NHK has been conducting the Japanese Time Use Survey every five years since 1960. The 13th survey was carried out in 2020, which turned out to capture not only the social change since 2015 but also people's lifestyles amid the spreading of COVID-19. The principle findings are as follows. – Average working hours for men with jobs, which had remained high at around 8 hours and 30 minutes per weekday, has declined to 7 hours and 52 minutes. – Business commuters during peak time have decreased, and those working from home have exceeded 10% both in the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas, showing signs of expanding off-peak commuting and work from home. – Time spent on housework has increased both for adult males and females, affected by an increase in men's housework time due to a decrease in men who work long hours, an increase in time spent on childcare for child-rearing parents, and an increase in housework time for those aged 70 and over. – Middle-aged people's sleeping time has increased as they have come to go to bed earlier while elderly people's sleeping time has decreased as they have come stay up late to watch television or recorded TV programs. – The overall average of TV-viewing time was 3 hours and 1 minute per weekday. The percentages of people who watched television in a day on weekday, Saturday, and Sunday decreased to less than 80%, respectively. – Regarding time allocation of a day, time spent on work and other “obligatory activities” showed a continued downward trend. Following the 2015 survey, people keep spending time on “necessary activities” such as meals and personal chores rather than on “free-time activities.” – Presumably, the underlying factors for changes found in the 2020 survey is the changes in society and people's attitudes, which have become more tangible or been accelerated because of the pandemic. Some entirely new trends found in the survey may be recoiled depending on the coronavirus situation but are unlikely to return to their former status.

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Impartiality has been a core value of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)—widely acknowledged as the world's leading public broadcaster—since its inception. The principle is spelt out in the Royal Charter which sets out the corporation's public purpose, and has been tried and tested through various crises, including the Suez Crisis and the Falklands War. During the twentieth century, when two-party politics was dominant, impartiality was assumed to be achieved by keeping the balance like a “seesaw” to ensure that an argument would not dip too far to one side or the other. In multicultural, multi-polar Britain of today, broadcasters are required to cover diverse opinions in depth, and consequently, impartiality has been redefined as a mixture of such elements as 'accuracy, balance, context, distance, fairness, even-handedness, objectivity.' The BBC took on the double task of exploring and establishing a new practice whilst adapting to the rapidly changing media landscape brought by digital technology. The BBC faced challenges as journalists started using social media for newsgathering and also as an avenue for engagement. Some got facts wrong, and others got embroiled in rows or “Twitter storms.” The EU referendum in 2016 has added enormous pressure on the corporation. The debate over the country's future divided the nation like never before with both sides showing little appetite to compromise. The BBC came under fire from the political right and left, from Leavers and Remainers alike. A research carried out by an external regulator underlined dissatisfaction of the audience on the BBC's impartiality. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the danger of mis/disinformation, and major players in the media industry are stepping up their fight against the spread of harmful content. The BBC renewed its commitment to impartiality to win the audience's trust and issued a new social media guidance to ensure its staff maintain impartiality. It continues its endeavour to find new ways of achieving impartiality in a fractured and increasingly emotional society.

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As part of the BUNKEN FORUM 2021 organized by the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, our research team held an online session on March 3rd 2021 to discuss the potential of media use in studying at home, focusing on high school and junior high school students' home learning and considering the changes in situations between before and during the coronavirus pandemic. Imamura Kumi (President and CEO of NPO KATARIBA and Committee Member of Central Council for Education of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) took part in the session as the guest panelist. KATARIBA offers a place for children to learn and “to belong” to support their leaning. Sakai Atsushi, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University), along with a researcher from the Institute, reported the findings from the surveys conducted before and during the pandemic. Three parents who had cooperated in the surveys also joined the discussion. First, the following findings from the surveys held in 2019 and 2020 aimed at high school and junior high school students as well as their parents were reported. – The most used digital devices for home studying were smartphones, personal computers, tablet computers, and electronic dictionaries. – There was a notable increase in the use of smartphones, and learners using digital devices and content increased as a whole. – During the temporary closure of schools due to the pandemic, about 30% of the surveyed students received online classes. – Learners using digital devices have high interest in trying new things, and their mothers be positive about this type of learning style. – The continuing use of digital media for home studying leads to positive attitudes towards learning. Based on the survey results and the actual home studying experiences shared by the participating parents, the panel discussed the potential of achieving personalized and self-regulated learning　catered for each child by using digital media, the capability of and expectations for online classes which would provide something that would not be available at face-to-face classes, the capability of connecting rural and urban areas, or Japan and the world, to provide learning beyond the limit of physical distance, and the effect of continuous home studying using digital media that may raise children's motivation. A challenge pertaining to home studying was also discussed. Following the report that many of the students using digital devices for home study ended up playing on the digital devices during home study time, the panel pointed out that it would be necessary for students to learn how to deal with digital media and that one effective way would be making rules on the usage through child-parent discussion and based on children's understanding and agreement, which would provide a good opportunity both for children and parents to think about the digital media literacy.

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Ten years have passed since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. On this occasion, the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute organized a symposium, where the utilization and sustainability of disaster digital archives was discussed by experts from a university, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology MEXT), a commercial broadcaster, and NHK. The report and discussion included the following. – The number of archives linked to “HINAGIKU” National Diet Library Great East Japan Archive—a portal site for records and data of the earthquake disasters—has increased from the initial 21 to 53. Some archives, however, choose not to be linked for the reason that the system is too complicated. In addition to this, “HINAGIKU” initially had a map function but had to remove it due to budgetary reasons, which is hindering the use of this portal site for disaster education and reconstruction tourism. – Utilization for disaster education: following the MEXT's new Course of Study emphasizes “Ikiru Chikara” (“zest for living,” or power to survive), Iwate Prefecture started disaster reconstruction education utilizing archives. Disaster archives expected to be used in Geography, which will become a compulsory subject in high schools nationwide from 2022. On the other hand, disaster images may trigger mental stress. Therefore, it is important to provide opportunities for students to enhance their “literacy and empathy” by letting them to think why they are viewing those images and to exchange their impressions. – A move to connecting digital archives and real worlds is progressing, represented by Asahi Broadcasting Corporation's virtual tour of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake utilizing map function and NHK's digital archive presenting the real disaster-related exhibition in virtual reality. Meanwhile, the cost of maintenance is a big challenge. One broadcaster launched its archive supported by Google. Many are trying to find solutions, arguing, that archives should be operated by Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association (JBA), the national government, Japanese society as a whole, etc. Disaster data and materials are intellectual property of the nation as well as the “investment for the future” for passing down disaster lessons, protecting life, and creating a sustainable society. The panel suggested that 3/11 should be commemorated as “Disaster Education and Passing Down Disaster Lessons Day.”

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This paper reports the presentation themed ‘Potential of “War Experience Drawings and Paintings” by Citizens: Discussion Based on Five Thousand Pieces Collected by Local Broadcasters ’ held on March 4th 2021 as part of the NHK BUNKEN FORUM 2021. At the presentation the authors examined past NHK's projects of collecting war experience drawings/paintings from various perspectives. First, Inoue indicated the characteristics of war experience drawings/paintings, which included “the person who made the piece were actually at the very sites where events happened” and identified the advantages of war experience drawings/paintings such as the capability of presenting multifaceted viewpoints of many different war survivors and that of preserving the crucial moment that photographs cannot capture. Following this, Yoshida discussed the powers of drawing/painting with videos depicting actual cases; drawing war experiences itself have a power, the war experience drawings/paintings can facilitate the dialogue between war survivors and the interviewers, and specific locations intrinsically portrayed in war experience drawings/paintings serve as a medium for connecting people who know these places. Then, Inoue presented local broadcasters' projects of collecting war experience drawings/paintings and pointed out that their projects and “civic journalism” pursued by local papers in the United States in the past shares a common ground. This article also introduces some of the feedback from online participants posted after the presentation.

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