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- Title
INTERNET-ASSISTED SUICIDE IN JAPAN, 1998-2013.
- Authors
Alvarez, Mike
- Abstract
In 1998, Japan's national suicide rate exceeded thirty thousand, and in the ensuing years it has shown few signs of abating. During this time, fears regarding the Internet's possible relationship to suicidality surfaced. There have been many attempts to historicize suicide in Japan, though attempts to historicize Internet-assisted suicide, or cybersuicide, are lacking. The present study is one such attempt, and it enlists Stuart Hall's notion of the historical conjuncture to arrive at the many levels of determination implicated in Japan's cybersuicide crisis. To this end, 81 articles from Yomiuri Shimbun (a leading Japanese newspaper), obtained from the Yomidas Rekishikan database (the archive for the purposes of this study), were examined. Three particular crises in Japanese history received much media coverage: the emergence of net suicide pacts (netto shinju), the hydrogen sulfide (H2S) suicide "epidemic," and computer-mediated bullycide. Excavating these moments reveals deeper cultural anxieties about the economy, the education system, traditional family values, and Japanese youth, which were projected onto the Internet. These moments also reveal concerns about the tension between public safety and personal privacy, and how far policies and regulatory practices lag behind developments in technology.
- Subjects
CYBERBULLYING; MASS media
- Publication
Technoculture: An Online Journal of Technology in Society, 2018, Vol 8, p1
- ISSN
1938-0526
- Publication type
Article