This is a thesis clarifying the problems and events that occurred in the post-Fukushima era in the perspective of media treatments. The thesis will consist of three topics. The first topic is to explore whether mainstream media was able to provide timely and accurate information in dealing with the Fukushima disaster. The second topic concerns the information provided by mainstream media and the fear that important information was withheld and, for political reasons, triggered a wave of "citizen journalism"(Slater2012), circulated primarily via social media. Social media experienced a trust crisis as mainstream suffered in post-Fukushima for a lack of source credibility. The third topic is to discuss the unique way in which young Japanese people interacted with social media during the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. These interactions are reinforced rather than challenged the culturally-sanctioned behavior.

Based on the analysis of the three parts above, this thesis will find that the distrust of the mainstream media enabled social media in Japan to develop rapidly after the Fukushima disaster, and that social media is believed to break the information monopolization of mainstream media successfully by providing multiple types of information. However, the source credibility of social media is limited. As a nascent phenomenon in Japan, citizen journalism might lead to misinformation and emotional effects among the public after disasters. Meanwhile, as young people are major users of social media in Japan, information circulated on social media will be more influential to young people than other groups. Social media affected the way Japanese youth dealt with interpersonal relationships and participated in social affairs in the aftermath of Fukushima disaster. Rather than question the credibility of information and express their opinions, young people tended to behave in unity with group members and friends to protect themselves from being criticized and isolated by others. In this sense, social media resulted in a loss of self-identity among Japanese youth. Social media may be seen as synchronizing minds rather than encouraging multiple opinions in Japan.