市民社会におけるインターネットと選挙

2004年参院選候補者ウェブサイトの分析

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what type of website candidates are putting up and what factors affect the contents of their websites using the data on the 2004 Upper House Election in Japan. With content analysis of 234 candidates' websites, I have produced an index to measure the degree of “sophisticated-ness” of each website drawing mainly on the following components: (1) interactive-ness (2) information provision (3) presentation (4) accessibility. Binomial negative regression was employed as statistical model to estimate the impacts of various factors, including party affiliation, status of candidates, electoral system, and socioeconomic status of the candidates, on their websites' sophisticated-ness. My findings reveal that party affiliation and incumbency are strong predictors of websites' sophisticated-ness, and candidates from major parties or those seeking re-election are more likely to go online and have more sophisticated websites. Besides, there is a possibility that electoral system can affect the Internet use of candidates. I conclude by suggesting that the process of “normalization”, the fact that cyberspace reflects the real world, would be inevitable in Japanese politics.