Abstract
On May 17, 2015 in Osaka City, a referendum was held asking whether voters approved of the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards.” Approximately one month before that, a total of 39 explanation meetings for Osaka citizens were held regarding this agreement, but there has been no systematic verification of the explanation content by the city side throughout all of the meetings. Therefore, for this research text analysis was conducted focusing on the greeting by the secretariat, the explanation by the secretariat, and the explanation by the mayor at the explanation meetings, and it was verified whether the city side provided appropriate explanations to the citizens. As a result, it was found that “the fact that Osaka City will be abolished if the referendum passes,” which absolutely had to be communicated to the residents, was not explained even once to the citizens in the spoken explanations by the secretariat and Mayor. Regarding the finances of special wards, it was found that both the secretariat and the mayor explained, based on long-term fiscal estimates not listed in the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards,” that fiscal management can definitely be carried out, and new resident services are also possible. The Mayor used the term “Osaka Metropolis Plan” a total of 1,626 times. In addition, it was found that four types of false explanations were given by the Mayor in the explanatory pamphlet, i.e., that the pamphlet is the Agreement to Establish Special Wards, that the pamphlet was approved by the assemblies of both Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City, that this is the only public document, and that it has been checked by the national government. When an investigation was conducted of resemblances between the explanation by the secretariat, the explanation by the Mayor, and the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards,” it was found that there was considerable resemblance in terms of frequency of terms used between the explanation by the secretariat and the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards,” but there was no resemblance between these and the explanation by the Mayor. Furthermore the explanation by the Mayor changed over the course of the 39 explanations, but it did not come to resemble the explanation by the secretariat or the “Agreement to Establish Special Wards.”
