Motohiko Saito re-elected Hyogo governor, boosted by strong online support

In the Hyogo Prefectural gubernatorial election held on the 17th, Motohiko Saito (47) was re-elected governor with the support of the Internet. Yoshimi Nakamura, director of the Internet Communication Research Institute, who is an expert on online elections, points out that “supporting fire” from sources other than Saito and his campaign team had a major impact. The institute analyzed the gubernatorial election activities of Saito and Kazumi Inamura (52), the former mayor of Amagasaki City, Chiba Prefecture, including the spread of posts on Instagram and YouTube, and compiled the results in a report. According to the report, Saito had more than 10 times as many followers on their official Instagram and Twitter accounts, as well as YouTube subscribers, than Inamura. For example, the number of followers on Mr. Saito’s account “x” was around 70,000 at the end of September when he announced his candidacy for the re-election, but it increased sharply after the announcement on October 31st. On election day, the turnout exceeded 190,000. In contrast, Inamura has only 15,000 followers. The spread of x’s post was largely due to “official support” accounts such as Saito’s supporters’ group. The number of reposts was more than double that of the original account. In terms of the number of views of Saito’s posts, combined with his own account and his official support account, the total was 92.5 million, about 4.2 times that of Inamura. Support channels outside the campaign: Meanwhile, Nakamura points out YouTube as a “characteristic not seen in previous elections.” On the candidates’ official channels, Inamura, who posted more videos, had a slight lead over Saito in terms of the total number of views for videos (excluding live broadcasts), including short videos of 60 seconds or less. Saito Motohiko gives a speech after his victory was confirmed, in Kobe’s Chuo Ward at 9:48 pm on the 17th (photographed by Kitamura Takao) However, it appears that other videos had a greater impact on voting behavior. Since the announcement, Saito’s own channel has received a total of 1.19 million views. The official support channel had roughly double that number, 2.54 million views. In response to this, Takafumi Tachibana (57), a former member of the House of Councillors and leader of the political group “Party to Protect the People from NHK,” ​​who declared his support for Saito while also running for office himself, posted more than 100 videos, which were viewed a total of 14.99 million times. In addition, the channels distributing these excerpts were viewed a total of 12.99 million times. Both videos have been viewed more than 10 times as many times as Saito himself. Other notable figures included the internet program “Toranomon News,” which received 5.54 million views, and former Ministry of Finance and professor at Gakushuin University, Takahashi Yoichi, who received 2.01 million views. There were also several cases where channels that mainly focused on game streaming and gardening posted about Saito. More in the source.

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20241118/k00/00m/010/047000c