Cyber-nationalism

Cyber-nationalism (internet-nationalism, online-nationalism) is nationalism which bases its activity on the internet.[1] Cyber-nationalism has different aspects, which may help the government as a part of the propaganda.[2] As a social phenomena cyber-nationalism is nationalistic groups, who are gathering on the internet. They often perform offensive actions against other countries, such as hacking and try to affect elections. This phenomena can be found in several countries such as Japan, Russian Federation, and China.[3][4]

Background

The Internet makes it easy to communicate without physical borders. Through digitization people, who are living in different counties, can communicate better than before. It is theorized that physical borders, which 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.[5] Others, however, have contrarily argued that this idea is mostly ideal. Internet people tend to hate each other, unlike the expectation.[1]

Cyber-war

Cyber-nationalism is part of the governmental policy. Governments use the internet as a part of propaganda to mobilize people. The Internet has certain advantage to encourage and improve nationalism. It catches more awareness than traditional media such as Newspapers and Television. Moreover, Internet makes it easier to organize activities.[3]

By country

China

In China, cyber-nationalism is very active. Chinese nationalists are mobilisied and organized with the Internet. They are not only getting together on the Internet, also there are nationalistic hackers, that attack web sites in Europe, the U.S.A. and Japan.[3] [6][7] It is believed that those hackers have relations to the government.

Japan

In Japan, recently cyber-nationalists (netto-uyoku) have become very active. They communicate with each other on the internet. In 2009, some part of the cyber-nationalist took actions against Korean tourists in the Tsushima Island, which is located near South Korea. Footage of this can be found on YouTube. According to 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."[8] In the past these kind of actions would not have raised public awareness, but the internet makes it easy for these groups to get public attention.

Russia

In Russia, 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.[1][9][10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Cyber-nationalism". The Economist. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  2. ↑ Jiang, Ying (2012). Cyber-Nationalism in China. University of Adelaide Press. ISBN 978-0-9871718-4-9.
  3. 1 2 3 Schneier, Bruce. "Online Nationalism". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  4. ↑ Punk, Olie. "Japan's 'Internet Nationalists' Really Hate Koreans". VICE. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  5. ↑ Palmer, M. F. (2012). Cybernationalism: Terrorism, Political Activism, and National Identity Creation in Virtual Communities and Social Media. In Virtual Communities, Social Networks and Collaboration (pp. 115-134). Springer New York.
  6. ↑ Liu, S-D (2006). "'China's Popular Nationalism on the Internet Report on the 2005 Anti-Japan Network Struggles". Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. 7 (1): 144–155. doi:10.1080/14649370500463802.
  7. ↑ Shen, Simon (Mar 18, 2010). Online Chinese Nationalism and China's Bilateral Relations. Hong Kong: Lexington Books. ISBN 0739132490.
  8. ↑ Sakamoto, Rumi. "'Koreans, Go Home!' Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan as a Digitally Mediated Subculture". The Asia-Pacific Journal. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  9. ↑ Besleney, Zeynel. "Circassian Nationalism and the Internet". openDemocracy. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  10. ↑ Turbeville, Brandon. "Chechen Terrorist Networks Trace Back to the US State Department". Retrieved 15 May 2014.

Further reading

  • Kondo, R. and A.Tanizaki (2007) Netto-uyoku to sabukaru minshu-shugi [netto-uyoku and subcultural democracy]. Tokyo: San’ichi shobō
  • McLelland, M (2008). "'Race' on the Japanese Internet: Discussing Korea and Koreans on '2-channeru'". New Media & Society. 10 (6): 811–829.
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