Shared Death: Self, Sociality and Internet Group Suicide in Japan

2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chikako Ozawa-De Silva
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Social Rejection ◽  
Social Self ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Rhetoric ◽  
Wish To Die ◽  
Internet Suicide ◽  
Basic Characteristics

Existing models for understanding suicide fail to account for the distinctiveness of Internet group suicide, a recent phenomenon in Japan. Drawing from an ethnography of Internet suicide websites, two social commentaries in Japanese popular culture, and the work of developmental psychologist Philippe Rochat, I argue that participation in Internet suicide forums and even the act of Internet group suicide result from both a need for social connectedness and the fear of social rejection and isolation that this need engenders. These needs and fears are especially strong in the case of Japan, where the dominant cultural rhetoric ties selfhood closely to the social self that is the object of perception and experience by others. I show how such an understanding of Internet group suicide helps us to understand some of its basic characteristics, which are otherwise difficult to explain and which have puzzled the Japanese media and popular accounts: the “ordinariness” or casual nature of Internet group suicide, the wish for an easy or comfortable death, the wish to die with others, and the wish to “vanish.” Internet group suicide sheds light on questions of Japanese selfhood in modernity and expands our understanding of suicide in Japan in general.

Re-Increased Male Suicide Rates in the Recovery Phase Following the Great East Japan Earthquake

Crisis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 422-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masatsugu Orui
Keyword(s):  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Recovery Phase ◽  
Great East Japan Earthquake ◽  
Temporary Housing ◽  
Period Analysis ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
Male Suicide ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference

Abstract. Background: Monitoring of suicide rates in the recovery phase following a devastating disaster has been limited. Aim: We report on a 7-year follow-up of the suicide rates in the area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, which occurred in March 2011. Method: This descriptive study covered the period from March 2009 to February 2018. Period analysis was used to divide the 108-month study period into nine segments, in which suicide rates were compared with national averages using Poisson distribution. Results: Male suicide rates in the affected area from March 2013 to February 2014 increased to a level higher than the national average. After subsequently dropping, the male rates from March 2016 to February 2018 re-increased and showed a greater difference compared with the national averages. The difference became significant in the period from March 2017 to February 2018 ( p = .047). Limitations: Specific reasons for increasing the rates in the recovery phase were not determined. Conclusion: The termination of the provision of free temporary housing might be influential in this context. Provision of temporary housing was terminated from 2016, which increased economic hardship among needy evacuees. Furthermore, disruption of the social connectedness in the temporary housing may have had an influence. Our findings suggest the necessity of suicide rate monitoring even in the recovery phase.

Social Influence and the Social Self

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 450-451
Author(s):  
William P. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Social Self ◽  
The Social

The Social Self

1991 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 869-871
Author(s):  
Joan G. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Self ◽  
The Social

The Social Self in Bulimia Nervosa

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Striegel-Moore ◽  
◽  
L. R. Silberstein ◽  
J. Rodin
Keyword(s):  
Bulimia Nervosa ◽  
Social Self ◽  
The Social

The physiological impact of threats to the social self and shame

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Kemeny ◽  
Tara Gruenewald ◽  
Sally Dickerson
Keyword(s):  
Social Self ◽  
The Social ◽  
Physiological Impact

"I Too Could Be Gay If I Wanted"

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Herrero-Brasas
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Social Rejection ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
Queer People ◽  
The Social

An important factor in the social rejection and marginalization of queer people is misplaced empathy. When it comes to sexual identity, putting oneself in someone else's shoes, if bringing into those shoes a radically non-queer emotional experience, will only lead to further lack of understanding and misconceptions. The religious studies classroom provides a privileged setting for exposing that wrong kind of empathy and help the students reflect about the ways in which negative religious attitudes to queerness may be tainted with it.

Synergetic Theory of Document in Evolution of Document Science

2018 ◽  
pp. 1060-1068
Author(s):  
Galina A. Dvoenosova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Role ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Universal Theory ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Social Goal ◽  
The Social ◽  
Synergetic Theory ◽  
First Time

The article assesses synergetic theory of document as a new development in document science. In information society the social role of document grows, as information involves all members of society in the process of documentation. The transformation of document under the influence of modern information technologies increases its interest to representatives of different sciences. Interdisciplinary nature of document as an object of research leads to an ambiguous interpretation of its nature and social role. The article expresses and contends the author's views on this issue. In her opinion, social role of document is incidental to its being a main social tool regulating the life of civilized society. Thus, the study aims to create a scientific theory of document, explaining its nature and social role as a tool of social (goal-oriented) action and social self-organization. Substantiation of this idea is based on application of synergetics (i.e., universal theory of self-organization) to scientific study of document. In the synergetic paradigm, social and historical development is seen as the change of phases of chaos and order, and document is considered a main tool that regulates social relations. Unlike other theories of document, synergetic theory studies document not as a carrier and means of information transfer, but as a unique social phenomenon and universal social tool. For the first time, the study of document steps out of traditional frameworks of office, archive, and library. The document is placed on the scales with society as a global social system with its functional subsystems of politics, economy, culture, and personality. For the first time, the methods of social sciences and modern sociological theories are applied to scientific study of document. This methodology provided a basis for theoretical vindication of nature and social role of document as a tool of social (goal-oriented) action and social self-organization. The study frames a synergetic theory of document with methodological foundations and basic concepts, synergetic model of document, laws of development and effectiveness of document in the social continuum. At the present stage of development of science, it can be considered the highest form of theoretical knowledge of document and its scientific explanatory theory.

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

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