Review of Japan’s nationalist right in the internet age: Online media and grassroots conservative activism

Yuki Asahina

doi:10.1080/18692729.2021.1953774

Asahina, Yuki

2021-07-17 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY JAPAN BOOK REVIEW Review of Japan’s nationalist right in the internet age: Online media and grassroots conservative activism, by Jeffrey Hall, Routledge, 2021, 218 pp., £96 (hardback), ISBN 9780367558284 The rise of online right-wing activism is of great interest to pundits and social scientists alike in Japan and abroad. However, the research on this topic remains European-centric. In his new book, Japan’s Nationalist Right in the Internet Age, Jeffrey Hall makes a timely and much-needed contribution to fill this void. The book focuses on Japanese Culture Channel Sakura (hereafter CS), a conservative media organization founded in 2004 that has been actively producing online video content since then. By refusing to rely on a single corporate donor (unlike their rival and increasingly popular DHC Television, funded by a manufacturer of cosmetics and health food products), CS calls itself a “grassroots TV channel of the Japanese people, by the Japanese people, and for the Japanese people” (p. 53). Hall carefully examines how this online- centered conservative activism emerged, exerted influence on a variety of politically sensitive issues from the memory of the Japanese colonization of Asia to territorial disputes, and survived for more than 15 years despite intensely varied political

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Contemporary Japan Taylor & Francis

http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/taylor-francis/review-of-japan-s-nationalist-right-in-the-internet-age-online-media-cEYqP855Kf