This study examined the programming of terrestrial and BS digital broadcasters by genre from the viewpoint of economics, using programming data for 8 weeks in 2010. The results showed that program genres with many broadcast hours are different between private broadcasters and a public broadcaster, NHK, and between terrestrial broadcasters and BS digital broadcasters. This study also found that broadcast hours by genre were evenly distributed among the 3 NHK BS digital channels, although each channel has been differentiated. Furthermore, except for TV Tokyo and BS Japan, there were few cases where programs in the same genre were provided at the same time by terrestrial and BS digital broadcasters under the same ownership.

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Much previous research has examined interpersonal relationships in CMC (computer-mediated communication). Some have discovered conditions for developing positive relationships, and others have found appropriate combinations of task and media. But they have paid little attention to how the degree of intimacy between communicants would affect their media choice. This research investigates the effects of the degree of intimacy between communicants, especially how media uses change in development of interpersonal relationship.
The questionnaire was conducted on 930 undergraduates. They marked how they would communicate in one of 3 (high-intimacy, middle-intimacy, low-intimacy) ×3 (face-to-face, mobile-talk, mobile-mail) conditions. Factor analysis identified five communication types (light tasks, sharing topics, opinion expressions, secrets and criticisms, high disclosures). Results show that communication in all media increased with the development of the relationship. Japanese young people often communicated by mobile-mail on complex matters and chose it more than mobile-talk in general. This result didn't match media richness theory that insists richer mediums would be used for complex communication.
This research also revealed another social construction of media use. In high disclosures, mobile-talk exceeded mobile-mail in low-intimacy but fell below mobile-mail in middle-intimacy. This suggests that mobile-mail gradually substitutes for mobile-talk in the process of relationship development. Actual patterns of media use are not determined by technological traits per se, but are rather socially constructed.

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This study compares five Social Networking Services (Facebook, mixi, mobage, Gree, and Twitter) in light of the influences of disclosure of personal information on use patterns. Results indicate that SNSs can be classified into two different types, “strong-tied” SNS and “weak-tied” SNS. Users who disclose more personal identification information are more likely to connect with real world friends, but are less likely to use SNS and make SNS-based relationships. A weak-tied SNS promotes communications only via SNS, while a strong-tied SNS promotes communications with those who are connected in the real world. Disclosure of personal characteristic information is significantly correlated with SNS use and the number of friends, while its counterpart of personal identification information is significantly correlated only with the number of off-line friends. No significant correlation was found between psychological factors and the choice of SNS.

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Everybody talks about Information Law, but nobody has theoretically constructed it well, for intangible goods such as information cannot be definitely owned or transferred like physical property. However, it is gradually becoming clearer how to legally protect or prohibit information, through comparison between copyright and personal data protection. It is a good time now to think about the object of information-related laws, as the first step toward the “Basic Theory for Information Law”. In this paper, I will discriminate between moral and property rights, and focus on the latter, which is a common approach in the US. Then, I will propose a distinction between intellectual-property type and secrecy type for protection, and between (negative) property type and tort type for prohibition. In addition, I will point out several basic frameworks for information law, such as the hybrid nature of attribution and usage, one-object multiple-rights as a normal status, and license contract as supplements to statutes.

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This paper empirically compares a number of market outcomes that result from two different allocation mechanisms, auctions and beauty contests, of the frequency spectrum of third generation (3G) mobile phones. The market outcomes analyzed include: penetration rate of 3G mobile phones, total mobile phones penetration rate, the ratio of 3G mobile phone users to total mobile phone users, service charge, number of operators, spectrum quantity offered and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of the total mobile phones and 3G mobile phones market. For our study, we employed novel biased corrected matching estimators for average treatment effects. Our results show that countries that held auctions have a lower penetration rate of third generation mobile phones, which may be due to weaker market competition.

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In this paper we propose a model of switching behavior of customers from flat-rate to metered rate payment of internet service subscription. The model is based on theories of switching behavior in service industries and is divided into three layers. The first layer within the model includes factors related to flat-rate payment system, which are: “satisfaction”, “customer value” and “switching costs”. The second layer includes factors related to metered rate payment system which are: attitude and impact of discount. Attitude is the psychological and emotional mind-set toward a metered rate payment. Impact of discount is the economic incentive for a customer to adopt metered rate payment. Finally, the third layer consists of the element under investigation and this is switching intention. The result of this research shows that there is a significant negative relationship between intention to switch (from flatrate to metered rate) on the one hand, and satisfaction, customer value and switching costs on the other hand. However, the relationship between intention to switch and impact of discount is shown to be positive but not statistically significant.

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In this paper we conduct an international comparison about the effectiveness of IT investment and corporate reforms. Based on an international survey of 18,500 firms in Japan, the United States, Germany, and South Korea, we divided the effective responses from 1,260 firms into two groups, i.e., reformers and non-reformers, and then conducted multiple comparisons respectively. This analysis revealed that in the non-reformer group Japan is considerably behind among the four countries, but not so behind in the reformer group. In other words, Japanese firms are not outliers among reformers. It is suggested that IT investment pays off even in Japanese firms if they execute drastic corporate reforms.

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