Kenichi Ishii

Nationalistic Sentiments of Chinese Consumers: The Effects and Determinants of Animosity and Consumer Ethnocentrism

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents of consumer ethnocentrism and test the effects of animosity and consumer ethnocentrism on the purchase of foreign products in China. A questionnaire survey (N = 600) was conducted in Shanghai in 2005 using the mall-intercept survey technique. The results indicate that the effects of animosity and consumer ethnocentrism are significant in the case of Japanese and U.S. products in China, and that Chinese consumer ethnocentrism is a combination of patriotism and negative internationalism. Patriotism is positively correlated with consumer ethnocentrism, but is negatively correlated with animosity. As compared to patriotism, the total effect of exclusionism on the willingness to buy foreign products is much stronger.

Links between real and virtual networks: a comparative study of online communities in Japan and Korea.

The present study explores how online communities affect real-world personal relations based on a cross-cultural survey conducted in Japan and Korea. Findings indicate that the gratifications of online communities moderate the effects of online communities on social participation. Online communities are categorized into a real-group-based community and a virtual-network-based community. The membership of real-group-based online community is positively correlated with social bonding gratification and negatively correlated with information- seeking gratification. Japanese users prefer more virtual-network-based online communities, while their Korean counterparts prefer real-group-based online communities. Korean users are more active in online communities and seek a higher level of socializing gratifications, such as social bonding and making new friends, when compared with their Japanese counterparts. These results indicate that in Korea, personal relations via the online community are closely associated with the real-world personal relations, but this is not the case in Japan. This study suggests that the effects of the Internet are culture-specific and that the online community can serve a different function in different cultural environments.

A comparative study of media cultures among Taiwanese and Japanese youth

This study used nation-wide surveys to explore how different media usage patterns were shaped in Taiwan and Japan. Taiwanese youth use the Internet to a much greater extent than Japanese youth, even though broadband services are cheaper and faster in Japan. Japanese youth use text-messaging services featured on mobile phones more than their Taiwanese counterparts. Since the 1980s, Taiwan has witnessed the development of a unique BBS (bulletin board system) culture, and this culture has led the Taiwanese to have a comparatively stronger degree of trust in the Internet than the Japanese. The Internet culture in Japan is more individualized. Japanese adolescents and young adults tend to avoid direct communication, resulting in the promotion of a unique mobile media culture among the Japanese youth. The findings discussed here suggest that, despite the worldwide standardization of communication technologies, the culturally different personal relationship patterns in the two countries studied have created different media trends for their youth.

Measuring mutual causation: Effects of suicide news on suicides in Japan

The effects of mass media on Japanese suicides at a national level and at a local level (Tokyo area) are examined using Grangers causality model. Most research on mass media effects has only partially analyzed mutual causation between mass media and society. In this paper, applying a time series model to Japanese data, the mutual causation between suicide news and suicides is investigated. After comparing Akaikes Information Criterion (AIC) values of various time series models, a minimum AIC model is selected as the best model for each level. Results are basically consistent with the findings by Phillips (1986), showing that mass media have a strong one-way effect on suicides.

Japanese and U.S. programs in Taiwan: New patterns in Taiwanese television

Recent deregulation in Taiwan, including the lifting of a ban against Japanese programs and the authorization of commercial CATV, has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of foreign programs. After reviewing the unique broadcasting history of Taiwan, this study examines exposure to and preference for foreign programs based on a nationwide survey. The findings demonstrate that, in addition to social status, historical and cultural backgrounds substantially affect individuals’ choices of foreign programs.

PHS: Revolutionizing personal communication in Japan

This article presents an overview of the current state of PHS in Japan, focusing on differences between PHS and conventional mobile phones. The survey, conducted in December 1995, revealed that PHS users are younger, richer and more educated than conventional mobile phone users. Private use is more common than business use with PHS. PHS users show a great interest in advanced technologies, such as high-speed data transmission. The results suggest that PHS and conventional mobile phones may coexist in the future, targeting different types of customers.

Diffusion, Policy, and Use of Broadband in Japan

In Japan, information technology (IT) policies have undergone a fundamental change in recent years. Lower charges and faster access speed resulting from the market-oriented IT policies have caused the number of broadband users to grow rapidly. After reviewing broadband and IT policies, this paper focuses on the uses and effects of the broadband based on a nationally representative survey. The survey results demonstrate that early adopters of the broadband are demographically different from their counterpart using the narrowband, which suggests that diffusion of the broadband will reduce the existing demographic gaps in Internet use. The results also demonstrate that broadband use significantly increased the amount of time spent on the Internet, reduced the amount of time spent watching TV, and promoted advanced usage of the Internet. These results suggest that the broadband Internet as a powerful time-consuming medium may change time use patterns of everyday life.

Digital divides and mobile Internet in Indonesia

Four-levels of digital divides in mobile Internet in Indonesia are assessed.Younger and more educated people tend to use mobile Internet via smartphones.Feature phones are owned by less educated and older people.Mobile leapfrogging is not supported except for the ownership of future phones.Use of smartphones is associated with higher information acquisition in daily life. Mobile leapfrogging refers to the process by which new Internet users access the Internet using mobile phones and not PCs. This study examines how and whether mobile phones narrow the digital divide among Indonesian people at four levels (device ownership, Internet adoption, use, and information acquisition). A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted in three large cities in Indonesia (N=605). The results indicated that, at different levels, younger and more educated people utilize mobile Internet, especially via smartphones. In contrast, feature phones are owned by less educated and older people regardless of income level, but Internet usage on such phones is more prevalent among younger and more educated people. Moreover, the adoption of the PC-based Internet promotes the ownership of smartphones. These results indicate that mobile leapfrogging is the case only with the ownership of feature phones. Furthermore, in comparison with feature phones, smartphones and personal computers are more associated with information handling capacity in daily life. These findings suggest that ICT literacy education is important, and one should not be optimistic about the mobile Internets prospects for narrowing the digital divide in developing countries.

Measuring information behavior : A time budget survey in Japan

This paper discusses the results of a time budget survey which was conducted nationwide in Japan in 1995 on ‘information behavior’, that is, the amount of time people spent communicating and using information media ranging from conversations to computers. We propose a three-dimensional time budget survey as a method for measuring information behavior in actual life. The method classifies information behavior into 24 categories and measures them with respect to three factors, i.e. time, location and purpose of behavior. Our survey revealed that the total time spent on information behavior was about seven hours per day, of which about 45% was spent watching TV. The displacement effect of PC use on TV watching was estimated by a “time-shift matching” design. The results demonstrated that use of a PC does not significantly affect TV viewing, despite a large difference in TV viewing time between PC users and non-users.

Online communication with strong ties and subjective well-being in Japan

Recent developments in communication technologies have changed how people connect and interact with each other. This study investigates whether and how online communication with strong ties (mobile phone and social networking service [SNS]) enhances subjective well-being in Japan. Study 1 examined whether the correlation between happiness and mobile phone use was mediated by the number of offline and online friends. Study 2 assessed the associations between the Japanese relationship-oriented value interdependent self-view, life satisfaction, and the use of SNS. Results indicate that only the use of LINE (an instant messaging application), which is the most popular SNS in Japan, was significantly correlated with life satisfaction and interdependent self-view. The number of friends (offline and online) mediated the effect of LINE use on life satisfaction. Interdependent self-view was significantly correlated with the frequency of LINE use, homogeneity of LINE friends, and life satisfaction. These results indicate that the use of a dominant online communication method with strong ties is significantly correlated with subjective well-being, and this significant correlation is mediated by the number of offline and online friends. Online communication with strong ties enhances subjective well-being in Japan.LINE (SNS) is the most popular communication method among young people.Mobile mail is the most popular communication method among older people.Network size mediates the effect of online communication on subjective well-being.Interdependent self-view is correlated with LINE use and subjective well-being.