Online political communication about the Tokyo Olympics

ABSTRACT This article investigates how Japanese politicians and their followers tweeted about the Tokyo Olympics between 1 January 2020 and 24 September 2021. Using a comprehensive dataset of Japanese politicians’ tweets and followers, plus text (sentiment) and network analysis, it finds that politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) stayed relatively quiet about the Games but did tweet positively about the Games after they started. In contrast, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) politicians tweeted energetically in their attempt to have the Games cancelled. Politicians from other parties were more muted, in line with the levels of interest expressed by their followers. Followers of Kōmeitō politicians, junior coalition partners of the LDP, tweeted much less about the Games than users following LDP politicians. These findings were repeated when politically interested users were grouped into clusters of mutual followers. Overall, this suggests that the Olympics were a polarizing issue in Japan, with users following opposition figures strongly opposed to the Games while those following the largest governing party were more supportive.