The feature in this volume entitled“ Current Qualitative Methods for Media

and Journalism Studies” comprises four papers. This article explains the aims of

these papers.

　　This feature was written in response to a growing sense of crisis concerning

the current state of Mass Communication Studies. One example of the concerns

that exist is that high-definition natural language processing may eventually

undermine the validity of mass-based methods.

　　In light of this, all of the researchers in this field were required to reinvestigate

ways of developing up-to-date methodologies that are inseparably

linked to resolving each existing methodology’s problems.

　　To this end, the editorial board asked each author to include in the paper

his/her research history and current methodological proposition so that readers

can understand the process by which the author developed the methodology.

In this paper, I review the uses of ethnographic methods in journalism and

media studies. Particularly, I examine how we can conduct research on the

globalizing aspects of journalism and media by using ethnography. In doing so,

I look at news production and audience ethnography, which have often used

participant observation as part of their research methods.

　　First, I discuss how ethnographers use traditional methods to study a single

site. In the case of news production, for example, Tuchman and Gans used

long-term participant observation in order to study newsrooms. In the case of

audience ethnography, Morley used interviews and participant observation,

aiming to understand the social contexts of home television viewing.

　　Second, I explore how ethnographers then began to use new methods in

order to explore the globalization of culture and society and to overcome meth

odological nationalism. Here, I compare two ethnographic methods: multi-sited

ethnography （MSE）, created by the anthropologist George Marcus, and global

ethnography（ GE） created by the sociologist Michael Burawoy. Then, I explain

how I applied MSE to my research on cultural migrants. This study focuses on

young Japanese who migrate from Tokyo to New York City or London after

being exposed to media images of their destination before leaving Japan.

Finally, I discuss the current situation of ethnography in journalism and media

studies in Japan.

This paper attempts to discuss the methodology for media history by considering

the significance and limitations of multi-archival research. For several

decades, much interdisciplinary attention has been paid to multi-archival

research not only in the field of history but also political science, international

relations, and sociology. Multi-archival research became a popular and significant

method because it promoted the declassification of documents in archives

around the world after the end of the Cold War. This popular method has been

applied to the discipline of media history and it has provided a significant key

to opening a new dimension of its history in Japan at home and abroad.

　　For researchers who intend to conduct research using a multi-archival

approach, this paper aims to provide some information that was acquired

through my own archival research experience. It focuses on the following three

aspects. First, how my research interests spread beyond borders from Japan to

Korea, the U.S., China, the U.K., and so on, including how I recognized the usefulness

and significance of multi-archival research. Second, what we need to be

careful of when attempting to conduct multi-archival research and analyze

archival documents. Third, how we can utilize archives to gather documents

more efficiently. To answer these questions, this paper provides archival information

on the U.S., the ROK, the DPRK, Taiwan and the U.K.

　　The scope of this paper attempts to contribute to the argument,“ how can

we open a new dimension of media history by utilizing something new or old methods?”

　People’s activities on the Internet are becoming digitized, and substantive

analysis methodologies such as quantitative content analysis and network analysis

are developing rapidly. Meanwhile, they cultural anthropology is methodologically

characterized as essentially qualitative, with ethnography at their core.

How can cultural anthropology approach our online activities and our lives in

general with the Internet as a component through the method of ethnography?

It is necessary to fundamentally revisit the conventional methodology built on

the premise of the analog age with regard to ethnography in the context of the

cyberspace field.

　　Accordingly, cultural anthropologists who are interested in Internet studies

and communications researchers who engage in an ethnographic approach have

accumulated diverse developments in methodological discussions surrounding

online ethnography, virtual ethnography, digital anthropology, and so on.

　　Based on the author’s awareness of these issues and the developments in

scientific discussions, has been proposed hybrid ethnography. The aim of this

paper is to clarify the methodological subject of media studies pertaining to the

digital network age based on the research the author conducted in online public

opinion as part of the larger framework of the changes in ethnographical

approaches, while attempting to propose concrete arguments on the methodology

of hybrid ethnography by presenting research examples that include the

elements of: 1. quantitative content analysis, 2. data structure analysis（ various

methods of multivariate analysis）, and 3.（ social） network analysis.

　In this paper, I explain the research methods for handling historical data in

the context of media studies. I started by organizing the development process

of media history in Japan, followed by the characteristics of media history of

the 2000s. Finally, in the context of media history research as it relates to sociology,

I explain about the methodologies adopted in “Historical Sociology of the

Advertising Creator”（ 2014） and“ Olympic, Design, Marketing”（ 2017）.

This paper discusses the danger that the BPO, which should be obliged to

act as a bulwark against public authorities intervening in program production,

may threaten the freedom of broadcasting and intimidate broadcasters.

　　The aim of this paper is to investigate several cases in which TV stations

submitted their reports in order to officially express objections to BPO’s decisions

and to clarify the problems of these decisions and issues that the BPO

should resolve.

　　Through the examination of four cases that fit the above conditions, some

problematic decisions were revealed which the BRC, one of the BPO committees,

had made. These include one case in which the BRC pointed out ethical

problems in TV programs based on a misunderstanding of the facts and mistaken

interpretations by the BRC, and another case in which they concluded

that human rights were violated based on information that had not been broadcasted.

　　The BRC should have an obligation to examine factual information, conduct

verification, clarify the standards of judgment, share their understanding of

broadcasting ethics with TV stations, in order to make equal and fair judgments

to regain the trust of broadcasters.

The BPO should take these BRC-related problems seriously and become a

true guardian of the freedom of broadcasting, defending the media from the

authorities that intend to intervene in the broadcasting industry.

　　This thesis investigates how the news and documentary program, “NNN

Document,” has reported the nuclear problem.

　　This is important because previous studies have not clarified regional differences

and diachronic changes in programs produced by local broadcasting

stations that represent how people feel where nuclear power stations were

located.

　　Seventy-eight documentaries about nuclear power from“ NNN Document,”

which is produced by 29 local broadcasting stations of the NTV group, were

analyzed. These sources were examined by analyzing changes in the way in

which the stations represented people statements.

　　This research discovered the following. From 1970 until the Chernobyl

disaster, many different people appeared in the documentaries, but after the

Chernobyl disaster, the perspective of people living in areas suffering radiation

damage and depopulated areas close to nuclear power stations came to the

forefront. During the 2000’s, the number of documentaries about nuclear power

decreased sharply. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the lives of

the refugees were portrayed from the point of view of their places of refuge.

Thus, it is shown how “NNN Document” has come to more closely represent

the opinions of citizens in the news about nuclear power generation.

This study aims to clarify the transition of collective memory and recognition

about the Great Kanto Earthquake through the exploration of the narratives

of an academic figure. In a time when the collective memory of this past disaster

has been fading, this report made it clear how the opinion of the intellectual has

changed and why. The intellectual in question is Ikutaro Shimizu, who experienced

the Great Kanto Earthquake. Known as a prominent writer, he continued

to express his opinion on the Great Kanto Earthquake. He described himself an

“après un tremblement de terre”（ post-earthquake） writer, playing on words of

the après guerre（ post-war） generation. After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake

and its aftermath, Shimizu’s opinion on the disaster has drawn public

attention again. The aim of this report is to trace the manner in which Shimizu

talked about the disaster and how it changed.

　　Before the end of the Second World War, Shimizu rarely discussed the

Great Kanto Earthquake. In the days after the Second World War, he began to

write essays on the huge earthquake. In other words, he developed his own

interpretation of the earthquake in contrast with his war experience. As he recognized

that the Great Kanto Earthquake had been downplayed by society at

that time, he wrote about the Earthquake over and over as one of his important

personal experiences. Although he attempted to evoke collective remembrance

of the Earthquake in 1960, he quit writing about the Earthquake after all.

　　It is in and after 1970 that his narrative seemed to change. He came to deal

with the Great Kanto Earthquake as a matter of society or the nation, not as an

unforgettable personal event. He modified his opinion on the Earthquake in line

with the collective memory shared with people of the same period. This report

examines Shimizu’s argument on the Earthquake and its changes, and points

out the connection between personal memories and collective memory.