Tadamasa Kimura

木村 忠正

Professor specializing in media sociology, online public opinion research, and network society. My work combines cognitive anthropology, communicative ecology, and mixed-methods empirical research to examine how digital media reshapes knowledge, politics, and everyday life.

🏛 Rikkyo University (St. Paul's University) — Dept. of Communication & Media Studies, College of Sociology 📍 Former: Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, University of Tokyo (Head, Dept. of Cultural Anthropology)
🇯🇵 日本語
Research Areas
01
Online Public Opinion
Formation, structure, and societal effects of net yoron; log-data analysis of online discourse and polarization dynamics.
02
Smartphone & Log Data Analysis
Large-scale log data (LDASU) analysis of smartphone use patterns and their relationship to social behavior and cognition.
03
Digital Natives
Empirical and critical examination of digital native cohorts — media literacy, political attitudes, and communicative practices.
04
Communicative Ecology & CMC
Ethnographic study of computer-mediated communication using hybrid methods and communicative ecological frameworks.
05
Digital Divide
Empirical investigation of access gaps, skill inequalities, and the socioeconomic consequences of uneven digital participation.
06
Deindustrialization & ICT
Theoretical investigation of the role of information and communication technologies in deindustrializing societies.
News & Updates
New Books
Two new books published in May–June 2026
Culminating roughly a decade of research, two volumes synthesize findings from the Online Public Opinion Study (OPOS) and the Log Data Analysis of Smartphone Use (LDASU) projects.
YouTube
New YouTube channel launched (February 2026)
"An Invitation to Media & Communication Studies" — slide-video content for students and researchers, produced with NotebookLM.
Blog
Blog migrated to note (2026)
The long-running Hatena Blog has moved to note. Two series are active: general research commentary and the RIOPO (Research Institute of Online Public Opinion) series.
Selected Publications
RG
Full texts available on ResearchGate
17 publications · 2,130 reads · 11 citations — full-text PDFs freely accessible
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Recent Books, all my books published so far are in Japanese only.
2022
Ikawa, M. and Kimura, T. (eds.)
Minerva Shinsho
Published Articles, Working Papers & Preprints — full text on ResearchGate
2026
Article (full text available). Proposes an evolutionary framework (TDIH) linking moral psychology, cumulative cultural learning, and online social polarization.
2026
Article (full text available). Analysis of 2024 Japanese local elections through web survey data and moral foundations theory.
2026
Conference paper (full text available). Argues that AI governance debates obscure urgent sociological questions about value conflicts within human society.
2025
Chapter (full text available). English translation of the introduction to The Age of Digital Natives (2012). Multidisciplinary analysis of social media, democracy, and authoritarianism.
2025
Chapter (full text available). Extended draft of commentary for the Japanese translation of La révolution Wikipédia (Iwanami Shoten, 2008).
2025
Article (full text available). Examines the concept of "fake news" and disinformation in the context of generative AI and evolving online public opinion.
2018
Trends in the Sciences (full text available). Proposes an expansion of the symmetry principle drawing on STS and ethnographic approaches to CMC.
2010
Kimura, Tadamasa
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, Vol. 2010, No. 1, pp. 199–215. American Anthropological Association.
2008
Kimura, Tadamasa
Cyberspace as Socio-psychological Space: Cross-Cultural Comparison among the Japanese, Koreans and Finns
Journal of Socio-Informatics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 57–70.
2008
Saito, Yoshitaka, and Kimura, Tadamasa
Socio-Cultural Differences in the Use of Personal Web Homepage and Electronic Communities among Japanese, Finnish, and Korean Youth
Journal of Socio-Informatics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 137–146.
CV & Biography
👤
Short Biography
Academic background
📄
CV (abbreviated)
PDF · updated 2018
📋
CV (comprehensive)
PDF · full version
RG
ResearchGate profile
17 publications, full texts free
Contact
Comments and enquiries are welcome. Please substitute @ for "AT" when writing.
kiitostokyo[AT]yahoo.co.jp