The “information society” that began in the second half of the 20th century reached a higher level in the 21st century. In today's society, not only high-performance computers and their networks can make society more efficient, but also artificial intelligence (AI) technology and IoT (Internet of Things) technology that connects everything in the world to the Internet at all times. But it has already deeply penetrated our lives.

Under such circumstances, the academic area that is now attracting attention is “Computational Social Science”. Computational social science is a complex human behavior that has been impossible until now by analyzing the large-scale social data acquired through a digital network that has been spread through advanced computational science. It aims to elucidate the social phenomena quantitatively and theoretically.

It is expected to open up new possibilities for elucidating the formation process of personal feelings, social norms, public opinion, etc., which has become a social problem in recent years, such as social division, weakening of social capital, and intolerance. The However, on the other hand, there is a fear that such a method will invite a monitoring society or improve the manipulation of information, and recursively expand the problems such as the division of society mentioned above.

This paper considers the normative problem of today's AI/IoT society where science as a tool to elucidate society and social dynamics are nested, using computational social science as a keyword.

In this paper, we consider indirect reciprocity which is an important mechanism on the evolution of cooperation asking why the humans can voluntarily cooperate with others in social dilemma situations. There is a severe conflict between theoretical studies and empirical ones in the aspect of what information is required for assessing others. Theoretical studies claim that complex information should be required because an assessment rule using behavioral information only cannot have an evolutionary stability while empirical studies object because many experiments show that they may not proceed such the complex information. Here we analyzed a private assessment system relaxing a public assessment assumption which is unrealistic but often used in theoretical analyses. Its rigorous analysis is extremely difficult because the private assessment system must solve a system with infinite equations. To do so, we introduced another assumption to solve it strictly. Moreover, we complementarily performed an agent-based simulation to confirm a reliability of the solution due to test the effects on the solution of the assumption introduced. As a result, we show that an adaptive norm on indirect reciprocity to keep cooperative regimes in a private assessment system has different features from well-known norms considering in a public assessment system. We also show that the staying norm we defined for resolving the issue actualized in the private assessment system has a superiority. To confirm our result empirically, we conducted subjects experiments and tested allowance of the staying norm statistically. Integrating theory, experiments, and simulations to explore an adaptive norm on indirect reciprocity may be possible to provide a new contribution to computational social science.

Despite extensive studies on the evolution of cooperation in indirect reciprocity, little is known about which social norms are favored in a process of evolution of society. Because most previous studies rely on an assumption which a single norm is shared in all members of society. However, different people often follow different norms, which lead to different opinions of the same person. To address this issue, this paper considers the situation where various norms coexist in society as “a norm ecosystem” and clarify the roles of each norm in this ecosystem. In addition, the effect of the network structure of society on the evolution of the norm has been an unsolved problem. The paper analyzes how the co-evolution process of norms and cooperation is affected by the network structure. The results show that norms that had been considered impossible to achieve cooperation were indispensable for the evolution of cooperation in societies with a high degree of connection. These results indicate that in order to realize a cooperative society, it is necessary to consider not only measures to maintain cooperation but also norms necessary for the evolution of cooperation.

Our online behavior is stored as a large amount of precise information per second as a log on the public network communication network. Recently, excessive online conflicts of opinions are directly directed from online to daily life. There are many sources of concern such as social risks brought about and the expansion of fake news. Recognition, understanding, and definition of social conventions are easy to increase and focus on both good and bad. Regulations in language units for statements that deviate from social norms differ depending on the OSN (Online Social Networks) of each country. In this paper, we would like to describe a study on online social networks using measured data and a case study comparison method using mathematical models.

While morality is a driving force to connect people and form groups, it can also divide groups into enemies and create conflicts. Social media can be involved in this process or even accelerate it. This paper examines the moral divide in social media by analyzing a large amount of LGBTrelated posts (tweets) collected from Twitter. Social trends related to LGBT groups include important moral challenges for societies seeking diversity. A network analysis of the spread of the LGBT tweets reveals that there are a small number of communities with a high degree of moral similarity (i.e., homophily). By analyzing the LGBT tweets using Moral Foundations Dictionaries for English and Japanese (MFD and J-MFD), we find that, in both English and Japanese users, they consider that LGBT is an “ingroup” issue or a moral concern that can threaten or violate a social group. Furthermore, we show that different communities tend to emphasize different moral foundations; in addition to “ingroup,” one community pays more attention to “harm” issue but others to “fairness” issue. This may be related to the moral divide in social media. These results provide important suggestions for understanding the moral divide in social media using computational social science approaches and for considering strategies to mitigate it.

“Open data” efforts have now become a global movement. Japanese government has intended to keep up with this global trend since the Open Government Data Strategy was adopted in 2012. Some local governments have followed the government policy. However, there has not been any previous study that quantitatively clarified what factors would influence the implementation of “open data” in a local government. So, clarifying this is our first research goal. Next, we focus on the data duplication problem between data existing on their homepages and newly constructed “open data.” The presence of similar confusing data on both those sites may cause various problems. Therefore, our second research goal is to investigate the actual state of data released by local governments and then find the hidden problem. We focused on demographic data as one of the most important basic statistical data. We conducted three types of surveys; an interview survey with responsible persons in advanced local governments, an additional analysis of “open data” actual situation survey, which was performed by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, using cross tabulation by the size of population in a municipality, and a survey of demographic data of municipalities on the Internet. Finally, we found that; (1) the department in charge of “open data” initiatives and their implementation processes are important, in addition to the size of a municipality; (2) most municipalities maintain the existing homepage as it is, and separately add a new “open data” site; and (3) despite the data duplication on both the existing homepage site and the “open data” site, many municipalities do not clearly express the data duplication in writing.

Many people use the mass media to build images of events that they cannot experience directly. This leads us to question the accuracy of the information transmitted massively about facts unachievable because of their distance in space and time, particularly historical events. There is a great deal of literature on the use of the influence of mass media to achieve political goals constructing nation based historical narratives and on how nationalism foments a heroic depiction of the past while creating a stereotyped representation of other peoples. However there is little literature on how other nations' actors are omitted from the collective memory of the nation. Using a sample of the media content of six Japanese channels broadcast 24/7 during two weeks and using the methodology developed by Sugiyama (2010), this paper will argue that the distortion of the past through mass media is not only influential because of what is shown but also of what is omitted. The data obtained in 2017 revealed that in the reconstruction of collective memory of The World War II in the Japanese television other nations were depicted only in statistically insignificant proportions. Nevertheless, self-critic productions found in the same study challenged the claims of an unrepentant Japan on historical issues and encouraged to orientate the research on alternative answers to the common monocausal explanation of historical bias based on nationalism.

Human being tends to compare him/her-self with others (social comparison), which does not only happen in the real world but also online communities. This study sought to determine the relationships between Twitter use, social comparison on it and satisfaction with friendship among university students in Japan. In order to examine these, a self-reported questionnaire survey was conducted targeting university students who were enrolled at a national university in the Kanto Region and 177 respondents became the analyzed targets. The following results were observed. (a) Students with higher levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy were satisfied with their friendship, but no effects for personality traits (self-esteem and self-efficacy) on Twitter use were detected. (b) Students who read/retweeted others' posts and pressed “Like” frequently tended to compare themselves with others more, which lowered their satisfaction with friendship. (c) When the people they followed were “friends/acquaintances known after entering the university”, they tended to compare themselves with those people. However, no similar effects were found when the people they followed were “friends/acquaintances known before entering the university,” “friends/acquaintances meet at the university,” nor “intimate friends at the university.”

The results of this study indicate that for university students who use Twitter frequently, it may be effective not to compare themselves with those unfamiliar people among their friends/ acquaintances after entering the university, in order to maintain a good friendship with each other.

While the gap between the information rich and the information poor is growing, terrestrial TVs—which people can easily take information from—are increasing the importance of the information poor such as the elderly. Currently, terrestrial TVs in Japan are programed with a large amount of soft news. For example, 14 hours and 35 minutes out of 15 hours (from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m., from Monday to Thursday) on NTV's (Nippon Television Network Corporation) programming has been slated for soft news. The initial “News show” (currently, one soft news program is called “Wide Show”) in Japan is assumed to be “Kijima Norio Morning Show,” which was started in 1964 by Nippon Educational Television (NET) (presently, TV Asahi). Triggered by the expansion of “News show,” NET pulled out of the industry.

This study focused on the news shows of NET in the 1960s to clarify how the sender decided the form of the news show, taking into consideration the social situation at the time. Through this analysis, the following two research questions were clarified: 1) what was the format of the news show as a program; and 2) what was the main factor or actor that brought a new program format. The conclusion is as follows: 1) The content was subdivided into corners and has been made entertaining and internalized. The format of daily life programming was unchanged; the subdivided content was quickly reviewed by the audience rating. The content and creator were separated, and the freedom to review the content was improved. 2) One of the major factors behind the new program format was that NET was a commercial educational station. The form of news shows on NET was brought by persons who were experienced in radio and magazine editing. Since NET was the educational station, there was a mix of education, journalism, and entertainment on news shows.

This study examines news production process by The Okinawa Times, a local daily in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture. As a case study, this paper looks at the daily's debunking articles published during the 2018 Okinawa gubernatorial election. It focuses on four elements related to common news values for local newspapers; localness, sources, in-house relations, and competitors, in the context of the paper's relation to online media outlets. Interviews with three journalists at The Okinawa Times revealed that the paper came to recognize online media outlet BuzzFeed Japan as its rival through coverage of fake news. This led to reviewing of the principle of fairness, which had been seen as an important norm in election coverage. The study also revealed that localness, which was an important element of news value for local newspapers, started to bear dual meanings as they competed with BuzzFoed news for which localness is not necessarily newsworthiness. Thos, competition with the online news outlet also affected the local paper's criteria for newsworthiness. I argue that there needs to be a discussion on how to sustain fair reporting during election campaigns as news organizations engage in debunking. While this study has a limitation in terms of generalizing the process of producing debunking articles due to a limited number of journalists interviewed, it revealed a new form of news production process in the age of social media.

The purpose of this study was to examine how high school adolescents interact with a person of the opposite sex acquainted through SNS and what kind of the interactions result in meeting him or her in real life. A total of 207 high school adolescents who had experienced meeting in someone of the opposite sex acquainted through SNS reported their SNS interactions before the meetup. Results showed that the successive interaction about a common subject such as local being the same and hobbies led to meeting the person in real life. In addition, results showed that high school adolescents met in person not when he or she wanted to see them but when they want to see him or her. Based on these results, future contents of crime prevention education are discussed.

Along with the advance of information processing technology for analyzing big data, development of algorithms for predicting future behaviors of evaluated subjects with reasonable precision is accelerating. With this technology, companies and services collectively called “FinTech,” which integrate finance and technology, have been automating credit risk management for customers, thereby enabling access to financial services for many people. Predictive algorithms for analyzing big data are being introduced into the scenes of public order-maintenance and justice; predictive algorithm-based evaluation of who is likely to become a victim or a perpetrator in the future, as well as crime prediction and predictive policing are gradually becoming a normality. While big data-based predictive algorithms have provided a number of benefits, on the other hand, they have also started to impact various human activities and decisions, and the possibility of diminution of free activities and free decisions is growing.

Therefore, this paper considers the actual situation of prediction that is based on big data, as a case study, especially in relation to credit risk management. Through that consideration, I would like to clarify: firstly, what is the impact of information technology supporting credit risk management on an individual's life opportunities; secondly, what kinds of measures have been taken against such impact; and thirdly, whether such measures have come to be effective.

This study investigates about the public relations photograph that the local government uses in the public relations activity and clarifies the problem for using it for the information resource. In recent years, interest in open data and cultural information resources has increased, but the current state of it as information resource has not been clarified until now. Therefore, in this study, first investigates the theory of public relations photograph, focus on the discourse of public relations photographers under the viewpoint of government public relations theory, and finds out the common structure of it from them. Next, based on that, constructs hypothesis on the problem of information resource utilization, and make a questionnaire survey for the local government to clarify the current state of it. Finally, discusses the problem based on the survey results.

As results of investigations, it was suggested that public relations photograph is a creative visual medium that promotes efficient content understanding and changing behavior. And, from the questionnaire survey, it was clarified the current state of shooting and management, archives, and secondary usages. In conclusion, this study reveals from analysing them as the problem of shooting and management are the development of metadata management method and flexible right handling procedure, as the problem of archives is the construction of an archiving system that preserves the context of it, and as the problem of secondary usages are the maintenance of rules for promoting usage including commercial use.