The Fake

            A Blog is a powerful mediated tool, which influences society. Jeung-tai E. Tang and Chi-hui Chiang, National YunLin University of Science and Technology, mention, “In recent years, weblogs (blogs) have become popular forums on the Internet and have changed the nature of human social interaction by allowing people to connect with many other individuals worldwide.” Also, many politicians, journalists, business people, and other professionals take full advantage of blogs to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced society. The blog has narrative elements that influence society. Because owners of blogs are given rights to post about whatever they want to write and accept only the comments of viewers that the owners wish to show on their blogs, people can create a dominant or ideal world that is centered upon their personal desires. Arita Yoshifu, a politician, journalist, and self-proclaimed anti-religious person also uses a blog as a tool for his own benefit, but also to attack particular groups, with which he disagrees, or are obstacles to his goals. The Unification Church, UC, has been his biggest target, about which he has mentioned since the beginning of his blog. In the narrative of the blog, Arita develops himself as a hero by giving his viewers positive images of himself and through his outstanding writing techniques. However, he essentially brainwashes viewers into believing that whatever he writes about the UC in his blog is true.

            As a politician and well-known figure in the media, Arita fulfills the first step of creating a positive image by framing himself as the hero of Japan. According to Jamy Li and Mark Chingnell in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, readers “have prior impressions of a blogger’s personality based on offline acquaintance, previously read posts, other online content (e.g., profile information) or the credibility of a referring site.” In other words, the impression of bloggers, which readers have before looking at their actual blogs, is significant because it leads readers to determine whether or not the bloggers’ comments are accurate and believable.

            Arita is well-known as a smart, polite person, who has never raised his voice in TV shows in the Japanese society. Anytime Arita appears on Japanese TV, he is introduced as a graduate of Ritsumeikan University, which is known as one of the top universities in Japan. His academic accomplishment in the top University in Japan gives people an image of a smart and credible man. Also, proper language, straight posture, and a deep, quiet voice lead many TV viewers to have an impression of him as polite, gentle man. He arrives himself like a hero, on whose actions and comments people can rely.  

            After successfully presenting his positive images to the Japanese society, Arita uses his writing techniques, which have been cultivated through his years as a journalist, to make viewers believe that whatever he writes in his blog is correct and credible. So when Arita writes in his blog that “the Unification Church and Aum Shinrikyo are the social issue that I always have to remind people through my blog,” he is telling readers that the UC, which is considered as a cult in Japan, is the same as Aum Shinrikyo. However, Aum Shinrikyo is formally recognized as  a terrorist group worldwide after the Sarin gas attack. Arita uses his heroic persona to lie to the Japanese society. Arita also calls the UC an “anti-social religious group” many times in his blog without explaining why the group is anti-social. His constant stress of the UC as “anti-social” with no explanation or any reason shows that he is confident that most viewers believe that he is a champion of justice and the UC is evil; the only thing he has to do is to remind viewers that the UC is not favorable in the society.

            Arita’s comments in his blog and other mediums like TV interviews and the articles he wrote, which speak negatively of the UC, such as by categorizing them and Aum Shinrikyo in the same group, threaten the families of the UC members and lead their families to hire deprogrammers to kidnap them. According to Douglas Burton on the website (Unification Church News) around 4000 Unificationists “have been abducted and subjected to coercive psychological torture intended to break their faith during the last 30 years.”  Dan Fefferman and Ray Mas, authors of the website (International Coalition for Religious Freedom) says, a UC member “was raped on numerous occasions by her “deprogrammer.”” In worst cases, these extremely violent attacks carried out by deprogrammers “have resulted in suicide”(Fefferman). Arita has never mentioned what really happened to those victims of the kidnapping cases in his blog; however, Arita mentions in his blog, “It was right choice for the families of UC members to rescue them from the anti-social group like Unification Church.” He even criticizes UC that “Unification Church is very wrong that they call the family’s attempts to rescue their family members kidnappings.” Arita is not a real hero, who tries to save the Japanese society from the UC, but he is an evil that indirectly leads deprogrammers to destroy the UC through the media. 

As I mentioned in the culture jamming section, Arita never posted any comments opposing and pointing out the contradictions in his blog.  Even though the things he writes in his blog, such as the kidnapping cases of the UC members, often contradict with the truth, Arita can still exalt his opinions by keeping only supportive comments of his words. By posting only supportive comments about what he writes on his blog, he portrays himself as a hero, whom everyone admires and respects.    

Arita develops himself as a tragic hero, which is under the threat of the UC, in his blog. Before Arita was elected to the House of Councilors, he posted comments on his blog, “The UC members are distributing fliers, slandering and speaking ill of myself, throughout Japan.” He explained that the main purpose for the UC members to distribute the fliers is to prevent him from being elected to the House of Councilors. The UC demonstrated against the thousands of abductions and physical assaults to the UC members carried out by deprogrammers. The members distributed the fliers, saying that “Arita has played the key role to make the tragedy of kidnappings happen by spreading negative and false information about the UC through TV, magazines, internet, and his own books.” The UC members had a fear that if Arita gains more power in the society, such as becoming a politician, what he says about the UC through the media would become more influential, and the persecution toward the members would be escalated; therefore, the members opposed “the axis of evil” to be elected to the House of Councilors. Arita, however, wrote that the UC members distributed “fliers, slandering and speaking ill of myself” without mentioning the member’s feeling of fear toward him. By knowing that Arita became a hero in his blog, he twisted the truth and framed the sentence, as if the UC members were tring to attack the hero with the spread of libelous material.

Arita argues that the UC members’ conduct of distributing the fliers written the opposition for him to run for the election “stifles the freedom of speech.” For more than fifteen years since Arita first appeared in the media, he has created and spread negative images and deceitful information of the UC. Because his work of creating a false image of the UC as an anti-social or terrorist like group, most UC members cannot even say that they are Unificationists to their friends or even to their own family members. Through the media, Arita has oppressed the UC members’ ability to introduce themselves as Unificationists in Japanese society and share their beliefs to others. In spite of the past records of his conduct, Arita can brainwash people into believing that the UC is no more than an anti-social cult, while keeping himself as the tragic hero, whose is freedom of speech is stifled by the UC, in his blog.

Arita uses his blog as a powerful mediated tool. Shih-Ming Pi, Hsiu-Li Liao, and the other two authors in the website, EBSCOhost, report, “According to a report in April 2007 (Sifry, 2007), there are more than 70 million blogs on the world wide web and approximately 120,000 new blogs are posted each day.” We have seen how effective Arita’s blog is, and it’s only one of 70 million blogs. The power of the blog is made evidence through the changes of the UC members’ lives by one alleged hero.