With the current increasing pace of globalization, the "integration" of people from different cultures, ethnic groups and religious backgrounds has become an important issue with significance on a global level. What role is the media able to play in the development of multicultural society? In the past, the group unit of multicultural society was considered to be "nation" or "nationality." However, in the 21st century context, multiculturalism has come to extend far beyond "nation" to include "religion," "race" and "gender." Furthermore, it is also possible to point out changes in the form and function of "ethnic media." With the advance of media communication technology, ethnicity has been brought to the fore and there is a movement towards ethnic groups that were in the past considered as "minorities confined to a single country" being conceptualized as "diasporas." In addition, of the many relationships that exist in this context, there is an increasing need to understand that between "multicultural society and media." For example, within media research there is a need to consider topics such as the cultural and political dynamics of networks that transcend national boundaries created by diasporas through the use of media, and the relationship between mainstream society and groups comprising people from many cultures. We aim to investigate the transformations, issues and possibilities of media in an increasingly multicultural society and to search for and present new research frameworks and concepts within the field of "multicultural society and media."

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This paper will discuss the imperativeness of making hitherto marginalized voices of ethnic minorities heard and embraced in the mediated public space of Japan. It will be argued that we need to go beyond both the pitfall of the "ethnic media" paradigm, which tends to presume the existence of coherent and homogeneous ethnic communities, as well as the pitfall of the "diaspora media" paradigm, which tends to put too much attention on the transnational connections between diasporas. In either case, the mediated practices, voices and connections of migrants and ethnic minorities would be separated from the wider public sphere of the society in which they live. Based on recent discussions of cultural citizenship in the English language literature, this paper argues for the importance of considering both how to make hitherto silenced voices and differences expressed, shared and heard in society at large and how to establish channels of communication between various kinds of ethnic minority media and the mainstream mass media. For this purpose, it is proposed that researchers should strive to advance the project of cultural citizenship as a dialogic learning process by collaborating with various actors in society.

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This article aims to consider possibilities of studies focusing on transnational media and communication practices of ethnic minorities through an historical exploration of the media and communication networks of the Korean diaspora in East Asia. Diasporas have often been pioneers in adopting cutting-edge technologies in their media practices. Furthermore, it is a subject of growing political and social importance to analyze which aspects of transnational communication diasporic and migrant populations use to stay connected with their homeland. However, in Japan, there has been little research on the topic to date, and it could even be said that such a perspective has been lacking. By focusing on the production and consumption of media cultures by the Korean diaspora in their past and present, we can receive new insights into the areas of cultural politics and identity construction of migrant and diasporic populations in which their identity has been constantly represented, contested and negotiated in their everyday lives. Through this examination, I would like to emphasize a new dimension to and the possibilities for diasporic media studies in Japan.

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The objective of this study is to review previous research on the role of the media in multicultural U.S. society and to characterize the research tradition. The study particularly focuses on arguments about the representation of race and gender. First, previous studies on ethnic minority media and mainstream media in the U.S. are reviewed. Ethnic minority media has remained an important research subject since Robert Park's immigrant press study, but previous studies overwhelmingly focused on majority media. Many researchers have in particular explored the representation of "race" in Hollywood films, television programs, and advertisements by using quantitative content analysis methods as well as qualitative textual/discourse analysis methods. Second, previous studies on the representations of "Asians," "Japanese Americans," and "the Japanese" are reviewed. Mainly due to efforts by Asian American researchers, empirical studies on the representation of Asians began to increase in the 1980s. These studies showed that the representations of Japanese Americans and Japanese people have been constructed and reconstructed as a part of the popular images of the "yellow peril" and the "model minority," which were constructed to represent Asians and Asian Americans. At that time, media researchers also began to explore the "interlocking system" of "race" and "gender," as it became a critical issue in feminist studies. Under the influences of cultural pluralism/multiculturalism, feminism, and postmodernism, media researchers in the U.S. came to explore more racial categories, such as Blacks as well as Asians and Hispanics, more gender categories, such as men as well as women, and wider contexts, such as images and texts as well as dynamic processes between cultural production and representation. In other words, their research perspectives have become pluralized and diverse.

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This article aims to discuss the complexity of the relationship between a new diaspora that emerged mainly after the 1980s -the Brazilian expatriates- and the media. Several aspects of this relationship are explored. First, the strategies of Globo International, the biggest TV network in Brazil, which launched an international broadcasting service targeting Brazilian audiences abroad, are analyzed not only in terms of its programs, but also in terms of an event named "Brazilian Day," which Globo co-hosts in many countries. Second, some examples of the diverse attitudes and reactions of diasporic audiences towards Brazilian TV are presented, including the case study of "Sonhar um sonho," a TV show on the Record TV network, which was severely criticized after a rescue operation in favor of a Brazilian family living in Japan in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami tragedy. Third, an overview of the Brazilian diasporic media in the U.S., Europe and Australia are presented, followed by a brief comparison with the situation in Japan. The article concludes with a discussion about the challenges faced by scholars who are doing research related to "multicultural society and media" as well as "ethnic media (or diasporic media)," with a focus on the methodological dilemmas.

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The aim of this article is to examine the case of the FMYY community radio station located in the multi-ethnic community of Nagata ward of Kobe city and to understand the role that ethnic media plays in Japanese society. Nagata ward was one of the worst hit areas during the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake of 1995. In addition, Nagata is home to many ethnic minority groups, including Korean residents, Vietnamese refugees and Hispanic migrant workers, and it is a major multi-ethnic community in Japan. In the aftermath of the earthquake, FMYY was established as an unlicensed radio station by members of the Korean community with the purpose of meeting the critical information needs of survivors in the ethnic community. Presently, FMYY is a multilingual-multicultural community radio station broadcasting in 10 different languages. Initially, FMYY was median ethnic radio station controlled by members of the Korean community. However, after encountering some problems regarding management, the leadership of the radio station shifted towards Japanese activists who strengthened FMYY's multilingual information services to target the wider passive audience of the ethnic-minority community. The main reason for this shift in leadership is that, under Japanese law, foreign residents are restricted from participating in the management of broadcasting media. As a result, community media does not reflect the diverse composition of the multi-ethnic community. As the multicultural and multi-ethnic characteristics of Japanese society continue to strengthen, so too does the need for urgent reform to enable ethnically and culturally diverse members of society to better participate in the management of community media.

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This article examines media representations of the 1932 Olympic Games in Japanese newspapers. In Japan, the Olympics attained a certain level of popularity for the first time in 1932. Previous studies have shown that the Japanese mass media, particularly after the Manchurian Incident of 1931, played an important role in the militarization of the country. On the other hand, idealistic universalism has been claimed globally in the realm of international sports. This research attempts to explore the relationships between extreme nationalism and internationalism in Japanese media coverage of international sports in the early 1930s. Methodologically, the study uses both quantitative and qualitative textural analysis. First, the coverage of the 1932 Games in three newspapers (Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun), and that of the 1928 Games in Tokyo Asahi Shimbun is analyzed quantitatively. Second, newspaper articles about the departure of the Japanese team, the opening and closing ceremonies, and the victory of a Japanese athlete, are analyzed qualitatively with a view to explore the roles of Olympic media reports in reconstituting nationalism. The results suggest that Japanese media coverage of the 1932 Olympics, differing from that of previous Olympics, was characterized by (1) the frequent appearance of national symbols of Japan (for example, the national flag, the national anthem, and representations of the emperor) and deictics (for example, "our athletes" and "homeland"), (2) the differentiation of "Others" (for example, stereotypical portrayals of non-Japanese athletes admiring "our Japanese athletes"), (3) the frequent use of the metaphor of warfare, and (4) representations of social relationships in Japan (for example, the dramatization of Japanese athletes and their families). Rather than being merely jingoism, this contains two elements: one is a discourse that makes people feel a belonging to the nation, which is a part of the international community, and the other is a discourse that is essentially nationalistic and patriotic, emphasizing the divinity of the Japanese national symbols.

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The purpose of this study is to examine a phase of public relations in the 1960s in Korea and to understand its complicated characteristics from a critical perspective. Facing domestic problems and in the context of the Cold War, South Korean dictator Park Junghee and his government attempted to manage the political discourse through a communication strategy which they called koho. Koho, which adopted propaganda-like tactics as well as scientific methods from modern public relations, dominated Korean society in the 1960s. By analyzing materials published by the government and by focusing specifically on the koho department and its activities, this study will reveal the specific way that koho was envisioned and carried out. Considering that the case of South Korea in the 1960s does not perfectly conform to Western PR studies (specifically, the Progressive School), this paper will conclude with a criticism of its concept of history.

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This paper analyzes articles about nuclear energy in three science magazines, Kagaku Asahi (Asahi Science), Shizen (Nature), and Kagaku (Science), which were published in Japan in the 1950s. The analytical methodology used in the study is a combination of quantitative analysis and theory concerned with the agenda-setting function of the media. The study aims to reveal the relationship between the discourse found in the articles and Japanese opinions concerning nuclear energy development and radioactive substances, and to explore the qualitative changes in the discourse of the articles and the reasons underlying such changes. One conclusion that emerges from the quantitative analysis is that the number of discourses concerning nuclear energy increased between 1954 and 1955, and following this started to steadily decrease. Generally speaking, the Lucky Dragon 5 incident in 1954, in which the crew of a Japanese fishing vessel was exposed to nuclear fallout from US nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll, is considered to have started the anti-nuclear movement in Japan. At this time, in the science magazines, there was an increase in specialist discourses concerning topics such as nuclear reactors and methods of measuring nuclear fallout. In reality, almost all the scientists involved in nuclear energy research and development thought that they had no connection to the anti-nuclear movement. Based on a purely dualistic conception of good and bad, they continued to position nuclear energy as something to be used for good. From this perspective, it can be seen that in the Japanese science magazines of the 1950s, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its effects were understood only in a very limited sense.

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