• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.64-77
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• 2016

This case study takes a look at the hyperlink networks extracted from the websites of 367 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with datasets from 2010, 2012 and 2014. The first level of evaluation focuses on connections between the NGOs, identifying important nodes, groups and their relations. The second level takes into account the broad range of networked websites from the World Wide Web delivering insights into general networking patterns. The third level explores the underlying spatial configurations of the network which offers a great variety of geographic insights on information flows between and within continents, countries and cities. The most interesting findings of this study are a low level of interconnectedness between the NGOs and at the same time a strong spatial concentration of all embedded network actors.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.98-110
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• 2016

Building resilient community is often a complicated process to be gained by interorganizational collaboration. Since patterns of interorganizational relations among governments and sectors are constantly changing due to internal and external factors in the field of emergency management, understanding the dynamic nature of interorganizational collaboration is a critical step for improving a community’s ability to bounce back from a catastrophic event. From two theoretical perspectives, this research aims to examine the essential role of working across levels of governments and sectors in building resilient community by focusing on sources of community resiliency and a strong commitment. The empirical evidence highlights the importance of studying resilience as a way to understand the motivation and incentive for organizations to work jointly during emergency response. The study of organizational resilience also draws attention for the importance of various forms of interorganizational collaboration such as formal and informal relations. It also highlights how local organizations can utilize their relations to seek resources without necessarily jeopardizing their ability to perform their core organizational functions.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2016

The present research applies the Theory of Harmony through Holistic Engagement to the foreign policy of Japan. As the third largest economy in the world and one of the most highly developed countries in the world, Japan is a major international power. Most analysts interpret Japan’s foreign policy through the lenses of realist, exceptionalist, or liberal institutionalist approaches. All the previously mentioned approaches tend to be based on etic studies conducted from the point of view of outsiders. The present interpretation of Japanese foreign policy applies an emic model based on primary sources from the Greater East Asian region and concludes that the Model of Harmony through Holistic Engagement shows considerable explanatory traction in interpreting the direction and development of Japanese foreign policy, in particular in the last two to three decades.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.69-85
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• 2014

This paper explores the convergence process by focusing on the massively multiplayer online game(MMOG) industry and the online broadcasting industry in South Korea. In doing so, the paper seeks to establish the concept of Hidden catalysts for the integration process between the two industries and explore the roles of the Hidden catalysts in triggering the industry's transition. Further, the modified multi-level socio-technical model we applied in our research allows us both to understand each industry's development towards convergence in various dimensions and also to focus on the activities of the Hidden catalysts. In assessing the role of Hidden catalysts in industry convergence, we found that Hidden catalysts depend on two essential features: first, appropriate technology leading to the new industry dominance; and second, managerial capabilities to deal with conflicts among other new interest groups, to harmonise with government initiatives for industry development and to create new value in the integrated market to please the demand of mixed customers.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.57-68
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• 2014

How do party organizations respond to newly evolving social groups? Research on Indian party organizations reveals that in multiethnic societies with uneven modernization between social groups, internally competitive parties respond better to newly evolving groups. Moreover, it is claimed: the same dynamic works vis-$\grave{a}$-vis homogenous societies with cleavages based on economic differences; and, the pattern holds regardless of differences in electoral institutions. This study examines these claims by testing whether factional competition correlated with recruitment into Japan's Liberal Democratic Party in 1972 and 1983. Japan had a single-nontransferable-vote system with multi-member districts, while the research on India assumes a first-past-the-post system with single-member districts. This study conducts a difference of means test on the population of new and old politicians in the LDP in 1972 and 1983 with a pooled variance adjustment to account for differences in populations' size. The findings show that intra-party competition and recruitment are not correlated in Japan, thus tentatively rejecting both claims.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.3-14
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• 2014

Online communities are an important source of electronic-word-of-mouth (eWOM), however few studies have examined these types of messages within the Middle Eastern context. This study focuses on Kuwaiti women as members of an online beauty forum; previous work has suggested a mediating effect of gender with women being more likely to trust and follow-up word-of-mouth with a purchase. A conceptual model, based on existing theoretical contributions, provides the basis of a coding framework for the message characteristics that influence members' eWOM adoption. A sub-set of the analysis is presented: 218 threads (1820 messages, coded into 6702 units) illustrating cases where eWOM was adopted and thereby demonstrating continuance intention with members returning to the forum. Content analysis revealed the prevalence of emotional aspects in messages, coded into a new category of 'community bonding'. Findings show that emotion expressed in messages is as influential and important as cognitive aspects of argument quality.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.87-96
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• 2015

Social media comprises a vast and consequential landscape that has been poorly mapped and understood. Hundreds of millions of people have eagerly moved many of the conversations and discussions that compose civil society into these services and platforms. There is a need to document and analyze these social spaces for many academic and commercial purposes. The Social Media Research Foundation has engaged a strategy to cultivate better research into the structure and dynamics of social media. The foundation is dedicated to the creation of open tools, open data, and open scholarship related to social media. It has implemented a free and open network collection, analysis, and visualization tool called NodeXL to facilitate social media network research. Using NodeXL a group of researchers has collectively authored a publicly available archive, called the NodeXL Graph Gallery, composed of network data sets and visualizations from users around the world. This site has enabled the aggregation of tens of thousands of network datasets and images. Use of the archive has led to scholarly research results that are based on the wide range and scope of social media data sets available.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.57-68
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• 2015

This paper examines the New York Times' reaction to the 2010 Brazil-Turkey-Iran (BTI) nuclear deal, the very last diplomatic effort before the imposition of international sanctions track over the following years. The New York Times' (NYT) coverage of the deal is examined using the Critical Discourse Analytic (CDA) approach formulated by Teun van Dijk. The results show a strong bias against the BTI deal throughout the NYT's news coverage. The overarching theme in cover-age of the deal is the imputation of malignant intentions on the part of both Iran ("to kill time to further its nuclear weapons program") and Brazil and Turkey ("to advance their own business dealings with Iran and gaining international recognition"). Also, non-relevant information is used to imply a threat of Iranian development of nuclear weapons. Moreover, the NYT leaves almost totally "unsaid" that president Obama had asked Brazilian and Turkish leaders to go to Tehran and get this deal. Therefore, the NYT basically echoed, and legitimized, discursive practices of the U.S. government on the deal.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.17-36
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• 2015

As an effort of mitigating hazards, pro-environmental programs have been vigorously activated with regard to solid waste recycling. It is beneficial for both the environment and resource saving, but implementation and enforcement are hard to achieve voluntarily. The South Korean Government first implemented the Deposit Refund System (DRS) and later the Extended Producer Responsibility Program (EPR) to reduce waste and encourage recycling in South Korea. Un-der the DRS, producers would pay for recycling the wastes of the products. The government then repealed the DRS and implemented the EPR program. Under this program, the producers recycle as much as the Ministry of Environment determines or pay a penalty for an excessive amount of the waste. In the broader perspective of disaster management, such policy programs can mitigate environmental hazards. This paper compares those two programs that facilitated the level of recycling, focusing on how such programs regulate producers and how they were operated from the perspective of implementation and enforcement.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.37-44
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• 2015

Many people criticized how the Chinese government responded to the Wenchuan Earthquake. They focused on how it failed to address the psychological needs of the survivors. The study presented here approached this issue from a human resources perspective. It was determined that the Chinese government approached the situation in a bureaucratic way that limited the government's capacity and barred non-profit organizations and community groups from participating. It was also found that survivors could not contact these organizations for psychological support. This study concludes that the situation called for a more flexible and improvised institution that would respond to the emerging needs of survivors.