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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how local candidates combined offline and online campaign strategies in a local (prefectural) election by investigating online media use during the December 2022 Ibaraki prefectural coucilors election.

Paper long abstract:

Election campaigns in Japan have traditionally involved direct means for candidates to appeal to the public. During officially designated election campaign periods, candidates often use street speeches and loudspeaker trucks as direct forms of campaigning. Since the Public Offices Election Law was amended in April 2013 to allow for Internet-based campaigning, candidates have supplemented such traditional practices with websites, email, and, more recently, with social media use such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube.

To date, much academic attention has been paid to election campaign media use in national elections with little research investigating media use in smaller elections at the prefectural or municipal levels. However, as direct means of campaigning were curtailed during the COVID-19 period in many local elections, plus the growing interest in Internet-based voting, online campaigning also continues to evolve in Japan alongside traditional campaign practices.

In this paper, I investigate how candidates integrated offline and online campaign practices and media use during Ibaraki’s councilor election in December 2022. Based mainly on a content-analysis approach, I examine the similarities and differences among candidates’ use of various campaigning means, including their social media use. The implications of evolving media use in Japan will shed new light on campaign practices.