Using case studies, interviews, and empirical sources, this book analyzes the strategies and impact of Internet use by civil society actors and asks how useful it is for their work - does the availability of Internet tools change the way citizens' groups work, does it influence their effectiveness, and does it do so differently in Japan from other countries?
Four fascinating studies take a closer look at the role of the Internet during the history textbook controversy; strategies of small citizen's groups; comparisons between internet use in Japan, Korea and Germany; and how the internet is used as a platform to discuss the dispatch of Japanese troops in Iraq.
Isa Ducke has produced an original work that will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese politics, media and information technology and civil society.

Isa Ducke is a Research Fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, Japan.

1. Introduction 2. Internet and New Technologies in Japan 3. Civil Society in Japan 4. Use of the Internet by Political Actors in the Japanese-Korean Textbook Controversy 5. Web Site Strategies of Small Citizens' Groups. A Quantitative Web Site Analysis 6. How Umbrella Organizations in Japan, Korea, and Germany Use New Technologies. A Comparative Approach 7. The Internet as a Platform for Political Participation and Mobilization in the Debate about the Dispatch of Troops to Iraq