The title of this review takes its cue from the editor Anthony Rausch’s closing essay in this volume of articles that he has collected and edited. Rausch, professor in the English Department of the College of Humanities at Hirosaki University, in northern Honshu, Japan, has organized his contributions to consider, initially, both larger and specific concerns of journalism and print media in Japan, but it is in the third section where the volume finds its focus: the media treatment of the Great East Japan Disaster of 2011. That terrible moment has been the subject of more than a few works. March Was Made of Yarn, edited by Elmer Luke and David Karashima, for example, deals with the tsunami and nuclear meltdown through the prism of literature and the creative imagination. Here the writers view the disaster through the lens of local newspapers, which offer a unique and valuable perspective, as the contributors examine how, in part, public memory emerges from print media. Asia Pacific Media Educator reached Professor Rausch in Tokyo and Hirosaki to ask about his book.
APME: The collection of articles in Japanese Journalism and the Japanese Newspaper carries the subtitle ‘A Supplemental Reader’. Whom do you see as your target audience?
Rausch: The target audience is a reflection of the goals of the book. As editor, I encouraged the contributors to speak not just to ‘research on Japanese journalism,’ but rather to show how Japanese journalism can be both the subject of research as well as a viable and promising means for research on other social science research topics. In this sense, the target audience would be composed of students of Japanese society, those interested in journalism, and, at the widest extent, social science researchers who may consider journalistic output as a means of conducting their research anywhere and on any theme.
APME: Your book is organized into three sections of a total of 10 chapters. Section I found most compelling is Japanese Journalism and the Great East Japan Disaster, to which you contributed. Can you tell APME how this section came about and some of the major findings. Out of curiosity, were all four of the contributors to this section present in Japan in March 2011 when the tsunami and nuclear disaster struck?
Rausch: Professor Takekawa was in Japan at the time of the disaster, as was I. Professors McCarthy and Sherif spent extended periods in Japan directly after. Of course, as I was living in Aomori prefecture at the time, and I still do, perhaps you can say I experienced firsthand the various media treatments of the disaster and the implications of them. I noticed the rensai, long-term themed columns, that were dedicated to the disaster but that took up a wide range of concerns. I published an article about my research, and in the response to it, I discovered that Professor Takekawa was doing work similar to mine in a neighbouring prefecture. I then sought out others who were doing research related to the disaster, and out of this all came in the book. It provides an overall, even national look at how newspaper media throughout Japan treated the disaster. One of the important aspects of the research included in the book is its long-term view: much journalism research can be short term, particularly after an event like a disaster; the long term highlights how the treatment of issues can change over time as a function of the reality of journalistic practice.
APME: There is a great deal of focus in your volume on the Japanese newspaper; and this is also your area of expertise. The chapters by Kanzaki Sachiyo, Ogawa Akihiro, Lee Seung Hyok and others deal with ‘new journalism’. The prevailing focus, however, is on print media. Japan has one of the highest per capita news-reading audiences in the world, even as the numbers are declining. The empirical aspect of the authors’ research will be of particular interest. And yet, Japan has a flourishing new media-scape. Given that fact, do you find that a balance between print and other media has been adequately struck in this case?
Rausch: Here is an important takeaway from the work. Japan is on the forefront of new media-scape development and this is an undeniable media reality that we must accommodate. Professor Ogawa and Professor Nanri do speak to this to some degree. However, one of the points of the work is that ‘old media’, in various forms of journalistic practice and presentation, do continue to be used by Japanese residents and therefore represents a valuable means of examining social issues. As I say in the introduction, print media is highly representative, uniformly accessible and reliably stable. Although readership is declining among younger people, newspapers cover virtually all news in a manner that is representative for the general reader, newspapers are accessible in print and increasingly in electronic forms for virtually every region of the country, and newspapers, in database formats, offer a stable archive resource. The geographic expanse and local coverage are also important points of the newspaper in modern society: local newspapers take up local themes even as they present national issues through a local lens. As an example, one need go no further than examining how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement is presented by the national newspapers versus various local newspapers. So, while the book does not strike a contemporary balance between the old and the new in terms of journalistic formats, it does serve to remind us of the various ways newspapers continue to provide information and perspective.
APME: I recall interviewing a journalist in a small South Pacific state about ‘development journalism’. The journalist denied that there is such a thing. ‘Journalism is journalism’, he said emphatically. Throughout your book ‘Japanese journalism’ is referred to as a distinct thing. There are references to journalists as ‘lap dogs’ and ‘watch dogs’ and Japanese media tending to ‘fawn over’ readers and viewers. None of this is attributed. I take it that you and your contributors would not agree, then, that journalism is journalism the world over?
Rausch: That would be correct; I would not agree that journalism is the same the world over. Of course, the justification for journalism—the basis of the journalistic endeavour being an informed citizenry—and the fundamentals of the journalistic process—fact finding and fact checking, accessing different viewpoints, organizing an appropriate piece of writing, following up on the narrative that journalism has generated—these are universal. But journalism takes place within its surrounding context and with a set of assumptions and towards certain objectives. Think of the different journalism sub-genres: investigative journalism, sports journalism, fashion journalism, environmental journalism, public journalism, peace journalism, etc. I published a book titled Japan’s Local Newspapers: Chihoshi and Revitalization Journalism (Routledge, 2012) that showed, in part, how local Japanese newspapers often take up local revitalization as an objective. To be sure, the same newspapers function to provide news and analysis, but there are several ways in which the newspaper operates to revitalize its own economic and cultural surroundings. This is also true at a national level and in how the press operates vis-à-vis various social agents, but most notably of the political and governance communities and certain business sectors. While most Asian journalism may strive for, and succeed in, meeting universally agreed-upon ‘journalistic standards’, the range of practice as well as the preferred practices will likely be different than those in other cultural settings.
APME: One aspect of Japanese news media that always mystifies me is why, in a major economic power with extensive trading relations, more international news is not covered, and when it is, geopolitics takes a back seat. In this new book, there are articles dealing with foreign affairs, most notably Professor Lee’s and Professor Han’s articles on East Asia and North Korea, but in general there is not much reference to the reporting of international news. Is Japanese Journalism a reflection of print journalism’s lack of international coverage?
Rausch: You raise a valid point. I wouldn’t read that much into the thematic range of the book, though. Any reason for the topics covered here has as much to do with my efforts in inviting contributions and the make-up of the community of scholars who had material relevant to the book. What I mean by this is that most of the contributors are on the sociology and anthropology or media studies end of the social science spectrum, as opposed to having a background in political science or international relations. This reflects the conferences that I participate in. In addition, it is researchers from such fields that are likely to see journalism from a ‘news consumer’ viewpoint as meaningful for research (as opposed to from the ‘news producer’ side). However, as I’ve said earlier, I hope that scholars in other disciplines will recognize the research value of newspapers and local media in the way that international, national or economic news is disseminated—and, no less, in the impact the medium may have.
APME: A valuable contrast emerges from the pages of your book between the major dailies (published nationwide in Japan) and local newspapers. Are your observations applicable beyond northern Honshu to other parts of the country, beyond the 2011 disaster, and can you detail some of your findings about local journalism?
Rausch: For the research of my earlier book, I assessed 15 local newspapers from not just northern Japan but throughout the entire country. I looked at both paper and webpage versions. While there were variations from region to region, there were broad themes that held throughout. Local newspapers provide either a supplementary or a substituting role depending on the strength of an area’s loyalty to a national newspaper. In some prefectures, the majority of readers prefer the national newspaper, whereas in others readers prefer the local newspaper. Local newspapers all present the top stories of international and national news, but then provide a clearly articulated local view on news that affects local politics, economics, environment and so on. All local newspapers present local news, but often in such a way as to be culturally strengthening. This can also be seen as regards economic revitalization, most notable through the rensai, the long-running columns about local policy written in such a way as to build local identity along with increasing understanding. In that book as well as this one, I believe that the truest picture of many issues can only be gained by observing how those issues are viewed in the many and varied parts of Japan—the parts of Japan served by local newspapers. This point is very important to area studies as well as any truly informed view of issues anywhere: whatever the theme is, first check the local newspaper.
APME: Thank you, Professor Rausch.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
