Effects of Social Networks and News on Political Affections

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From the panel data set collected in the Japanese Election StudyIII, 2001-2005 (JES:III), a panel analysis was conducted on the data sets collected in 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2005,which were the years that national elections were held during the Koizumi administration, which itself ran from 2001 to 2006. In the paper, the effects that Social Networks and TV news had during the period of the Koizumi administration on voters’ feelings toward Prime Minister Koizumi, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in terms of their scores on the Feeling Thermometer Scale is discussed, and the process by which voters were affected by Social Networks and TV news during the formation period for the two-party system - which came to be made up of an established political party, the LDP, and a new political party, the DPJ - is clarified.