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Former US President Trump was, for better or worse, a person who adapted to the Internet (especially SNS). He was originally a TV show host, so he must have been skilled at speaking, and I think he intuitively knew how to grasp what was popular with people at the time, but the words he uses on SNS are close to colloquial language, even though they are written in text. He uses colloquial and spoken language as a basis, never saying anything difficult, and repeats assertive statements in short phrases. A huge amount of information flows on the Internet every day, and readers quickly move on to other things when they get bored, so long sentences are hard to read. As a result, sentences are getting shorter and shorter. In Japanese online bulletin boards, the phrase "too long to read" is used, and overseas, the phrase TL;DR or TLDR (Too Long, Didn't Read) is used as slang in the Internet space.

The Internet space requires a unique "writing technique." In print media, you think about something, work out a structure to organize it into an accurate piece of writing, revise it while writing, and then make further corrections at the proofreading stage to solidify it into a single piece of writing before publishing it to the world. However, on the Internet, the priority is to instantly write down whatever comes to mind. This is because topics and trends change constantly, so even if you spend a week carefully thinking about something and writing a well-thought-out piece, by the time you publish it, the next topic has already come along and no one will pay attention to it.

Companies that provide internet media platforms are also supporting this movement. Their biggest goal is to make it easy for as many people as possible to post and comment on text. By lowering the barriers to access and posting, their goal is to increase the number of users and views, and thus advertising revenue. It can be said that internet media has evolved with the aim of making it as easy as possible for users to post, such as Twitter, which was created based on short text communication with a 140-character limit, and Instagram, which focuses on images rather than text.

At the same time, and this is a major feature of the Internet, spoken words swell up like bubbles in an instant and disappear the next moment. In the sense that words disappear as soon as they are spoken, it is very similar to colloquial speech. A person like former US President Trump, who would never have been elected in the era of print media, has become enthusiastically supported by some people by making full use of the Internet, which could be said to be because he instinctively grasped the characteristics of the Internet.

My hypothesis is that a society where colloquial communication, the style that former US President Trump excels at, is mainstream is actually very similar to the Middle Ages before the advent of printing technology. In the Middle Ages, a unified authority such as a nation-state did not govern the region, but rather, separate authorities existed based on religion, economics, military force, etc., and people belonged to each group and lived under different rules. In Europe, there was the Pope, the royal family, and organizations that maintained their independence, such as lords, monasteries, and commercial guilds. It was a divided society compared to today.

In the Middle Ages, before the development of printing technology, people mainly communicated through oral language. Therefore, there were many rumors and rumours, and it was difficult to see what was true. Now that the Internet is becoming the mainstream of communication, the increase in rumors and fake news also reminds us of similarities with the Middle Ages. I once had a seminar on fake news, and when I looked into it, I found that in many cases, it was not someone intentionally trying to spread rumors, but rather a certain statement or photo was naturally interpreted differently from the original and spread, which resulted in it spreading as fake news. And on the Internet, it was almost impossible to go back and verify who first spoke the words or who changed the interpretation. Printing made it widely possible to verify what was written over time, even in the distant future, but in my view, the era in which the Internet is mainstream will become a chaotic society like the Middle Ages before the development of printing technology.

Furthermore, if we look at the Middle Ages, as the Christian world transitioned from the Middle Ages to the modern era, Protestants used the new medium of printing as a communication tool to gain more allies, expand their influence, and promote the Protestant Reformation. As a result, Catholic discourse, which was based primarily on oral communication before printing, lost its power, but we can see the possibility that the opposite could happen. The current decline of mass media could be seen as the decline of organizations based on printing.

This is not just a Japanese phenomenon, but a global one. With the expansion of communication via the Internet, the right wing is gaining presence, while the left wing is cracking down on words that go against their ideals, which is becoming more and more common, and is leading to division and conflict in society. The way former US President Trump expresses his opposition to something in a quick, colloquial manner, using extreme expressions, is the very essence of Internet communication, a series of reactions in a short period of time. On the other hand, the left wing's concentrated criticism and crackdown on gaffes has the same structure. Neither of them is constructing or asserting their own new ideals or thoughts. For them, their own thoughts and feelings are so self-evident and unquestionable that they do not write about them, or in other words, they do not have the ability to write, but simply write their reactions to events and news based on their thoughts. Both of them are only able to write because of the existence, ideals, and reactions of the other party, and they are not independent, but dependent on each other. This is the cause of the intensifying conflict. And whereas in the days of print, when only a very small minority of people could construct and express their arguments in long pieces, the threshold for speech is overwhelmingly lower and the speed is fast, as one simply writes down any reaction that comes to mind, copies it, and spreads it around.

Furthermore, conservatives and right-wingers are more suited to the Internet. This is because the fundamental ideological structure of conservatism, which is not about establishing one's own ideology but is a reaction against change and a reaction to something, is compatible with the Internet. Similarly, right-wingers also react based on nationalism. Right-wing presidents who use extreme language have been born all over the world, including former US President Trump, President Duterte of the Philippines, and President Bolsonaro of Brazil. Various factors have been discussed as the background to this, such as the decline of Marxism, which has supported left-wing ideology, disparities due to globalization, and immigration issues, but I believe that the influence of the Internet is very large. The fact that they are successful in expressing opposition that ordinary people would never say for fear of criticism, using easy-to-understand, short, colloquial, extreme language, is not only Internet-like, but also heroic to some people. In the days when large companies with newspapers and magazines monopolized the media, the companies guaranteed the quality of the content and judged and selected the content. However, in the age of the Internet, this "screening" process has disappeared, and anyone can freely express what they think. People witness these differences in the characteristics of existing media and the Internet every day, which has given rise to criticism of the mass media. The contrast between the mass media and the Internet used by right-wingers, the decline of the mass media as an industry and the growth of the Internet, are also behind the rightward shift.

This is a global trend that has accompanied the rise of the Internet, and it is difficult to deny or eliminate it, and I myself do not want to simply criticize it. In the Internet space, it is no longer meaningful to say things like "think carefully before writing" or "verify properly before speaking." It is virtually impossible to apply the norms of the print-dominant era to the Internet era. I feel that no one can resist this trend, in other words, a sense of resignation. That is why I am interested in what will happen to a society based on this "information in the Internet era," and I feel hopeful about the flexibility of the Internet's architecture as a possibility for dealing with problems. On the other hand, I am also interested in the extent to which what is happening in the Internet's discourse space is equal to or diverges from the real world. In other words, even if it appears that the Internet world is becoming more right-wing, research results sometimes show that this is not necessarily the case in real-world statistics, so I am also paying attention to these differences.

When the Internet began to emerge in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, it was sometimes spoken of as a kind of utopian space, a democratic medium where anyone could freely express themselves, in opposition to newspapers, television, radio, and other media that had previously monopolized the media. In some cases, people who had previously been considered minor found allies through the Internet, and tried to find new seeds of hope there. On the other hand, divisions were created in various places, and more and more people began to value small groups that shared their own ideas and values over nation-states, and the best example of this is the Islamic extremist group ISIL (Islamic State).

The Internet does not necessarily bring a rosy future. However, this is the path that many existing media have taken. When new media are born, they are hailed as "this will change the world", but eventually the negative effects of the media become clear, and over time they become institutionalized and are overshadowed by the rise of other new media. The Internet will eventually become institutionalized and stable like television, radio, and newspapers, and no one will talk about it enthusiastically anymore. On the other hand, now is an interesting time for the Internet.

When the Internet becomes mainstream, what kind of place should a university be? Universities, as "organizations of knowledge," are still primarily supported by printed materials such as research papers and monographs. Just as the emergence of photography changed the role of painting, and the emergence of television prompted changes in the roles of film and radio, what changes will the rise of the new media of the Internet bring to the fields of knowledge and scholarship? I think this is a very big challenge.

Looking back at the past, printing technology has also changed the way education is conducted. Before printing, education was basically done through questions and answers. This was true not only in Europe but also in Japan, where students first memorized the basics, and the teacher asked them if they had memorized them properly, and the students answered. This was a memorization plus question and answer style. Therefore, teachers could grasp the students' level of proficiency without having to take the trouble of giving exams or tests. When textbooks began to be created using printing technology, teachers no longer had to explain everything, and students no longer had to memorize everything, and they could study on their own. This made it difficult to see each student's level of proficiency, so exams became necessary. In this way, the advent of printing = textbooks has greatly changed the educational system itself, but I am also exploring what education should be like in the Internet age.

In fact, I think students are probably more knowledgeable about things like literacy in the Internet age. That's why I think that teaching them the "old world knowledge" that uses printed communication would actually be beneficial for them, and that's the meaning of university education today. Paradoxically, I think that's how it is. Even if colloquial communication becomes mainstream, printed and written communication will not disappear. I think it will survive in a different form than its previous role.

In School of Global Studies and Collaboration, there are many students who are interested in specific themes such as poverty, water issues, and environmental issues, and have a sense of mission, which is truly wonderful. I would like these students to not only look at the real things that are happening now, but also to take a step back and have a long-range perspective. Seeing things from such a long-range perspective will not only help you when you are confused or worried in various aspects of your life in the future, but also help you accomplish big things. Once you enter society, you will be busy with the work in front of you every day, so this perspective can only be cultivated during your university years. Especially when interacting with intellectuals from overseas, it is not enough to simply know about the work site, but also how well-educated you are. What background does the problem come from, why is that background formed, and to take a step back and deeply understand it is necessary to change the world. Concrete and practical classes are important, but now that ideology, or grand stories, are becoming less and less common in the world, I would like students to cherish the opportunities to come into contact with such values during their university years.

Recently, there have been whispers about the "unnecessary humanities" trend, but I take this to mean that "the humanities today are not interesting." Even if there is criticism, shouldn't we talk about bigger issues that will spark more debate? I think that is what makes the humanities interesting. It is very important to objectively know the current state of society through statistics, but at the same time, we must have the courage to present new values to the world that see beyond that without fearing criticism. I believe that this is the theme that is now being imposed on the humanities. (Published in June 2021)