Abstract
This paper examines dōyō (children's songs), published in the magazine Akaitori in 1918, from the perspective of media studies. Examination of dōyō reveals the practice and the transformation of orality in modern Japan.
In the initial issues of Akaitori, dōyō were presented primarily as poetry. The readers of the magazine read the lyrics aloud and created their own melodies, thereby practicing poetry as songs. Behind such a practice were the poetics of Hakushū Kitahara and others to recover the nursery rhymes sung and passed on in traditional Japan through dōyō.
This plainly reveals the power of text to intervene in the conceptualization of oral culture in the modern age. Orality is neither independent nor separate from text. In the modern world, orality, as exemplified by musical scores, is bound by text. The boundary between text and orality is quite arbitrary, and it is segmented by the effects of various factors, including technological mediation, practice, and people's imagination. Printing technology is a particularly important element in the formation of oral culture in modern society.
The media does not simply determine and standardize the culture of text or that of orality. Therefore, this paper reexamines the media as catalyst for the reconfiguration of the relationship between orality and text and the production of diverse cultures.
