how to deal effectively with the internet space. As an audience as well as a media, it was a valuable opportunity for me to think about how to avoid being swallowed up by the attention economy, a system in which people’s attention and interest are priced, and the number of followers, page views, and time spent on a website are converted into economic value.