This paper discusses the questions of how scholars in the media and communication research fields can contribute to society after its being damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that occurred on 11 March, 2011. Defined mainly by the explosion of the nuclear power station in Fukushima, it was a disaster that divided Japanese history into everything that happened before and everything that happened after it, raising radical questions concerning the advancement of science and technology in the modern era. As an academic association with a history of 60 years and more than 1,000 members, the Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication has taken the initiative through the holding of workshops and symposiums in tackling such themes as risk communication at times of disaster and corporate media's role and social responsibility in the face of unprecedented disasters. However, what has been decidedly lacking so far is the critical reflection of the approaches implemented to conduct communication research in the disaster-stricken areas, or the evaluation of how research results affect the flow of actual information and communication activities within local communities. While outlining some of the characteristics of this catastrophe, I argue that we should pursue an interdisciplinary and pragmatic approach based upon interaction with people at disaster-stricken sites in order to meet the critical needs of those most in need, and engage with a wide variety of subtle, local problems in the disaster-stricken areas. In addressing the challenges we face in the area of media and communication research, I also mention present difficulties in accessing past television data in Japan, which prevents us from conducting systematic research on television. The media's reluctance to make television data available for the use of research constitutes a serious obstacle to scholarly advancement in this field.

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In September 2011, Hashimoto et al. conducted a questionnaire survey in the city of Sendai, one of the badly stricken areas of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Based on a random sample, the results of the survey revealed that only 8 percent of the city's population thought that a catastrophic tsunami could happen. They also showed that tsunami warnings failed to reach 31.8 percent of the population who did not expect a catastrophic tsunami. Consequently, a high percentage of respondents whose households included small children, elderly persons and people in need of nursing care did not think that a catastrophic tsunami could occur. Such a percentage indicates that a comparatively vulnerable segment of people in the event of an evacuation held a deep normalcy bias. In the coastal areas of the Tohoku region, the third media warning, which predicted a tsunami exceeding 10 meters in height, failed to reach the population. In fact, this tsunami alert was aired after a run-up height above 30 meters had already been recorded across the coastal area. With regard to information behavior in disaster-stricken areas, people were most concerned about the safety of their family members and friends. However, only 54 percent of the population could accurately receive such information through media outlets. Due to the power blackouts that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake, only 2.5 percent of the population had access to the Internet via their PCs. Radio, from which 76.5 percent of the population received useful information, was the most accessible media outlet after the disaster had occurred. According to a nationwide mail method survey conducted by Hashimoto and the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications in February 2012, data collected on the topic of "nuclear accident/radioactivity", for example, revealed that television was the most useful media outlet in the wake of the earthquake and the nuclear accident. For most people, the Internet, from which little reliable information could be received, was of no help. In spite of viewpoints that overestimate the role of the Internet in times of disaster, statistics show that the overall Japanese population does not yet regard the Internet as a means of receiving disaster-related information.

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The Great East Japan Earthquake is the largest crisis Japan has faced since the end of World War II in 1945. In a world that has become more interconnected and interdependent, communication is increasingly dictated by the media, and disasters have become more common and oftentimes more catastrophic. The effects of disasters also exceed national boundaries through mediation and mediatization; the emotional and humanitarian impact of disasters as well as political responses to them also resonate around the globe. In addition to disasters, the mediation and mediatization of risks and crises have also occurred through the local and global flow of information in an increasingly global age. Risks and crises are also influenced by repeated news coverage and a flourishing social media. How are risks, crises, and disasters constituted in today's complex media environment and how do they become culturally meaningful and politically important? Not only are these valuable questions for journalistic practices, they also require an increased awareness and thoughtful consideration and should be addressed in journalism studies. This paper discusses these fundamental questions for journalistic practices and journalism studies which need to be answered in both a national and global context following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

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Almost two years have passed since the unprecedented catastrophe on March 11, 2011 in Tohoku, Japan. Although time is slowly changing the landscape and people's daily lives in the disaster-stricken areas, the platform provided for Subalterns in the media to make themselves heard is no better now than it was at the time of the disaster. This paper, based on an awareness of this problem, will discuss Subalternity in the special context of the Great Eastern Japan Disaster as well as introducing ways for a platform to be created on which Subalters in the disaster- stricken areas can make themselves heard around the world.

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This paper examines the historical processes of the radio broadcasting system of the Manchurian Telegraph and Telephone Company (MTTC), which was the only broadcasting company in Manchukuo, and clarifies how radio media was used to rule Manchukuo. In particular, this paper focuses on the difference between Channel One, which was mainly for Japanese residents broadcast in Japanese, and Channel Two, which was mainly for the Chinese in their own language. First of all, it was strongly anticipated that the radio enterprise of the MTTC would build a "Manchurian national identity." However, the MTTC had to apply a multilingual broadcasting policy, concentrate on the popularization of radio receivers and the establishment of a broadcasting institution. This was because the number of radio listeners in the Manchukuo was too low, there was not enough broadcasting equipment, and what existed was of poor quality. As such, the MTTC was unable to pay sufficient attention to programs aimed at integrating the Manchurian nation. As a result of prioritizing the popularizing of radio broadcasting, the broadcasting policies for Channels One and Two differed. Each channel mainly broadcasted programs which catered to their respective cultures. Their programs, which strongly reflected their cultural backgrounds, were broadcast even on important days like the foundation anniversary of Manchukuo. As a result, the radio system of the MTTC couldn't create a Manchurian national identity; however, it allowed many amateur and local artists living in north-eastern China to broadcast all over Manchukuo. Although the MTTC radio system failed to create the ideology of a Manchurian nation, it was able to create a means of cultural collaboration by serving the residents of the Manchukuo with a single radio system and by opening the stage of radio broadcasting for many amateur and local artists.

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This research examines how the image of the Other excluded from "national memory" was represented in Japanese television documentaries of the 1950s and 1960s as well as clarifies how intellectuals, journalists, and filmmakers had to resist the contradiction and incoherence of linking "public memory" with "national memory." After World War II, Japan's political, economic and social systems, which had maintained continuity before and during the war, were shaken substantially. Japanese recognition of their role in the war as promoted by the American General Headquarters lacked awareness of the perspective of the Asian nations Japan colonized. Nevertheless, critical television documentaries were made one after another during this time. This paper first examines how Asia's political, economic, and social history as well as changes in the skills and techniques necessary for making television programs influenced the representation of Korea in television documentaries. It then examines the changes in said representation by analyzing program images and interviewing the directors of several television documentary programs. First is Nihon no Sugao: Nihon no Naka no Chosen [The Real Japan: Korea in Japan] (1959: NHK), which was the first television documentary after the end of the war to focus on Koreans in Japan (Zainichi). Second is Daitokai no Ama [Women Divers in the Big City] (1965: Asahi Broadcast), which was made by Japan's first Korean television director. Finally, some documentary programs which portray Korean soldiers who were mobilized as part of the Japanese Army during the war are studied, including Wasurerareta Kogun [Forgotten Imperial Soldiers] (1963: Nihon Broadcast) , directed by Nagisa Oshima. Based on the findings of this study, I concluded that few documentary programs focused on Korea in the early days of television in Japan; however, those that did exist expressed some signs of responsibility for Japanese imperialism and colonialism in Korea.

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This is an analysis of problems related to Decision No. 46, which was publicly announced by the Broadcast and Human Rights / Other Related Rights Committee in February 2011, as well as a clarification of the structural problems of the trial of the Committee and future issues. In conducting the analysis, a comparison was made with regard to Decision No. 46 between the opinions of the relevant broadcasting station and objections from the individuals involved. All past decisions were examined from the standpoint of the quasi-judicial function of the Committee in order to identify the structural problems. The examination resulted in the conclusion that Decision No. 46 includes several factual errors in presenting problems for broadcasting. The structural problems include insufficient investigations and hearings, arbitrariness regarding the subject of decision, and lack of consideration for editorial freedom. The Committee must make improvements concerning the above points and take measures to heighten the verifiability of inquisition.

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This study aims to reexamine the historical perceptions of the Japanese comic book medium, particularly the "magazine culture" which began in the late I960s, by tracing the historical process of creating "Shinshoban comics" during the 1960s and 1970s. Prior historical studies of postwar manga have not fully examined manga comic magazines, and manga has usually been defined as one type of comic magazine, not as its own independent form of media. Accordingly, in this article, I focus on the "Shinshoban comics" that predated present-day manga comics in order to understand the transformations in the comic industry during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unlike the manga comics of today, due to the lack of modern industry and marketing systems, Shinshoban comics were very marginalized and crossed over various manga publishing borders. However, as series of Shinshoban comics based on particular comic magazines became the dominant publication style of manga comics, they were gradually perceived to be one type of comic magazine in the comic industry. Moreover, in the political and cultural climate of that time, the publication of some Shinshoban comics was delayed while others were screened out. Some of the works filtered out of the major public companies were published by small publishers as well as Kashihon publishers, which published for book-lending shops. As a result, though Shinshoban comics were subsumed by the comic publishing industry as a part of magazine culture, they were also relatively independent and established themselves as an original publishing medium. Therefore, an investigation of the historical process of creating Shinshoban comics clarifies that the industrialization centering around comic magazines produced by the major publishers beginning in the late 1960s contained within it a complexity that gave rise to an "independent" or "derivative" media culture.

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This paper examines activities related to reading mobile phone novels (Keitai Shosetsu), which became a social phenomenon in the 2000s. Previous literature on readers or the audience of such texts has not focused on the specific local activities related to text, because existing models and theories of audience do not adequately help researchers conduct a comprehensive study of such topics. In addition, studies on mobile phone novels have overlooked the various related activities accompanying reading and instead focused exclusively on the originality of media usage and the novelty of the stories' plots. In contrast, my research approach focused on examining local activities - how students en-gage in reading, how they discuss the novels - through fieldwork, including participant observation and group interviews of middle school students. I found that most girls spent their recess time reading and talking about mobile phone novels not by means of mobile phones but instead by means of physical books, while boys attempted to become friends with the girls under the pretext of asking them about their favorite novels. These activities were analyzed using Sacks' notion of Membership Categorization Device (MCD) in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. My results revealed firstly that reading mobile phone novels presupposed the use of the category "girl." Further, while girls enjoyed reading these mobile phone novels as love stories, boys considered the content of the novels to be indecent, which, according to the girls, is because most boys read only the obscene sections of the novels. This difference in perspectives regarding reading mobile phone novels is the result of using MCD. Furthermore, students' behaviors were not driven by their culture, but accomplished by membership categorization. Therefore, as an exception a boy read content liked by girls. The above observations suggest that students are not readers or the audience of texts as a model, but instead behave according to the uses of membership categories.

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The notion of "gatekeeping" introduced by D. M. White in 1950 refers to the process of selecting news for people in society. People in society mainly depend on information selected by media to understand what happens in broader society. In this sense, media is important to our understandings of the social reality. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the status of the gatekeeping theory and to then suggest strategies for empirical research in the future. To evaluate the status of this theory, a historical review is conducted. There are five areas of the research, which constitute five levels of the gate-keeping factors. These areas have been divided into five levels of analysis: individual, media routine, organizational, social institutional and social system. In this article, the former four levels are discussed individually. The last level, social system, however, is so deeply and widely rooted in the whole of society that it is not explicitly discussed as it is too complex to model effectively. After the classification of gatekeeping, two issues are suggested for the future. The first is empirical research methods. At each research level, models of analysis are discussed. Out of all of the four levels, the routine analysis level is the first to be researched because routines are traditions that journalists use in daily activities. The second issue is the inclusion of new media such as social media. Traditional gatekeeping studies have focus less on new media and more on mass media. But now new media have the power to influence people in their selections of news to be examined.

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This essay discusses the structure and characteristics of the "People's Share Program" (gukmin-ju) employed by the Hankyoreh Newspaper Company of South Korea. The essay focuses on two issues associated with the system; first, the extent to which the People's Share Program was employed and its significance in the context of media history, and second, the ways in which the peculiarities of the "People's Share" capital structure influenced the newspaper's organizational, managerial and editorial policies with particular focus on the relationship between "freedom of the press" and the influence of political power and capital. The research is based on a collection of relatively hard to obtain materials and focuses on articles that describe the ongoing progress of the People's Share Program at that time. The program's objectives and necessity are clarified through interviews with the involved parties. While considering the ways in which mass media should attempt to preserve its independence and freedom of the press from the influences of political power and capital, this essay discusses the structure of the program as well as the ripple effect that the system had on the newspaper's organizational, managerial and editorial policies. In conclusion, the "People's Share" program became a structure which theoretically could protect the freedom of the press from political pressure and the influence of capital. At the very least, its efficacy was validated for the period from the establishment of the Hankyoreh newspaper through the end of its initial operating period. Accordingly, the system spread and not just the Hankyoreh newspaper itself but other regional newspapers of that time adopted this system. However, once we consider that there were problems that arose from those who held low-cost shares, as well as outside intervention that could not be prevented by the People's Share Program alone, it becomes clear that while the program was certainly capable of protecting the freedom of the press from outside influences, it was by no means a perfect system.

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The introduction of judging panels for criminal trials comprising both professional judges and ordinary citizens has raised questions over how trials are reported. The saiban-in system imposes a duty of confidentiality upon panel members regarding their judgment deliberations. Press access to the individuals is prohibited, and reporters are banned from describing the course of deliberations. However, the press nevertheless has a role in assessing whether this new trial system works. Comparison with the British jury system - which has similar restrictions - suggests that the saiban-in system should be revised in order to balance the fairness of trials with free of expression and the press. Firstly, the current rule preventing saiban-in participants from expressing their personal opinions on the final judgment is excessive. The restriction is so vague that it makes saiban-in feel they can't talk about the trial at all. British juries, by comparison, make a distinction between how they assess the final judgment and what they thought during deliberations, which allows jurors to express the former and not the latter. Secondly, saiban-in should be permitted to talk about their deliberations if they took place in an inappropriate manner. In the UK, it is said that under the secrecy of deliberation, it is difficult to verify or improve the system if the entire chapter takes place in a black box. Particularly in Japan, where it is important to ensure the genuineness of participation by ordinary citizens, the manner in which judges preside over the deliberation process should be checked in certain situations. It is important to verify the performance of the saiban-in system, in order to improve it or even to consider alternatives. The responsibility for such verification should lie not only with the court itself, but also with the press and an independent body, which can see the process more objectively.

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This paper examines photo carte-shop customers' experience of buying photographs and the chain reaction mediated by such experience from the perspective of recipient analysis in the study of media history. The study's objective is to clarify the process through which photography became popular around the middle of the Meiji Era. An analysis of photo studio customer behavior was made through materials such as newspapers, diaries, photo albums and other resources. Photography was popularized by two phenomena. First was the communication enjoyed when seeing photographs displayed at photo carte-shops or seeing photographs at home, as well as the game of guessing who appeared in photographs. Second, there was the spread and chain behaviors of customer experience described in the photo collections and the writings on the history of photography by famous collector Gesshin Saito. His writing in Shashinkyo (History of Photo carte-shops) proposed a new historical perspective and method of the study of history of photographs in Japan.

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