Political Conversations as Civic Engagement: Examining Patterns from Mobile Communication Logs in Japan

Abstract

Political conversation is regarded as an important form of political participation and civic engagement. Although significant differences have been found in the level of political conversation between countries, studies on political conversation in Japan are scarce. In this study, we investigated political conversation between people, considering the kinds of dyads in personal networks in Japan and how partners are selected. We pursued an exploratory analysis of the features of dyads in political conversation through mobile communication logs, comparing those in Japan and the US. For both countries, the results show that discussion of important topics and the number of voice calls in the afternoon was significant predictors of political conversations. In Japan, discussing with other people and family were more significant predictors than for the US. These results may have important implications for clarifying the extent to which political conversations take place, with whom, and how they occur as a by-product of other topics.