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The article offers information on the media sociology in Japan. It states that the main stage of social communication is shifting to social media on the internet. It mentions that disaster response has become one of the most important themes of media sociology, highlighting the influence of internet on the availability of computer-mediated communication in Japanese society.

There are two opposite opinions on volunteer activities. The advocates applaud them because they could solve problems caused by the nation and the market. The critics of neo-liberalism, on the other hand, are apprehensive that they would promote social change in line with neo-liberalism. The aim of this paper is to reconsider the discussions comprehensively and to show theoretical points that avoid complicity with neo-liberalism. The problems of complicity could be classified into two types. One is at the level of condition, and the other is at the level of consequence. At the level of condition, complicity would occur when volunteer activities function as a replacement for institutions of welfare states, and when volunteers become moralistic and easy to be governed. On the other hand, at the level of consequence, complicity would happen when social disparity that exists among participants in volunteers is mobilized to protect themselves by excluding others. It is then shown that this complicity doesn't always happen and there are ways to avoid it. Such methods are found by considering the 'other' who has difficulty in gaining people's sympathy and is neglected in most discussions of volunteers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present and discuss social change and social policy in Japan after the mid-20th century from a sociological viewpoint. Japanese social change and social policy from the mid-20th century onward can be categorized into three models in chronological order: escape from mass poverty by means of industrialization, improvement of the social security system to establish a welfare state, and parallel progress of aspiration for a welfare society and workfare. Defined concretely, these are (1) the period that established and improved social security, which started immediately after the end of World War II and ended in 1973, when Japan began to suffer from low growth after enjoying high growth; (2) the period in which finance for social security was adjusted, halfway through which the country experienced a bubble economy; and (3) the period after the 1990s, in which the structural reform of social security went hand-in-hand with labor policy and the advent of globalization. In each of the three periods, the direction of social policy was affected by factors that caused changes in such areas as industrial structure (the decline of agriculture), demographic structure (an aging society), and family structure and work pattern (the growing trend of nuclear families, single-person households, and irregular employment). In Japan, life security now attracts increasing attention, and employment security rather than social security has been the central issue. As it is greatly affected by globalization, employment security grows less conspicuous and makes the vulnerability of social security grow more conspicuous. Social policy has the potential to become an area with which to struggle for national integration and fissures between social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Singapore had been called a Cultural Desert since its independence in 1965, but from the beginning of 1990s, there has been a significant change. The Singapore Government started to call their city a“Global City for the Arts”, making numerous cultural policy changes. They also worked on various cultural experiments to establish their cultural leadership or hegemony among Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. The development of arts policies, cultural industries and people's positive commitment towards cultural exchanges are examples of this change. Singapore therefore is now playing the role of the cultural hub among the ASEAN countries. As an example of this, the present study discusses“Esplanade”, which opened as a huge cultural complex in October 2002. Then the paper will also discuss both bright and dark sides of the cultural development in Singapore. As a conclusion, this paper discusses the possibility of the cultural contribution of Singapore to ASEAN countries, in spite of having serious epistemological discontinuity among ASEAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the ways in which the department store has become a key site for the constitution of Japanese modernity through the introduction of images and goods taken from the West, along with the emphasis on “Western design” and “Western taste”. These new consumer spaces have become aestheticized in various ways so that we can speak of an “aestheticization” of everyday life. Yet this was also a modernizing learning process for Japanese consumers, hence a key problem was how these new experiences were to be classified and ordered into a relatively stable habitus. The rise of the department store has had an important mediating function here. Department stores not only provided new goods along with interpretations of how to use them, but also acted as theatres, as rehearsal spaces, with front and back stage areas where one can watch the performance, try out for oneself new roles. This is especially the case for women in the city, who were able to explore a new identity space with a new set of competence experiences and pleasures. In this process, the department store also provided a form of women's public sphere where they could enjoy shopping, entertainment and learning opportunities. Department stores encouraged not only a sense of luxury and theatrical settings, but also help to teach women how to assemble new tastes and styles into their lifestyle. In addition, it should be emphasized that in the Japanese case, department stores also played an important role not just as a new cultural initiative on the part of the businessmen and cultural intermediaries who invented consumer culture, but also as a political initiative on the part of the government who sought to link them to the reform of everyday life and the production of good Japanese citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Japanese family sociology. It states that the shifts in the ruling paradigms of family sociology for each era were formed by the position of Japan in the global context and not just from changes in Japanese society and from the intellectual impact from overseas and the domestic reaction to this.

The article offers information on the significance of regional studies in the Japanese sociological research. It states that regional situations differ greatly from country to country due to factors including historical background, social systems, and the extent of economic development. It mentions that major system reforms of democratization occurred in Japan after the World War II affected rural society, but the family system of farmers did not change.