Regarding former Prime Minister Abe's "state funeral," NHK analyzed the changes over the past two and a half months based on the number and words posted on SNS.

NHK used the SNS analysis tool “Brandwatch” to identify tweets containing the words “national funeral” or “#national funeral” posted from July 8, when former Prime Minister Abe was shot and died, to the 25th of this month. , approximately 19.6 million cases were extracted and analyzed.



Among them, we looked at the top 20 words, such as nouns and hashtag phrases, that were posted most frequently on the day when the number of tweets, including retweets, surged or increased and the day after that.



▽ From July 8, the day Mr. Abe died, there were already posts about "state funeral", and other than words such as "Prime Minister Abe" and "Prime Minister", "Mr. Abe at state funeral", "Thank you", "Last wish", "Take over" ’ are the top words.



▽ On July 14th, when Prime Minister Kishida announced that he would hold a state funeral, the number of posts was the highest in the two and a half months we analyzed, with hashtags such as "oppose" and "oppose the state funeral." , In addition, the word "tax" increased and entered the top rank, and the investment of national funds came to be a point of contention.



▽ There were many posts on the 22nd, when the state funeral was decided by the Cabinet, and in addition to "opposition," "decision," and "decision by the cabinet," words such as "grounds," "legal," and "legal grounds" were higher than at the time of the announcement. joined.



While there continued to be voices in favor of the state funeral, posts questioning the grounds for implementation and the decision-making process began to stand out.



▽ In August, the number of posts related to state funerals will decrease, but it will start to increase again around the 26th when the Cabinet decided to spend 250 million yen for state funeral expenses, and in addition to "security" and "costs", etc. The word “Unification Church,” which had not been seen at the top of the list around the time of the cabinet decision in July, was in the top list.



▽ In September, on the 8th, when Prime Minister Kishida attended the closing examination regarding the state funeral, it was the second most posted in the past two and a half months, and the word "opposition" continued to be at the top. In addition to "Prime Minister Kishida", there were also posts related to the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth of England, who died on the 8th.



Even after that, as the day of the national funeral approaches, various tweets continue to be posted from the pros and cons, and the number of posts continues to be high.

Expert "Impression that there are many posts, etc. Various points of contention"

Fujio Toriumi, a professor at the University of Tokyo who is familiar with SNS data analysis, commented on posts about national funerals, saying, "Compared to normal social networking sites, the number of posts and accounts seems to be considerably higher. Various points of contention emerged, and each one of them became the subject of arguments for and against."



Professor Toriumi also collected data on 17 million posts and 860,000 accounts related to "state funeral" and independently analyzed it. However, when Prime Minister Kishida announced that he would hold a state funeral, an account appeared to dissent the opinion, and a phenomenon of reversal occurred around the cabinet decision. However, there are still quite a few accounts in favor of it, and they are posting."



As a feature of this time, there were about 100,000 accounts for and against each of the accounts that posted only once. With the advent of the social media space, people's opinions can be viewed as data. What's changed is that it's a big difference from the past, and you can find out what kind of voices there were and what they didn't by analyzing," he said, and said that it can be used for future verification.