Who is interested in what

Most Mainichi site users interested in Constitution reform, nuclear power

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130716p2a00m0na009000c.html

Most users of a Mainichi Shimbun site that shows how far their political ideas match the policies of political parties as well as individual candidates in the July 21 House of Councillors election are particularly interested in constitutional amendments and nuclear power.

The "Eravote" site shows how close readers' political ideas are to political parties and candidates' policies if they answer questions on 26 policy issues, including constitutional amendments, nuclear power, the consumption tax hike, Japan's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact and the death penalty.

Of 62,834 readers who used the site between July 1 and the morning of July 15, 31 percent responded that they are highly interested in constitutional revisions and another 16 percent said they are relatively interested in the issue.

Over 40 percent said they are highly or relatively interested in the issue of whether nuclear power stations are necessary.

However, less than 40 percent replied that they are interested in the consumption tax increase and Abenomics, or economic policies promoted by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Less than 30 percent responded they are interested in the pension issue.

In the meantime, a Mainichi Shimbun opinion poll conducted on July 13 and 14 shows members of the public are most interested in issues that are closely related to their livelihoods, with 29 percent citing pension, medical and nursing care and childrearing matters and 26 percent picking economic stimulus measures. In contrast, only 8 percent and 6 percent of the respondents selected the energy policy that includes nuclear power and constitutional revisions, respectively, as the issue that they attach the most importance to in the upper house poll.

The results suggest that those who use the Eravote site are particularly interested in politics and tend to pay close attention to nuclear power, constitutional revisions and other issues over which political parties are in conflict with each other, although the results of the poll and the survey on Eravote users should not be simply compared.

Analysis of Twitter messages on the election show that Twitter users are paying particular attention to nuclear power and are relatively interested in constitutional amendments.

Therefore, it can be said that those who are actively using the Internet tend to be interested in nuclear power and revisions to the supreme law.