Yasheng She
CCTP 505
12/16/2015
Final Reflection Paper
Problem:
The Juveniles Act is a Japanese law aims at the protection of minors, under
age 14, by making special provisions for juvenile delinquents. One of the provisions
is stipulating privacy for juveniles through media censorship [検察庁]. For instance,
newspapers, radio, and TV stations are prohibited from publicizing any information
about the delinquent comprising names, address, age, occupation, and more. Only few
exceptions are allowed in this case, such as mass murder or the act of terrorism.
This provision has been successful especially in the sector of traditional media
because state can carry out straightforward and effective enforcement. New media,
however, generates threat to this provision. New media uses the multistakeholder
model that urges transparency and accountability. Therefore state cannot fully
regulate new media.
Furthermore new media is an affordable, convenient, and powerful tool that
facilitates information dissemination while protecting participants’ identity. This of
course encourages Internet vigilantism for exposing juvenile delinquents’ detailed
personal information, which jeopardies the integrity of the Juveniles Act, and the
multistakeholder model prevents direct intervention from the state actor.
Questions:
1. How to implement the Juveniles Act in the sphere of new media? (Professor
Jones)
2. What are the driving forces for online vigilante? (Professor Bode)
Methods:

How to implement the Juveniles Act in the sphere of new media? (Professor
Jones)
I will employ content analysis for approaching this question. By analyzing
the privacy provision variation between traditional and new media, I can understand
how state intervenes traditional media as well as who is accountable for Internet
vigilantism. When knowing what actors are involved, I can further research on what
kinds of interventions can be or already been created in response to this question.
Assumptions associated with this approach will emphasize policy and Internet
governance. As a result, conducting researches with this approach will be heavy on
the cybernetic perspective, which involves policies and laws determined by state and
non-state actors.
Employing this approach is very effective pertaining to the cybernetic
perspective, yet ignores the one crucial limitation of this problem – the motivation
for Internet vigilantism, or the sociocultural perspective.

What are the driving forces for online vigilante? (Professor Bode)
The method for answering this question is online survey. First is to target
which websites or social media platforms are popular for Internet vigilantism, then
categorize them by high, medium, and low vigilante activities. Randomizing by time
and send out links to the online survey and collect responses. Decoding information
and I will try to understand what are the motivations behind Internet vigilantism.
Assumptions surround this approach are within the discipline of social
psychology. This approach will focus on the mentality of those who conduct Internet
vigilantism, and recommendations from this perspective will take a somewhat microlevel approach.
Limitation of this method obviously lies within the implementation because it
focuses on individuals and therefore a highly visible collective pattern would be
difficult to identify especially because self-report survey remains subjective
regardless of the objectivity of question design.
An interdisciplinary approach:
The first step of taking an interdisciplinary approach by combining the two
methods above is to identify a common question. The common focus in these two
methods is the morality of Internet vigilantism.
Method:
1. Employ survey to collect data online and offline (such as schools) to understand
people’s opinions about Internet vigilantism.
2. Conduct a cross-examination between state’s intervention on Internet vigilantism
and the data of the popular opinion generated from the survey.
3. Come up with possible ways of intervention based on the cross-exanimation.

State founded projects for explaining the importance of privacy in school
and online.

Projects to highlight the underlying motivations for online vigilante and its
potential harmful consequences.

Design policies for state’s regulation over new media with age sensitivity
but keep other relevant information available and objective.
Limitation:
Even with an interdisciplinary study, it can only answer part of the problem.
Other questions can be asked based on this problem, such as “Is the juveniles act
necessary?” “What are social implications of this law?” and “Can children really
benefit from this law?” To answer these questions, through interdisciplinarity, new
research method will be employed and eventually a thorough solution will be created.
Works Cited
検察庁. "少年事件について." 刑事事件の手続. 2015