Muneo Kaigo is an associate professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He teaches communication and media in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Comparative Culture at the University of Tsukuba, and also teaches Media Management at the Graduate School of Business Sciences at the University of Tsukuba. He completed his Ph.D. (International Christian University, Tokyo) in 1999 and was a Japanese ministry sponsored visiting scholar at Columbia University from 2004 to 2005 conducting research related to the dynamics of the network society. His current research project is centered on enhancing civil society and disaster preparedness through effective SNS usage development and he is currently leading a joint project with the municipal government of Tsukuba and Intel Corporation Japan (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research: 25330394). His recent research interests are also centered on the positive and negative information aggregation and flows in cyberspace. He is the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre country representative for Japan. His most recent book which he edited was published this year by Palgrave Macmillan, and is titled Social Media and Civil Society in Japan. He has also guest edited a special issue of Information titled Digital Citizenship and Participation.
