2 days ago
Political YouTubers boost presence in regional Japan with own reporting, livestreams
As Japan prepares for the July 20 House of Councillors election, the presence of political YouTubers is growing. This trend has extended to local areas and in some cases, YouTubers are conducting their own interviews and providing information not offered by traditional media. What is driving these new media figures and how should audiences engage with them?
Repeated interviews with candidates
On the morning of July 2, a day before the start of campaigning for the upper house election, Yasuhiko Ueno, 42, livestreamed an "emergency interview" at a cafe in the southwestern Japan city of Kagoshima. The interviewee had announced four days prior that she was withdrawing as a candidate in the Kagoshima electoral district so that opposition parties could align their candidates.
"Why did you shed tears at the press conference?" Ueno asked the woman. She began a 45-minute explanation after pointing out, "It's being reported in a fragmented way."
The program was streamed via the YouTube channel Gaku Cafe. Ueno, who runs a day care center and cafe, started the channel as a side project in April 2020. He interviewed 49 candidates during the Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly election in April 2023, and his channel now has about 12,000 subscribers.
The initial motivation behind his videos was the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. When Ueno started interviewing figures who were active in the local area, political topics quickly captured viewers' interest. He decided to stream the interviews unedited, and has continued to interview candidates for the House of Councillors election even before the official start of campaigning.
However, Ueno has faced baseless slander over the program content from a YouTuber supporting a conservative party, calling him a "Chinese spy." He also received a threat suggesting someone would barge into his workplace and harm the children there. Such incidents led to a criminal complaint being filed with the police. "If this continues, the program can't go on. As internet discourse becomes more extreme and problem-causing individuals increase, it's challenging to know how to respond individually," he admits.
A society where anyone can try their hand at politics
Senxotimes, a YouTube channel based in the southwestern Japan city of Fukuoka, regularly picks up regional issues, discussing problems in the Chikuho area of Fukuoka Prefecture and interviewing local assembly members. For the upper house election, it has been posting predictions of the number of votes and rankings for the candidates in the Fukuoka electoral district since before the official start of campaigning, with their videos gaining over 60,000 views as of July 7.
The channel is run by entrepreneur Tadataka Oi, 43, and writer and radio personality Tetsuzo Motoki, 54. Since launching in May 2022, their straight-talking commentary and unique information have drawn attention. They previously reported on suspicions of an affair involving a sitting prefectural assembly member, ultimately leading to the member's resignation. The channel has approximately 17,700 subscribers.
"We started with election analysis, and now we fulfill roles that TV and newspapers can't," says Motoki.
Oi's grandfather was the mayor of the town of Kaneda (now part of the town of Fukuchi) in Fukuoka Prefecture and his father was a town councillor, making politics a familiar subject for him. "I want to let some fresh air into politics, which has turned into vested interests and where hereditary succession abounds, to create a society where anyone can try their hand at it," he said.
Income from the program reaches around 50,000 to 100,000 yen (about $340 to $680) a month. Since they can't make a living from that alone, they plan to launch a monthly membership system for viewers from October 2024 to stabilize revenue.
Expert: 'Decipher the intent' of streamers
A "national media values survey," released in June by SmartNews Media Research Institute found that 10.9% of respondents cited social media, including YouTube, as the medium or method they most frequently use to obtain news about elections and politics. While this is lower than TV (46.5%), online news sites or apps (17.8%), and newspapers or magazines (16.0%), it demonstrates a certain level of presence.
Kenichi Ikeda, a professor of political psychology at Doshisha University who co-chaired the survey, commented, "YouTube's transformation into a mass media outlet is advancing. In smaller localities, where existing media information is scarce, its impact on politics and elections could be relatively large."
Fellow survey co-chair Yukio Maeda, a University of Tokyo graduate school professor whose fields of specialty include political science and public opinion research, commented, "Information akin to the 'defamatory flyers' common during elections a while ago now spreads rapidly online. While voters may have developed some immunity, such as in the Hyogo gubernatorial election with the series of issues involving information of uncertain veracity, they still need to decipher the intent of those sending out the information and check the sources."
(Japanese original by Masanori Hirakawa, Kyushu News Department)
