I found this from the Electronic Fronteer Japan to be an interesting analysis.

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

 Comments appreciated (I will circulate a summary and send to author).
Having just come back from Japan and seeing first hand some of the battles
I would like to better understand it. I would note that the Japanese
Government seems (nothing yet in English) an intergovernmental JII panel.
If our Japanese readers have any more on this I will circulate.


Dave




Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 12:32:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Ratliff <jratliff () weber ucsd edu>
To: efj () twics com




I'm a PhD student in Sociology at the University of
California at San Diego, with a particular in interest
in issues of Japanese economic and social development
(I lived in Japan from 1984 to 1989.)  I'm leaving for
Tokyo next month with a one year Fulbright dissertation
research fellowship and will be a visiting scholar at
the University of Tokyo Institute of Social Research
(Shaken).  The tentative topic of my dissertation is:
"The Political Economy of the Japanese Information
Infrastructure and the Social Construction of the
Japanese Virtual Community."


I've been lurking on this list while finishing my exams
and have read with great interest the various
contributions, many of which show great insight and
been very helpful to me.  I thought I should make an
attempt at putting down some of my own tentative
observations on this topic.


1) The classic Japanese political-economic strategy of
bureaucratic leadership of systematic penetration and
ultimate domination of a given industrial sector has
worked best in areas where technologies are relatively
stable and/or technological development is fairly
predictable, thus facilitating long term planning.
Examples include autos, TV, VCRs, and DRAMs.  Where
change in product archetecture is rapid and
industry/consumer driven, such as in microprocessors
and software, bureaucratic developmental approaches
have been much less successful.  One of the most
important aspects of convergence of computers, telecom
and broadcasting is that technologies of the later
category will tend to dominate.


2) There is no doubt that there is a strong
"demonstration effect" from the U.S., where
deregulation and strong price competition in these
sectors (telecom, broadcasting,  networked computers)
has led to massive consumer bases and superior
products.  Above all, it has led to much lower prices.
One thing that has struck me about reading this list is
that while American discourse on the future of NII
tends to be dominated by issues of access and privacy
(a la Clipper Chip), discussions on this list have
tended to focus on cost.  Thus, the genuine
demonstration effect from the U.S. worldwide is the
ability demonstrated here to get costs down in
information related technologies.


3) It seems to me that there is general agreement among
the major players in the Japanese NII policy debate
that priority must be given to "catching up" through
developing a massive domestic consumer base for
information technologies and ultimately getting
production costs down and creating the possibility for
Japan becoming a player in technological innovation.
Contention seems to center around "top-down" vs.
"bottom-up" (read "market driven") approaches.  What's
different here from previous efforts (HTV, for example)
is there are strong Japanese voices for comprehensive
deregulation--for the bottom-up approach--to lower
telecom costs and curtail monopsony supplier pricing.
This has the potential to change both the character of
the debate and possible policy outcomes.


(Don't know for sure, but it seems to me that there is
some parallels between the venerable turf wars between
MITI and MPT for domination of this area and this split
in the debate, with MPT championing the top-down
approach and certain political entrepreneurs at MITI
trying to represent the forces of a controlled,
limited, guided market driven strategy.  Any comments
on this?)


4) Situation is somewhat complicated, however, by this
year's developments in the U.S., where proposed mergers
have fallen through one by one, and the original
optimistic time frame for NII implementation is
seriously in doubt.  Given the incredible amount of
capital necessary for startup in information
convergence, and the uncertainty of the market, major
players are hesitating here, and the Clinton
Administration is not in a position politically to
create a clear policy framework for the future.  Might
this be an argument for a dose of "administrative
guidance" to get things going in this field in Japan?
Especially within the present fluid political climate
in Japan, might some sort of policy compromise be in
the cards?


I've discussed policy issues only in this post.  I'm
also very interested in more cultural questions
regarding the social contextualization of appropriate
forms of communication, which I think are also of great
importance when discussing the concrete implementation
of new information technologies.  For example, if the
Internet is a new form of public space, what are the
implication for the spread of the Internet in a society
like Japan's, which has such different institutions and
cultural practices and mores associated with
appropriate forms of public communication?  It's my
perception that while in the U.S. we have the
expectation that information "should" be free, unless
there's a real good reason why not, information
transfer in Japan is much more on a a "need to know"
basis, with a general expectation that information
"should" be expensive and difficult to access (e.g., no
street signs.)  Again, comments?


But this post is already much too long (a problem with
excessive lurking).  I look forward to hearing from
those much wiser than myself.  Yoroshiku onegai-
shimasu.




John Ratliff
University of California, San Diego
jratliff () weber ucsd edu                   Compuserve: 73061,3536


"And it came to me that I had no idea at all of what was really
happening, or of what was supposed to happen." - William Gibson