What is information? Many researchers have been tried to find the answer to this question for a long time. Definitions of information given by them have something in common. One of them is that these definitions are defined from the viewpoint of intellectualism. In other words, Information processes are thought as "to transmit knowledge or data" But affection, passion and faith are communicated in information processes. The purpose of this paper is to release the concept of information from a framework of intellectualism. Therefore I would like to relate to information with body, genesis and movement to reveal the significance of affective function in information processes. It is very important for this subject to revaluate Jean-Gabriel Tarde's social theory, especially his concept of imitation and G.W. Leibniz's Monadologie which had a significant impact on Tarde's social theory. Finally I will stress such a necessity of extending the idea about information in order to make an analysis of information society more elaborately.

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The socio-informatics is a new field. It researches various objects, events and society from the view point of "Information". It is consisted of transdisciplinary studies crossing the border between humanities and sciences. That is, across all boundaries, social information study will connect various ideas and will serve as a place which carries out emergence of new culture and life from the collision of the heterogeneous way of thinking.

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In this paper, I will discuss Secondary Use of official statistical data in Japan. The new Statistical Act, which was enforced in 2009, enables users to access and utilize ordermade tabulation and anonymized data. This system is rather new and not so popular in Japan, comparing with Public Use File in the US and European countries. I hope that this paper will be helpful to professionals and young researchers in SocioInformatics field.

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This paper first claims that, contrary to what is generally held in Japan, the term sociologie was initiated by the French revolution leading figure Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes as found in his manuscripts. It inscribes such a historical event in the context of the uprising of the popular revolution within a society thirsty for a renewed social order. Then, the paper shows that, decades after Sieyes, Auguste Comte appropriated the term sociologie, within the context of social changes brought about by the Industrial revolution, thus launching what will turn out to be the scientific discipline of Sociology. In the same vein, the paper elaborates on the development of the branch of Social Psychology which stemmed from the segmentation of the research object that occurred within the field of Sociology. The last section of the paper casts light on the inception of the expression "Shakai-Joho-Gaku"(Socio-Informatics) asserting that unlike Social Psychology, it has, strictly speaking, nothing to do with any given scientific discipline; it is rather a mere denomination of a departement born from practical needs associated with the organization of the academic divisions. In fact, the utilization of the expression "Shakai-Joho-Gaku" as a field of study came about in the specific contexts of the renaming of the Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Tokyo and that of the establishment of a new faculty at the Sapporo Gakuin University.

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This article conducts a preliminary consideration to clarify the socio-informatic significance of the concept of "reflexivity", referring to A.Giddens' reflexive modernization theory. According to the theory, informatization of society can be interpreted as an essential constituent of reflexive modernization as "radicalization of modernity". And the characteristic of CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) spaces, as a typical social phenomenon of informatization, can be explained from a systematic point of view of reflexivity. Consequently, it can be said that CMC spaces illustrate that informatization is an an essential constituent of reflexive modernization. However, the consideration above has some limitations, especially it directly deals with only CMC spaces, not socioinformatic phenomena in general. It is expected to solve this problem by both generalize and articulate the concept of reflexivity, referring to T.Masamura's theory of "information space".

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I want to show the possibility about the fusion of the socio-informatics and the jurisprudence so that on this paper I examine the Administrative Procedure Act from the view point of social informalion. Legal system is a typical system of social information, and so the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates the prosecutions of the executive power created by the Constitution, is a system of social information. In order to set aside arbitrary and capricious agency actions, the agency and the people should disclose social information each other. The Administrative Procedure Act must be interpreted an enactment to assure that they share social information about agency action. The Administrative Procedure Act should be interpreted to reduce asymmetric information between the agency and the people, so that it sets aside arbitrary and capricious agency action. For example, notice and hearing are means to collect and share social information between the agency and the people. When the agency determines the zoning, it takes a long time and several hearings and Planning and Zoning Development Procedure is an administrative procedure which could afford us a better resolution than a judicial procedure.

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This article explores the potential development of Social Choice Theory in the framework of Information Study. It especially focuses on the theory of Amartya Sen, and proposes a method to calculate the amount of information processing needed in a social choice procedure to examine the validity of the theory. Sen's framework has a characteristic that it contains logics for social choices which are not based on simple voting but on observation and evaluation from the viewpoint of a society. This aspect is now related to various approaches to establish "happiness" indexes, although Sen himself did not intend this originally. It might be expected that the quantitative analysis method this article presents will serve as a tool to reexamine the degree of how a desirable social choice is achievable by an observation and evaluation based methodology.

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Transportation is essentially a derived demand that is generated when we perform various activities. In ancient times, information was transmitted face-to-face, and the central government constructed arterial roads to connect central and local areas in order to facilitate communication and link outlying areas to the government. Information was, in other words, transmitted along with the traffic. In addition, we need information to effectively achieve certain political, economic, and social activities. The remarkable progress of information and communication technology (ICT) in recent years has, for example, had a significant impact on transportation. This paper discusses the substitutability and subsidiarity of information and transport. In particular, with respect to substitutability, the paper highlights the benefits of teleworking and teleconferencing in lifestyle terms and in terms of reductions to traffic. Moreover, with respect to subsidiarity, we should consider the induced traffic by information and the role of ICT in ensuring access to transport for the elderly in sparsely populated areas. Serious problems are increasing, such as the concentration of urban populations, economic stagnation, an aging society, and a low birth rate as well as the problems in the global environment, and new, currently unforeseen problems may also arise. It is expected that ICT will play an increasingly important role in this context.

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This study aims to outline the effects of advanced computerization on spatial information science, and discusses its possibilities citing examples of the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Based on these results, this study clarifies the future prospects for the fusion of Socio-Informatics and spatial information science. Studies using GIS functions for database development or information analysis have conventionally been the mainstream of spatial information science. However, in recent years, GIS functions for information sharing and transmission have come into frequent use with the promotion of advanced computerization, and social media GIS have been actively developed by combining social media and Web-GIS. Moreover, in order to discuss the possibilities of spatial information science, the development of regional information databases and social media GIS have been proposed as concrete uses of GIS in reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Based on the results of these examinations, as a suggestion for the development of spatial information science in consideration of the accumulated academic achievements of Socio-Informatics, this study raises the issue of how to choose appropriate spatial information and add it on to digital maps in formats that are intelligible for most website visitors. As a conclusion, in the field of fusion between Socio-Informatics and spatial information science, based on their different characteristics, this study points out the necessity of conducting research on information systems that conform to the purpose of each form of use and are usable in the real world.

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In Japan, the public policy for the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting has been advanced as planned since 2002, and that transition was completed on 24 July 2011. Although in the mid-point of transition period, that seemed to be in danger for the delay of diffusion of digital TV, as a result it did not become serious social problem. So it does not need to postpone the transition period like other developed countries. However, economic measures to boost demand for Lehman shock worked better than the public policy for transition planned. That is Eco-Point Program for Green Home Appliances. This paper clarifies the impact of Eco-Point Program for Green Home Appliances for the transition to the digital terrestrial broadcasting, and derive implications for the policy in the consumer technology transition will occur in the future.

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