The Stagnation of Japanese Journalism and its
Structural Background in the Media System
Tatsuro Hanada
1. Introduction
Journalism and the mass media in the present day are
becoming increasingly inclined toward reflexivity. By this I mean that
journalism and the mass media increasingly find itself in the position of
having to report, investigate and discuss incidents and issues that have arisen
from within the world of journalism and mass media itself. In Japan, for
example, several ?scandals? revealing lapses in the institution of journalism
have recently emerged, and these have been the subject of intense coverage by
the media themselves. There is now a growing consensus in civil society that
the ability of journalism to perform its proper social function has been
seriously compromised. Furthermore, the mass media industry is now in a state
of structural turmoil, and this too has become a major subject of media
attention. Recent bids by internet companies to buy out traditional media
companies have made it into the news headlines and the outcome of these
corporate battles have attracted much public interest. Thus, while journalism
reveals its own failures, the mass media industry is faced with the prospect of
major restructuring.
The relation between ?journalism? and the ?mass media?
is very close. At the same time, we must be careful to differentiate them
conceptually. Whereas ?journalism? is an activity that expresses social
consciousness, the ?mass media? constitute a system mediating social communication.
Therefore, when we consider journalism, issues of function come to the
fore. When looking at the mass media, on the other hand, the issue is one of structure.
At the point where function and structure meet, we find the composite which
can be termed ?mass-media journalism?.
The functioning of journalistic activity is regulated
by the structure of the mass-media system. At the same time, the extent to
which journalistic activity fulfils its function provides endorsement for the
structure of the mass-media system as it pertains at any given time. This
relationship between journalism and the mass media cannot be comprehended in static
terms. The time dimension must always be considered, and the historical process
of change from which present structures emerged must be born in mind.
Furthermore, we cannot assume that the current structure will not be open to
continuous change in the future. There is nothing universal about the current
arrangement. Many factors are involved in the creation of structures, and the process
of change is complex. When a part of journalistic activity demands innovation
in the functional aspect, new structures in the mass-media system may be
required to meet this demand. Conversely, when structural change occurs in some
part of the mass-media system, pressure may arise for functional change in
journalism. In this way, both of journalistic function and mass-media structure
intermediate and interact with each other.
This chapter is premised on the above understanding of
the relation between journalism and mass media. It seeks to demonstrate how
this relationship works in the case of Japan. In addition, I address the need
for policy proposals and theoretical observations aimed at institutional
change.
2. The Historical Formation of the Post-war Media System
in Japan
2.1 Media Policy under US Occupation
Following its surrender in August 1945, Japan was
placed under the occupation of the victorious Allied Powers. The occupation was
executed by American military forces under the command of General MacArthur.
Unlike the case of Germany, which was divided and occupied by four countries, the
US conducted the occupation of Japan alone.
The General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Supreme Command
of the Allied Powers (SCAP) based its policy for information, media, and public
opinion in post-surrender Japan on two main sources. One was the Potsdam
Declaration of July, 26th 1945, and the other was the initial policy
on the occupation of Japan adopted by the US government on August, 29th
1945. In accordance with these, the occupation authorities were charged with
two main tasks. Firstly, they had to discourage militaristic and
ultra-nationalist thought, and eradicate the mechanisms of information and
media control that had perpetuated such thought and suppressed the development
of democracy in the past. The second task was to encourage the growth of
democratic tendencies both in the media and by means of the media (GHQ/SCAP
1999: 5).
The organization with direct responsibility for the
execution of this second positive policy objective was GHQfs Civil Information
and Education Section (CIE). CIE issued and implemented various directives and
measures to construct the foundations for a free and democratic press. At the
very outset of the occupation, however, GHQ also began operating a censorship
system to counteract anti-democratic forces and protect itself against
criticism and defamatory accusations. This function was carried out by the Civil
Censorship Detachment of the Civil Intelligence Section (CCD/CIS). In other words,
GHQ was pursuing policies for the encouragement of democracy while at the same
time directly limiting the freedom of expression. The Japanese media were
educated in the principle of free expression while at the same time being
required (sometimes by choice, sometimes because they had no alternative) to
follow the directives of GHQ. This applied to all areas and topics of media
coverage. This situation had some advantages as far as it facilitated the smooth
running of the occupation. Meanwhile, it also had the distinct disadvantage of
delaying full implementation of the principles of unimpeded coverage and free
expression. A State Department document published in October 1947 (âThe
Development of Media and Information in Japan since the Surrenderá OIR Report
No.4246, October, 1st 1947, Division of Research for the Far
East, Office of Intelligence Research, Department of State) compared the
advantages and disadvantages of the media policies then being pursued in Japan
and concluded that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages (GHQ/SCAP 1999:
12). GHQfs media policy therefore contained a fundamental inconsistency from
the outset. However, this was compounded by the radical change of direction
that occurred through time as the occupation continued. The background to this
change of direction was the growing seriousness of tensions between East and
West in the Cold War. This had important domestic repercussions for Japan. In
February 1950, the anti-communist campaign by Senator Joseph McCarthy began in
the US. In June of the same year, the Korean War broke out, and in July, a red
purge among corporate management began in Japan. The US-Japan Peace Treaty was
signed in September 1951 amid this atmosphere of heightened ideological
tension. These were the circumstances under which the occupation ended and
Japan regained its sovereignty.
Let us now consider how media policy in Japan
developed during this time. At the beginning of the occupation, the dominant
faction within GHQ was composed of progressive ?New Dealers?. A leading
representative of this faction was the head of CIE, General Kenneth R. Dyke,
who was mainly responsible for the initial policy of democratic media reform.
In contrast to the contemporaneous situation in Germany, there was no purge of
wartime newspaper publishers in Japan. Instead, a press code was issued, which
the existing newspaper companies were required to follow. Meanwhile, internal
democratization among newspaper company employees was encouraged (both openly
and behind the scenes). At the Yomiuri Newspaper, a labour union was formed,
which accused the company president, Shoriki Matsutaro, of war responsibility,
and demanded his resignation. However, Shoriki refused to resign and instead
sacked the union leaders. This gave rise to a major struggle, which was
resolved in December 1945 by the signing of an agreement between both sides and
the formation a joint managerial committee. Shoriki resigned the presidency and
the union leader, Suzuki Tomin, became managing editor. The union took control
of the editorial department and became an active participant in management of
the newspaper. Capital and editorship were thus separated. This was the first
round of the Yomiuri struggle. At another major newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, a
discussion about war responsibility started. The internal developments at
Yomiuri were taken further when the entire managerial team, including the president,
Murayama Nagataka, were forced to resign in November 1945. Inherited capital
was thus separated from management. These changes were supported by General
Dyke of the CIE, and the head of the Press and Publications Division, Robert H.
Berkov. They saw the labour struggle at Yomiuri as a model for democratization
at other newspapers. Besides promoting the participation by labour in
editorship and management, they also made proposals for the distribution of
company shares, the setting up of new newspapers, and the reform of ?press
clubs? (kishakurabu). However, after about the spring of 1946, with the
threat of confrontation between the US and USSR looming ever more ominously,
CIE reversed its initial democratization directives and began instead to
suppress the democratization movement.
The change of policy was given concrete form in the
replacement of Dyke as head of the CIE. At a press conference in front of a
gathering of 100 representatives from Japanese press companies, Dyke issued the
following directions prior to his departure:
â1. It should be born in mind that newspapers are an important factor in
the formation of public opinion. Press independence needs to be secured and
developed.
2. Newspaper companies throughout the country should by their own
initiative form themselves into a press association, and urgently adopt a common
press code.
3. Educational institutions for the training of the next generation of
journalists should be establishedá (Haruhara 1999: 43).
At the same time, he gave a hint of the new press policy
about to be adopted: âFreedom of the Press is having men designated by
publishers decide the editorial policy,h he told the group. gIt is no more
right for the Japanese government, or for the Supreme Command, except in broad
policy, than for any other group to dictate editorial policy. Whomever the
publisher may designate as the master must establish the policy of a newspaperá
(Coughlin 1952: 84).
After the departure of the liberal faction, Lieutenant
Colonel Donald R. Nugent inherited leadership of the CIE. The new head of the
Press Division was Major Daniel C. Imboden, who became especially influential
and steered a strongly conservative policy course. In response to the new
anti-communist line adopted by General MacArthur and the conservative Japanese
government under Yoshida Shigeru, the management of Yomiuri Shimbun, headed by
Baba Tsunego, announced the dismissal of the managing editor, Suzuki Tomin on
June, 13th 1946. So began the second round of labour struggle at
Yomiuri. The issue in this dispute was the influence of the political Left and
Communist Party in the editorial department. On October, 5th 1946,
the Japan Newspaper and Radio Workers Union called a general strike, but the
response was only partial and failed to have any effect. The second round of
struggle thus ended on October, 16th with Suzukifs dismissal. The
leading part in this whole dispute was played by the head of the Press
Division, Imboden. Whereas his predecessor, Berkov, had supported
democratization, Imboden sided with those seeking to suppress left-wing media
activity. He made it his mission to persuade all newspapers to accept the
concept of ?editorial competency?, which meant that editorial policy would be
determined by newspaper owners and managers (Yamamoto 1996: 376).
Thus, it was that the concept of ?editorial competency?
(henshuken) was introduced and promulgated throughout the post-war
media. In response to a proposal by Imboden, the Japanese Newspaper Publishers
& Editors Association (Nihon Shimbun Kyokai) was set up in July
1946. âThe formation of the association was plainly motivated, in part at
least, by the new desire of SCAP to strengthen the hand of the publishers in
the fight against the unionsá (Coughlin 1952: 87). This association then issued
a âDeclaration on Editorial Competencyá in March 1948, proclaiming that the âeditorial
rightá to ultimately determine the content of a newspaper lay with the
commercial and editorial management of the newspaper company. The declaration
includes the following words: âThe commercial and editorial management of
newspaper publishers will continuously take necessary measures to secure their
editorial competency, and are charged with the duty of protecting that
competency against all potential threats, whether these be from individuals or
groups, or from outside the company or within. External interference will be
resisted in all circumstances. Furthermore, measures will be taken to eliminate
any elements within the organization, however numerous, who deliberately obstruct
the truth and fairness, or the officially stated company policy, as regards
reporting and commentary, or who fail to follow the formally decided editorial
policyá (cf. https://www.pressnet.or.jp/statement/report/480316_107.html)
Another often noted feature of the Japanese media is
the institution of ?press clubs? (kishakurabu). These came into being
through a similar process to that of the managerial assertion of ?editorial competency?
described above. The press clubs were organized by groups of reporters covering
each government department and controlled the release of news from that
department. In the post-war era, they have become even more influential than
they were during war. Initially, GHQ saw the press clubs as an undemocratic
influence preventing free and fare reporting of political news in Japan,
because they were dominated by only a few metropolitan newspapers and excluded
the new or provincial papers. It was recognized that governmental news sources
had used the clubs to manipulate the flow of information and mould public opinion
in a manner suitable to their own objectives. According to GHQfs analysis,
press clubs were a means of disciplining journalists and preventing individual
initiatives that might contradict the club rules. Consequently, the official
line, even under Imboden, was that the press clubs should be reformed. However,
the directive calling for such reform was ignored, and became little more than
a dead letter. At an early stage, the Japanese media realized that GHQ did not
have the will to carry out press club reform by force. Despite some early
attempts to address this problem seriously, it was obvious that GHQ itself,
including Imboden, was actively using the press club system, and had found it
highly useful for their purposes. In April 1946, journalists working on the GHQ
news beat formed themselves into a SCAP Press Club. Journalists from 16
companies participated (Yamamoto 1996: 373). To quote the words of Yamamoto
(1996: 375), âJust as MacArthur had seen use of the emperor as a necessity for
indirect rule over Japan, the GHQ leadership also recognized the importance of
using media groups as a means of controlling the media, and of the ruling the
people through media control. Therefore, radical reform of media organizations
was averted, and they were preserved instead. The same can be said of the press
clubsá.
Censorship was initially carried out by CCD/CIS prior
to publication. After the conclusion of the second dispute at Yomiuri, however,
there was a gradual shift toward post-censorship. Yamamoto (1996: 382)
describes the background to this as follows: âGHQ was reassured that most of
the Japanese media were obedient to MacArthurfs press code, and had been
disciplined to be subservient to his objectives. The number of cases falling
foul of the censors had fallen year by year. Even after the shift to
post-censorship, major media organizations, including notably the Asahi
Newspaper, set themselves diligently to self-censorship to curry favour with
GHQ. By 1949, the system of gathering GHQ news at the centre through the major
newspaper press clubs in Tokyo and then distributing it to the regions was
firmly establishedá.
As already mentioned, the last of the three points
enunciated by Dyke at his parting press conference was the need for the
establishment of educational institutions for the training of journalists. He
had in mind as a model the schools of journalism already established in the US.
According to the âOne Hundred Years History of the University of Tokyoá (Tokyo
Daigaku Hyaku Nen Shi), Dyke and Nugent together visited Nambara Shigeru
(then president of the University of Tokyo) in the spring of 1946 to urge him
unofficially to set up an American-style school of journalism in the University
of Tokyo. In reply, Nambara spoke about the history of the already existing
journalism research department, and outlined plans to expand this into an
Institute of Journalism Studies. This met with the immediate approval of the
two visitors from GHQ (Hanada 1999: 127). According to GHQ documents, the
Japanese Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association soon after its founding
began a program of yearly financial support to universities for journalistic
education. In 1947, a total of 553,200 yen was granted to eight universities,
including the University of Tokyo, Waseda University and Keio University. This
is about nine million Yen in todayfs currency value (about US$ 80,000). In
March 1947, Frank Luther Mott, who was then dean of the School of Journalism at
the University of Missouri, was brought to Japan as a consultant for the
establishment of higher-educational institutions of journalism. His proposals
were adopted in principle as a basis for the setting up of university curricula
in journalism studies in Japan (GHQ/SCAP 1999: 152). However, in the event,
things did not work out so favourably.
2.2 Continuity and Discontinuity in the Post-war
Period
GHQfs initial policy was to democratize the Japanese
media through education, but this policy did not last even one year. As the
Cold-War situation worsened, the democratization process was suspended because
of the switch to a policy of making Japan into an ?anti-communist stronghold?.
Newspapers managers and editors who had once been purged for their war
responsibility gradually regained their former positions. Those who had been
imprisoned on suspicion of Class A war crimes, including Yomiuri president
Shoriki, were released and reassumed positions of authority in society. Before
any liberal media reform had been allowed to take root, the tide changed in
favour of the creation of a media system dominated by capital and proprietary
interests, and liable to collusive interference by the state. In many respects,
this amounted to a revival of the wartime system built up during the 1930s to
mobilize the country for all-out hostilities. Although Japanfs surrender and
occupation in 1945 might have signalled a clear break with the past, in the
event continuity, rather than discontinuity, became the dominant theme of
post-war history. The newly established newspapers, which GHQ had encouraged,
eventually lost GHQ support, and collapsed. As a result, there was a return to the
wartime media market structure. This structure was the product of a pre-war
programme of forced newspaper consolidations, which had resulted in a reduction
in the number of newspapers from 1124 in September 1938 to 54 in October 1942.
This was a deliberate attempt to create a ?One Prefecture - One Newspaper?
system with the obvious aim of allowing the state to control the flow of
information.
In 1951, Japan regained its sovereignty as a country
allied to the US. What happened after that was a domestication process whereby
the media policies bequeathed by GHQ/SCAP were selectively adopted and revised
by the Japanese government and media organizations themselves, becoming firmly
entrenched in post-war society. Here I will highlight three examples of how
this process occurred.
Let us first consider the issue of ?editorial competency?.
The concept of ?henshuken? was introduced with the deliberate aim of
excluding left-leaning labour unions from media organizations, and was a
product of the heightened ideological tension between capital and labour during
the Cold-War period. It has continued to be a factor in the Japanese media
world to the present day, even though media labour organizations became far
less radical than they were in the immediate post-war era. As in other industries,
labour came to be organized at the company level, and tended to see itself as
sharing a ?common destiny? with the company especially during the period of rapid
economic growth. The idea of ?editorial competency? has contributed in a major
way to the formation of a distinctive hierarchical structure of media
organizations in Japan, and the development of a certain matching occupational
consciousness. In accordance with the concept of ?editorial competency?, commercial
and editorial managers of media organizations relate to their journalistic or
programme production staff not as colleagues in a common enterprise, but rather
as adversarial partners. This induces a tendency toward ?self-regulation? and
deference by the lower echelons toward those higher up. There is no space for any
concept like that of ?Innere Pressefreiheit? in Germany. Individuals
have little or no effective autonomy within the organization. Media activities
take place fundamentally at the collective organizational level. The historical
background to the notion of ?editorial competency? as invoked in Japan is often
forgotten, and it is too easily (sometimes deliberately) equated with the rather
different concept of ?newsroom independence? as used in the US.
The next example to consider is the press-club system.
Press clubs were initially established in the 1890s by journalists seeking to
bolster their weak position with respect to the government by banding together
and demanding the release of information. However, under the wartime political
order this developed into a top-down system whereby the government actively
dispensed information in the manner of its choosing and journalists simply
transmitted what they had been told. At first, this arrangement came as some
surprise to GHQ, but before long it was also being used by the occupation
authorities. In the post-war era, press clubs came to function like local
agencies of the ever-expanding media corporations. A system of give and take
developed between the major media organizations and the various government
departments that dispensed information. Membership of press clubs became a
privilege of newspaper companies, news agencies or broadcasting stations affiliated
to the Japanese Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association. Correspondents
of foreign media organizations criticized this system as a form of information
oligopoly (Freeman
2000). In January 2002, the Editorial Affairs Committee of
the Japanese Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association issued a set of new
guidelines on the press club system. According to these guidelines, a ?press
club? (kishakurabu) is defined as a âvoluntary institution for
news-gathering and news-reporting activities made up of journalists who
regularly collect news from public institutions and other sourcesá (cf. https://www.pressnet.or.jp/english/about/guideline/
). This definition is an attempt to loosen the degree of exclusivity, and has
led to a slight opening of the door. However, there is still no change in the
prevailing attitude of source-dependent reporting, known disparagingly as ?communique
journalism? (happyo janarizumu).
The final case is that of journalism education. The
initial response to Dykefs call for the establishment of journalism schools was
positive, and several universities did in fact set up programs in journalism
studies. However, these did not grow into fully developed schools of
journalism. Many universities do have programs and courses which teach about
journalism and communications as part of general education, but nowhere is
there yet a professional school specifically for the training of journalists.
Even before the war, going back as far as the beginning of the twentieth
century, there have been attempts to initiate professional journalism education
in Japan, but all have so far failed in their ultimate objective of establishing
a school of journalism on the American model. Writing specifically about the
pre-war period, Uchikawa Yoshimi lists three reasons for this: (1) differences
in social consciousness with respect to newspapers, and differences in
political climate; (2) different views of university education, and (3)
different expectations by media companies toward journalism education in
universities (Uchikawa 2003: 14). In my view, these same factors also apply to
the post-war era. This is to say that neither society, nor universities, nor
media companies have seen the need for a school of journalism. Media companies
in Japan want journalists who are trained in their own distinctive ?corporate
culture? (shafuu) and they have achieved this up to now through in-house
or so-called ?on-the-job? training. Therefore, they have seen little or no need
for the universal training offered by universities. For their part, Japanese
universities have not traditionally focused much on education for specific
professions except for medicine. Finally, there is no strong awareness in
Japanese society of the link between journalism and democracy, and therefore no
popular demand for journalists to be imbued with the ethos of public service.
What can we conclude from these three examples? After
recovering from the ruins of defeat, Japan experienced an age of unprecedented
economic growth in the 1960s. During this period, the company (kaisha) became
the centre of most working peoplefs lives. The three pillars of ?Japanese-style
management? were life-time employment, promotion according to seniority, and
one-company labour unions. This produced a society dominated by the institution
of the company, and an employment and work ethos also centred on the company. A
mass consumer society also came into being to receive the products and services
created by companies.
Japanese media companies are no exception to this
pattern of corporate social organization. Journalists are recruited from among
the graduates of ?renowned universities?. They become members of the company
that hires them and are trained to be journalists within that company. They
remain in one company throughout their working lives without ever moving to
work for a different employer. After the age of about 40, they are assigned
managerial posts and cease to be writers. Even if the nature of their job changes,
they remain within the company that first hired them. In contrast to trade
unions based on a particular industry or profession, the company labour unions
of Japan are organizations embracing all the employees of a single company
regardless of the type of work they do. In Japan there is no general
organization of the journalistic profession above the level of the company. As
the three cases described above indicate, the company forms a complete
self-contained entity. This is how the media system in Japan is structured, and
it is against this background that Japanese mass-media journalism has
developed. However, we are now on the brink a significant historical shift.
3. The Emerging Structural Transformation of
gMass-media Journalismh in Japan
3.1 Environmental Challenges to the Media Structure
The environment surrounding the media system is now
undergoing major change, and this will in turn affect the way in which the
media is structured. The two keywords are ?digitalization? and ?globalization?.
Digitalization is bringing about the convergence of computers, telecommunications,
and broadcasting, thus ending the vertical segmentation of the media
characteristic of the analogue era. This process of media convergence is
occurring at all levels, from production facilities to user terminals, from the
means of transmission to the services provided. Concomitant changes are also
occurring in the industrial and social structure, under the various influences
of consumer desire, capital interests, and the state. Globalization, on the
other hand, is a process of decentralization in the sources of power in the
world, and is leading to greater diversity and the increased emphasis on
identity. This is not merely an economic trend relating to the movement of
capital and the structure of markets, since it also has important political and
cultural aspects. Indeed, one could say that globalization is breaking down the
divisions separating economic, political, and cultural domains, and causing
them to converge. Modern journalism developed within the framework of the
nation-state, and its entire habitus was formed in this context.
Globalization implies a rethinking of these fundamentals, and spurs us to
consider the possibility of creating a transnational journalism.
Some of the specific problems these developments raise
for the media structure (especially in Japan) are the following:
(a) With the growth of the internet, the mass media are no
longer the only arena for journalism. New modes of journalism, such as net
journalism and blog journalism, have emerged.
(b) Amid the trend toward deregulation and expansion of
the market principle, it is highly likely that the fixed pricing system of
newspaper sales will be abolished. Likewise, we may well soon see a reform of
the public broadcasting system in response to the growing refusal of viewers to
pay the broadcast reception license fee.
(c) Venture businesses in the IT industry are beginning to
bid for shares in commercial television companies, with the aim of buying out
or forming partnerships with traditional and established media companies. This
is motivated by the expectation that transmission of programmes over the
internet would be highly profitable. In addition, foreign capital is gradually
making an entry into the Japanese media industry.
(d) Established mass-media journalism, including
especially (in the Japanese case) ?company journalism?, is beginning to be
challenged from the periphery. Even in Japan, freelance writers and independent
journalists are being empowered, especially in the areas of war reporting and
minority journalism.
3.2 Internal Changes in the Media Structure
Having considered the environmental challenges
bringing about change, let us now consider what is happening within the media
system. There has clearly been a reduction in media performance, and there are
also signs that some measures are being taken to rectify this. As noted at the
beginning of this paper, the media has recently been much concerned with its own
internal ?scandals?. Numerous instances have become known of violations of
journalistic ethics and criminal acts such as embezzlement by media company
employees. Media companies have frequently found themselves having to issue
apologies, and have become the subject of criticism by rival companies.
Accusations are met by counter-accusations, leading to an overall decline in
public image and trust. This has then provided government and politicians with
the opportunity to exploit the weakened status of the media and rob it of its hard-won
privileges.
On the personal level, this reflects a failure of the
existing ?on-the-job? training for journalists. Although this approach to
journalist training might have functioned well in previous circumstances, it
has become significantly dysfunctional in the new media environment. ?On-the
job? training lacks any consistent programme or methodology, and fails to
nurture skills with universal applicability. Despite the evident failure in
personnel training, media companies have so far done no more than treat the
symptoms.
There are, however, the beginnings of change in
recruitment policies. Rather than simply hiring graduates straight out of
university, companies are beginning to take on people later in their careers
where there is a requirement for an immediate input of specialized skills. The ?life-time?
employment system is now ready to come to its end in the media industry, as it
already has in other industries. A more open job market is developing, and
people are more likely to change their employer in mid-career. This is altering
the existing pattern of ?company journalism? and encouraging a more
individualistic work ethos.
As already mentioned, the growth of free-lance
journalism is another factor encouraging the development of professionalism
independent of media companies.
3.3 Practical Consequences
As a practical response to the above changes, I make
three proposals:
(a) The âDeclaration on Editorial Competencyá issued by
the Japanese Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association should be withdrawn.
Besides putting an end to one of the last remaining inheritances of the Cold
War, this would enable journalists to act responsibly and ethically as
individuals, and provide the conditions for the pursuit of free and independent
journalism.
(b) Press clubs should be abolished. This would require
individual journalists to polish their own skills to compete in an environment
of open competition. It would also contribute to the recovery of public trust
in the media by putting an end to the practice of ?communique journalism?.
(c) Schools of journalism should be established. Besides
reducing the cost to companies by outsourcing personnel training to
universities, this would also strengthen the social role of universities by
assigning them the task of providing systematic academically grounded education
for those intending to enter the journalistic profession. Universities would
also be able to contribute directly to innovations in journalism. Journalism
education is a ?missing link? in the journalism institution of Japan that needs
to be filled (Hanada 1999: 146ff.).
Measures such as these would finally bring the
Japanese media world into the post-Cold-War era, and allow it to fulfil its
social function more adequately.
4. Conclusion: The Need for Theoretical Reflection
The Japanese media system is now at a major turning
point. The existing media structure was inherited from the occupation era and
developed in accordance with a structure of conservative political domination
following a brief period of liberal reform very early in the occupation. In the
era of rapid economic growth, the media structure came to reflect the dominant
economic and cultural structure centred on the company. Although the media
industry once enjoyed great prosperity under this system, it is now showing
distinct signs of failure. Journalism is unable to perform its proper social
function, and has lost the trust of civil society. Meanwhile, digitalization
and globalization present major challenges which must eventually bring sweeping
change to the media structure.
As a key aspect of our theoretical response to this
situation, we must once again draw a clear conceptual distinction between the ?mass
media? and ?journalism?. We must also consider both theoretically and practically
how we can best take advantage of this opportunity for innovation in
journalism. Another way of stating the contrast between mass media as ?structure?
and journalism as ?function? is to say that the mass media form the ?infrastructure?
while journalism constitutes the ?superstructure?. Although the two entities
are theoretically distinguished, they do not exist in total separation from
each other. They are linked in what could be described as a ?relation of
correspondence?. Professionalism could be heir characterized as the mediating
term between them.
The reassertion of journalism as a profession is
supported by the recent trend toward individualization. This is a significant
departure from the company-centred journalism that has dominated hitherto. Actors,
who are ready to accept such change, are using the gaps left vacant by the
failings of the existing system. It is worthy of whatever support policy can
provide.
Theory predicated on the notion of ?mass-media
journalism? needs to be reconsidered. It can no longer be assumed that
journalism exists only within the arena of the mass media. As the media
structure is transformed, journalism will be increasingly able to choose its
own medium. This provides fresh impetus to the issue of journalismfs function.
Theoretical frameworks considering these new circumstances must be developed.
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Note
The author wants to thank David Buist for translating
the manuscript of this chapter.
