青森県下北郡佐井村における初期テレビ受容

抄録

This paper examines the reception of early television in rural Japan through

Sai village in the Aomori prefecture. While the first television station in Aomori

was founded in 1959, most Aomori residents had previously accessed the television

signal from NHK Hakodate（ Hokkaido）, established in 1957. The small fishing

village, Sai village, had the highest television penetration rate in Aomori at

that time and was known as a ‘TV village’. Why did the people of Sai village

want television? What effect did this desire have? This paper aims to answer

these questions by tracing the evolution from the first arrival of television in

Sai village in 1957 to the wide spread availability of television in Aomori in

1959.

　　Interviews and archival documents show that educational motivations, and

specifically the desire to show the outside world to the children, were funda

mental to their choices. Through television education in school, the children’s

education flourished and developed into television reception that went beyond

educational purposes. Matsunoyama village in Niigata prefecture also had a

similar television reception as Sai village. Sai village represents a key point of

reference for television reception in rural Japan in that its remoteness preserved

television’s function as an educational visual aid. This paper goes beyond

the urban-centred narratives about early television reception by accounting for

the fact that villagers saw a potential for television beyond leisure in education,

and by exploring how the affirmation of television as leisure also opened up

children to outside worlds.

　　The children’s reactions were in line with a McLuhan-esque view of television

and what happened in Sai village points to the key potentials of television.

This paper shows how rural areas had a rich television reception during the

early days of television. In addition, this paper represents the first steps

towards understanding an era in which television reception forms were still

mixed.