In the absence of a systematic history of journalism in Japan, this study traces the contributions of Kunpei Matsumoto, Sojinkan Sugimura, Kisaburo Kawabe, and Hideo Ono, four pioneering scholars who were active in the field from the late Meiji(1868-1912)to early Showa Period(1926-89), and discusses the shift of emphasis in their work from a broad interest in the West to a focus on German journalism, relating this shift to the history of laws and policies governing the press. In particular, it will be shown that, while calls for change in the form of government and disturbances of law and order were strictly controlled under the prewar restrictions on freedom of speech(from the establishment of the Meiji Constitution in 1889 to Japan's defeat in the Fifteen-Year War in 1945), journalism studies in Japan, like the media themselves, enjoyed considerable freedon until the outbreak of the Fifteen-Year War. Further, although Ono was the only one of the four to be strongly influenced by German journalism, Matsuji Muneo, who published Shinbungaku Gairon(An Introduction to Journalism)in the early Showa Period, and Eizo Koyama, who studied under Ono, also conformed with the official line in their writings during the years of militarist control. In discussing their works, I will seek to demonstrate that academic freedom was curtailed under fascism, and that Japanese journalism was no exception in this regard.
