Abstract

News articles are always influenced by the ideologies of journalists and publishers (Van Dijk, 2008). Also, newspaper headlines are created to give an impact for readers to decide whether or not they would like to read the articles (Ifantidou, 2009). These would influence readers’ impressions and understanding towards culturalbackgrounds of newspaper articles. Therefore, this article has investigated the Japanese news written in the British weekly newspaper The Guardian Weekly published throughout the year 2014, in order to see to what extent the British media understandJapan and Japanese culture.The results showed that Japanese articles in The Guardian Weekly illustrated current issues of Japan including difficult relationships with neighboring countries, Japanesepolitics and economics, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, whale and dolphin hunting, and Japanese subcultures. When reporting the Japanese news, editors sometimes used both negative and ironical messages, and the news reflected difficulties of understanding other cultures.