What is it about?

To better ascertain the needs of East Asian countries adjacent to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, we conducted an analysis of 48 East-Asian websites from the day of the accident from March 2011 to September 2012. Subjects included published or broadcast news articles, blogs, and new media outlets such as YouTube videos that were produced in the area. The data are systemically collected by using the same searching words, including “Fukushima” in three local languages, such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese. The search method leaded a quasi-random sampling. The chosen websites have replies, which are the unit of analysis in this study.

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Why is it important?

Positive studies have influenced a generation of social sciences with its emphasis on scientism. On the other hand, as its counterpart, the role of narrative analysis has come into the spotlight, because positive studies have largely neglected the socially constructed elements that can be captured through the stories coalitions deployed. According to Shanahan et al. (2011), policy narratives entail substantial implications, and new media outlets such as YouTube, blogs, and the Internet, offer free and fast venues for the dissemination of policy narratives with fewer editorial obstacles found in traditional media. This study involved such websites alluding to East Asian countries’ stories and voices to the Fukushima accident but remains opaque insofar as its sources and even methods for estimating or defining responses among the countries are concerned. This study developed a typology that explains similarities and/or distinctions of response patterns among the East Asian countries.

Perspectives

The study set up a typology of classifying patterns in replies, which consists of a two-by-two matrix of publicness vs. privateness and policy narratives vs. policy monopoly. This study aimed to reconcile two different approaches of qualitative and quantitative analyses. This format gave a more affluent implication of the actualization of a typology with respect to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident. The result of the chi-square test showed that the response types are statistically dependent on the countries where the accident occurred. In detail, the model effect size represented a moderate magnitude (Cramer's V = .321). That is, East Asian countries have different responses to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident according to the typology.

Methodologist in Predictive Analytics in Public Affairs Jiwon Speers
Florida State University

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This page is a summary of: Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Cyber Communities' Voices in East Asia, Korean Comparative Government Review, December 2012, The Korean Association for Comparative Government,
DOI: 10.18397/kcgr.2012.16.3.1.
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