In the United States increasing ideological polarization between the Republicans and the Democrats has deteriorated into a deep partisan divide among the public, exemplified by the Trump phenomenon since the 2016 presidential election. It has been noted that the Internet intensifies and entrenches such polarization of political attitudes through encouraging selective exposure of information based on individual preferences and predispositions.

In Japan, although the situation is not as drastic as in the United States, the left-right partisan conflict in the mass public has become more salient under the Abe government than before, particularly on the Internet. This study examined the effects of Internet use to polarize Japanese political attitudes, distinguishing the two-stage processes suggested by the “minimal effects” theory.

Analyses of nation-wide survey data randomly collected in 2019 revealed that people with high political interest and efficacy were more likely to seek ʻhard news’ concerning political and social affairs on the Internet, while those who were less politically sophisticated tended to focus more on ʻsoft news’, such as entertainment. The results indicated that the high-choice information environment brought about by the Internet increased the gap between the political actives and the apathies. Second, using a generalized ordered probit regression model as an alternative to a problematic methodology employed in previous studies, this study demonstrated that hours of using the Internet for personal interests had significantly a polarizing effect on the approval/disapproval toward the Abe administration, which was likely affection-based rather than ideology-based. This paper discussed the implications of these findings for civic engagement in democracy.

本研究では，ドメインや文脈により単語の意味が変化することに着目し，不適切な表現の言い換え表現を時系列深層学習器のLSTMを用いて獲得する手法を新しく提案する．不適切な表現には直接的に表現されるものと間接的に表現されるものがある．間接的に記述された不適切な表現をフィルタリングするためには，単語やその表現が使われているドメインや文脈に応じて意味が変化することを捉える必要がある．提案する手法ではLSTMを用いて掲示板のレスポンスの系列を学習し，不適切な文脈のモデルを作成する．LSTMによる評価が不適切であるレスポンスに対し，明らかな不適切表現がないものから単語を取り出し，頻度情報を用いて言い換え表現として獲得する．予備的な実験の結果，言い換え表現の一部を獲得できることを確認した．

インターネット利用の増加とともに，名誉毀損や，プライバシー侵害，誹謗中傷などに関する違法・有害情報相談センターへの相談件数は年々増加している。当センターはSNS等でこれらの被害を受けたとする相談者に対し，削除依頼などをアドバイスしている。これらは「被害者救済」と発信者の「表現の自由」のバランスに配慮した関連法令やガイドライン沿った対応となる。権利侵害の申立者が，SNS等の削除要件を理解することが難しい事等，複雑化する環境において，日々利用者をサポートする当センターに求められる役割はますます重要性を増している。

大衆文化などのメディア・テキストの消費において、消費者の能動的解釈およびそれによってもたらされる快楽（pleasure）が関与していることは指摘されて久しい。一方、ソーシャルメディアで観察される消費者の感情は、「pleasure」というワードが彷彿させるポジティブなものだけでなく、時には怒りや悲しみなど、ネガティブな感情も含む。本研究は、日本の女性向けのスマホゲームを事例に取り上げ、ゲームのキャラクタを演じる声優がパーソナリティを務めるラジオ番組に送られた感想メールや、SNS上でのプレーヤーによるディスカッションなど、ゲーム内で更新されるストーリーをめぐる消費者同士のインタラクションを分析的に記述する。そこから、メディア消費というコミュニケーション行為において幾多の感情が複層的に生成・表出され、さらには想像上のファン・コミュニティを構築するための資源として用いられる様相を考察する。

本論文では，鹿児島県志布志市が公開したネット動画の炎上事例をもとに，消費者がストーリーについて表明する多様な解釈，すなわちナラティブが，どのようにうねりを持って集合現象になるのかを，消費文化理論の観点から検討した。3種類の定性データを分析した結果から，理論的示唆として，多様なナラティブの発生によって論点が細分化，同質化，差別化して論点が収束・発散するプロセスは，社会が抱える矛盾を解消するロジックを見出す神話的プロセスであることが明らかになった。本事例から導かれた3つの神話的プロセスとは「反セクシズム神話」，「反反セクシズム神話」，「メタ的神話」である。

情報社会となり顧客の情報発信が容易となった。顧客の意見をあつめ商品開発やサービス改善につなげる企業が多くなる一方で，90年代後半の通称：東芝クレーマー事件を転機として，顧客と企業の関係が変化し，ネットは企業にとってリスクの1つとなっている。本稿では，デマの公式を利用して，関心の高さと曖昧さの観点から，過去のネットトラブルの構造を分析する。最近では新型コロナウイルス感染症に関連したトイレットペーパー不足のデマが蔓延したが，「不足はデマである」というニュースが社会全体の関心を高め，デマを余計に流布したという事例がある。また，悪意ある顧客の攻撃があった場合の対応方法などを紹介する。

　People’s activities on the Internet are becoming digitized, and substantive

analysis methodologies such as quantitative content analysis and network analysis

are developing rapidly. Meanwhile, they cultural anthropology is methodologically

characterized as essentially qualitative, with ethnography at their core.

How can cultural anthropology approach our online activities and our lives in

general with the Internet as a component through the method of ethnography?

It is necessary to fundamentally revisit the conventional methodology built on

the premise of the analog age with regard to ethnography in the context of the

cyberspace field.

　　Accordingly, cultural anthropologists who are interested in Internet studies

and communications researchers who engage in an ethnographic approach have

accumulated diverse developments in methodological discussions surrounding

online ethnography, virtual ethnography, digital anthropology, and so on.

　　Based on the author’s awareness of these issues and the developments in

scientific discussions, has been proposed hybrid ethnography. The aim of this

paper is to clarify the methodological subject of media studies pertaining to the

digital network age based on the research the author conducted in online public

opinion as part of the larger framework of the changes in ethnographical

approaches, while attempting to propose concrete arguments on the methodology

of hybrid ethnography by presenting research examples that include the

elements of: 1. quantitative content analysis, 2. data structure analysis（ various

methods of multivariate analysis）, and 3.（ social） network analysis.

　Studies about well-being (WB) have been used to build an interdisciplinary research area centered on positive psychology and economics of happiness. WB research is characterized by active use of subjective data about one’s life, called subjective wellbeing (SWB), as indicators of the quality of an individual’s life or their society. SWB has various domains, including ones related to cognitive and emotional well-being, and each has different determinants. For example, life satisfaction, which is the cognitive aspect of SWB, is strongly correlated with income, while emotional well-being has a relatively strong correlation with health and social relationships. There are various theories about SWB’s composition, and the OECD has defined three basic domains of SWB: life evaluation (life satisfaction), emotion (affect, mood), and eudaimonia. Conventional research for assessing residential environments has used “housing satisfaction” as a subjective indicator of housing quality, which belongs to the “cognitive evaluation” domain. However, based on the findings of WB research, it can be inferred that there are diverse subjective domains related to housing quality. Therefore, in the current study, we attempted to construct home-related subjective well-being (HOME-SWB) based on the OECD’s SWB definition: “home satisfaction,” “positive emotions at home,” “negative emotions at home,” and “eudaimonia derived from home.” “Home satisfaction” is the cognitive aspect of HOME-SWB, which is similar to the conventional subjective indicator, housing satisfaction. “Positive emotions at home” includes the frequency of positive emotional experiences at home, such as feeling happy, cheerful, or joyful, while “negative emotions at home” includes the frequency of negative emotional experiences, such as feeling depressed, stressed out, or lonely at home. “Eudaimonia derived from home” indicate to what extent residents obtain experiences of eudaimonic well-being from their homes, such as self-esteem and the sense that life is worth living. The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of HOME-SWB among 4,000 residents in the Tokyo area and the determinants of each domain of HOME-SWB using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis.

　Our assessment shows that HOME-SWB is closely related to demographics; for example, the relationship between home satisfaction and age is a U-shaped curve, which is similar to the well-known relationship between life satisfaction and age. Therefore, we conducted OLS regression by controlling demographic variables, including gender, age, and household income, and the results show that each domain of HOME-SWB has unique relationships with them. For example, the size of a house strongly affects home satisfaction but not positive emotions or eudaimonic aspects. Having a nice view from windows or a high level of thermal insulation has a relatively strong effect on emotional HOME-SWB. Proactive ways of living in a home, such as being picky about furniture and the interior of one’s home or frequently redecorating rooms, enhance the eudaimonic aspects, such as self-esteem and optimism. When we use conventional subjective information to measure housing satisfaction as an indicator of housing quality, it is noted that the importance of the housing elements that strongly affect cognitive well-being, such as the size of a house, are overestimated, while the importance of elements that have an impact on the emotional and eudaimonic aspects of HOME-SWB are underestimated. There are various subjective domains related to housing quality; therefore, we can conclude that we must measure various domains of HOME-SWB when assessing home-related well-being based on residents’ subjective information.