Cyber-nationalism

Cyber-nationalism (internet-nationalism, online-nationalism) is nationalism which based on the its activity on the internet. Cyber-nationalism has different aspects which may helped by the government as a part of the propaganda. As a social phenomenon cyber-nationalism is group of nationalists who are gathering on the internet and sometimes it include offensive actions against other countries, such as hacking. This phenomenon was found in several different countries such as Japan, Russian Federation, and China.

Background

Internet makes it easy to communicate without physical borders. It was expected that people who are living in the different counties communicate better than before. It is theorized that physical borders that once prevented homophilous actors from congregating are absent on the internet, allowing people of like mind to meet and politically or socially mobilize, whereas pre-internet they were unable to. Others, however, have contrarily argued that this idea is mostly ideal. Internet people to hate each other, unlike the expectation.

Cyber-war

Cyber-nationalism is part of the governmental policy. Government use the internet as a part of propaganda to mobilize people. Internet has advantage to encourage and improve nationalism. It catch more awareness than traditional media such as Newspaper and TV. Moreover, Internet makes easier to organize activities.

By country

China

In China, cyber-nationalism is very active. Chinese nationalists are movilisied and organized by the Internet. They are not get together on the Internet, but they actually nationalistic hackers (who are doubted as a relationship with government) attacks web site in Europe, the U.S.A. and Japan. According to the survey by the Research Center of Contemporary China (2008), higher educated and positioned person tend not to be nationalistic. Moreover, person frequently accesses governmental site became less nationalistic. Yifan Xy concluded that this tendency "could be a spillover effect from dissatisfaction with the government."

Japan

In Japan, recently cyber-nationalism became very active. They are communicate each other on the internet. In 2009, some part of the cyber-nationalist take an action against Korean tourists in the Tsushima Island, which located near South Korea.This video was put on the YouTube.According to the Rumi Sakamoto, "This episode is just one expression of Japan’s new grassroots nationalism, which has gained force over the last decade against the backdrop of increasingly vociferous historical revisionism and neo-nationalism." In the past, these kind of activity would not appeared on the public awareness, but internet makes it easy to put their activity in front of the public.

Russian Federation

In the Russian Federation, nationalist groups use internet to get together and collect donations. In Russia, there are many very popular among the "self-organized nationalist communicates." After the Russo-Georgian war, on the internet appeared many groups on the facebook such as "Abkhazia is not Georgia" etc. Since, Russian people were worried about the terrorism which caused by terrorist from Caucasus region, Russian Nationalist put the personal information of students who are studying in the University. Moreover, they put videos, in which dark-skinned young people are beating up ethnic Russians. At the same time, terrorist groups against Russian Federation are recruiting potential terrorists on the internet. In this case, cyber-nationalism works for the nationalism for the Chechen Republic and ethnic Chechen people against Russian Federation.

Further reading

• Kondo, R. and A.Tanizaki (2007) Netto-uyoku to sabukaru minshu-shugi [netto-uyoku and subcultural democracy]. Tokyo: San’ichi shobō