Japanese Feeling for Privacy

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the Japanese feeling of privacy. In Japan, though “Information Society” had made Japanese people aware of their privacy, Japanese like to talk about their daily life on web diaries. We presume that these tendencies towards the privacy issue were encouraged by Japanese cultural attitudes. We tested this observation (hypothesis) through content analysis of newspaper databases and web log articles using computer coding and an online survey. Through the content analysis, we found that the diffusion of information causes a sense of crisis of privacy in newspaper articles but also found people’s interest in writing about their lives. Through the online survey, we clarified existence of two axes, which are privacy and wataskushi. Opposite to discussions in information ethics, and our expectations, privacy variables are not influenced by individualistic variables or independent self-image variables. There were influenced by in-between variables and violation of reciprocity variables. The concern for watakushi was influenced by both collaborative self image, reciprocity and individualism variables. That contains contradictory attitudes. This complexity is characteristic of watakushi privacy.