ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most persuasive and alluring image conveyed by Utopian descriptions of the information society is the image of a revitalised regional community. In Japan, as elsewhere, industrial isation and urbanisation have weakened the close social bonds – the folk memories, the ceremonies, the mutual (if unequal) obligations – which held together the traditional village. A uniform education system and powerful, centralised mass media have diluted the cultural diversity in which regional identity and regional pride were rooted. Even among those who have few romantic illusions about the past, there is a sense that something has been lost in the anonymity, homogeneity and loneliness of modern urban life.
