Lecture
National(ist) Media: Platform, Participation, and the Rise of Digital Populism in Japan
- Nathaniel Smith (Ritsumeikan University)
- Date
- Tuesday 18 November 2025
- Time
- Serie
- Leiden Lecture Series in Japanese Studies
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 2.23
How did new digital forms of activism integrate with existing forms of activism and far-right media work in Japan? This talk introduces the media ecosystem inhabited by far-right activists at the turn of the millennium — direct action protest, sound truck activism, and a variety of print and visual media — and examines how activists (sometimes fitfully) negotiated the transition to new digital platforms. In addressing how platforms inform political participation, Smith shows how the evolution of digital strategies on the Japanese right can be understood at the intersection of new media affordances and foundational media practices among rightist networks.
About the speaker
Nathaniel M. Smith is an anthropologist and Associate Professor and Vice Dean in the College and Graduate School of International Relations at Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto, Japan). He holds a PhD in anthropology and MA in East Asian Studies from Yale University as well as an MA in International Relations from Waseda University. Previously, he has held faculty and research appointments at the University of Arizona, UC Santa Barbara, Waseda University, and University of Tokyo.
His research interests are broadly drawn around two topics. First, since 2005 he has pursued research on far-right political activism in Japan. Next, under the auspices of a Japan Foundation fellowship from 2019-2020, he began an urban studies project centered on the post-WWII history and contemporary redevelopment of entertainment districts in Japan, primarily centered on Tokyo’s Kabukicho.
