Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Noise pollution or election preparation?
This is a video someone else took that I found on Youtube. Vans like this have been circling my neighborhood this week in preparation for elections. Elections are on August 30 - Sunday - and this is one of the ways that the candidates get their name "out there". Thankfully, unlike the city/district elections held earlier in July where 26 or 30 candidates were out campaigning, for national elections there are 4 seats in the house of representatives up for grabs for Nara.
JapanToday also had an article on the speaker van "bringing politics to the streets".
I would think that candidates could find a more effective (and quiet) means of advertising by using the web or cellphone technology. But I learned by reading this article once campaigning open Aug. 18 they were not allowed to update their websites or send out mass emails.
Although there are ways to post negative adds about opponents. Check out my friend Andrea's blog to see a Japanese political ad.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Did that Japan Today author really say that voting is compulsory in her country? I'm totally ignorant; where is that?
Hi Sharon -
I did a little research on it to figure this out. My guess is the author of the Japan Today article is from Australia. But reading an article about compulsory voting I learned there are a lot more countries with such laws on the books - of course how and if they are enforced, varies from place to place. Here's the article: http://www.idea.int/vt/compulsory_voting.cfm
interesting, eh!
Post a Comment