Formation of Rokuon-Kōsei in earlier Radio Documentaries

The Cases of Man on the Street and Social Survey

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore how television documentaries as a

particular mode of expression were formed through an investigation of the

composition of sound recording as a prehistory of television documentaries.

　　By tracing the genealogy of the radio programs Man on the Street, which

started broadcasting during the occupation of Japan at the end of World War

II, and Social Survey, one of its spinoffs, this paper examines the formation process

of television documentaries from the following three points. First, this

paper focuses on the fact that particular documentary aesthetics were imported

under the leadership of the General Headquarters （GHQ）, and examine these

modes of expression within the dynamic of broadcast policy. Second, it examines

how Japanese staff who actually produced these programs merged their

ideas with the occupation army’s to create a unique form of Japanese radio documentary.

Thirdly, it demonstrates how the democratic program ideas presented

by GHQ became sharply distinguished as what would be called Rokuon-

Kōsei. These points are investigated from a detailed technical, historical and

formal analysis.

　　This paper presents two concluding points: 1） that opinions of socially vulnerable

communities became newly accessible in radio broadcasting after

World War II and 2） that this was made possible by a brusque and minimalist

editing method that was developed with the intention of broadcasting these

subaltern opinions with little modification. This genealogically leads us to the

television documentary The Real Face of Japan, which was produced with a

new montage theory that until then had not been done in the documentaries

and culture films, and was subsequently highly praised by documentarists and

critics. Thus, this paper offers a new analytical point of view for reviewing

early television documentaries through describing the formation process of documentary

modes of expression called Rokuon-Kōsei in earlier radio documentaries.