Measuring for what: networked citizen science movements after the Fukushima nuclear accident

This dissertation is the first in-depth study of citizens’ radiation data production practices following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident of 2011. It is also the first in-depth fieldwork on citizen’s radiation data production practices after social media and the Internet have become a part of everyday life in Japan and elsewhere. While various citizens have engaged in data generation on radiation in the air using a wide variety of dosimeters and circulated the resulting data via the Internet and social media, this study captures one particular moment in the evolution of citizens’ data production practices. This moment is a snapshot of 2014, more than three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster when there were still evacuees from the Fukushima Prefecture and elsewhere yet the levels of radiation in the air had decreased. ❧ This work has specific relevance to the study of citizen science. Most studies that have preceded this work focus on a single case of citizens’ radiation data production practice. While most of these earlier works failed to illustrate the fundamentally complex picture of citizens’ radiation data production practices, this dissertation seeks to illustrate how citizens take advantage of the Internet and social media to produce data on low-dose radiation in the air in varying ways by investigating three different cases: Safecast, Kodomo Mirai Sokuteijo and Hakatte Geiger. Rather than focusing on analyzing the three cases in isolation from social, cultural and historical contexts, this study further investigates public discourses on low-dose radiation through the lens of Japanese mass media and also analyzes how experts such as scientists, government officials, and dosimeter manufacturers viewed citizens’ data production practices in heterogeneous ways. ❧ This dissertation demonstrates that whereas most experts were inclined to view citizens’ radiation data as scientifically untrustworthy, a wide variety of citizens took full advantage of the Internet and social media to produce data on radiation in the air and to reconstruct their everyday life after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan and elsewhere. The findings of this study are only a snapshot of the role citizens play in generating data on low-dose radiation in the air in the digital era, but this dissertation lays the foundation for future cross-cultural studies.