2019 年 94 巻 p. 205-222
Many scholars have pointed out that in Meiji and Taisho period Japan,
event culture and the media industry (particularly newspaper companies)
came to be deeply involved with each other. However, what was the process
through which such media events came into existence? In this paper I focus on
a geisha popularity contest called “Tokyo-Hyaku-Bijin” (literally, “One Hundred
Beauties in Tokyo”), which was held in Asakusa in July 1891, and examine thekind of media-related event it became. I found that, first, the event’s reality was
constructed both on the pages of newspapers and in the world outside of them
due to their sharing of a variety of information about it. Second, the event was
a forerunner of the modern celebrity system in its use of photographs that
made it possible for many unspecified people to consume images of these geisha.
Namely, in “One Hundred Beauties” we find an experience involving two
forms of media. Furthermore,this event was also the beginning of the media
event cycle in which newspaper media outlets would report on and advertise
events they had planned themselves.