The Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication will be celebrating its 40th anniversary next year (1991). A survey of the works by its members during these 40 years should enable us to follow the track of post-war research on journalism and mass communication in Japan. It should also bring into light the situation created by and surrounding mass media in the post-war Showa Era. However this is not a simple task. The reason is that although mass communication research is an important field in Social Science and Humanities, it is not a discipline with an established methodology. As a result, each researcher or theorist is left to work on his own methodology and with his own problematic stance. This diversity in methodogy and problematic stance is both a fate of mass communication research and its strength. The consequence of this variety is the diversity in the results of the researches. The researches and critical analysis by the members have been and continue to be a succession of trials and errors. This is due to the drastic change in the environment of media brought about by such developments an new technologies, reconstruction of hegemonic ideologies in Eastern Europe, growing awareness of the Third World, and shifts in the system of social values in every country. Not being an independent discipline, mass communication research must take on a multiple approach from various disciplines if it is to enhance its consistency and validity. Hence the repeated call for pluraristic interdisciplinary approach. In editing the 39th issue of Japanese Journalism Review (Shimbungaku Hyoron), we found it very difficult to present a balanced view of the researches on communication in Japan if we were to focus on particular discipline. Thus we decided to present the significant areas of communication research which are appropriate as themes for the Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication, from the point of view of eleven disciplines or theories. It is our aim to point out themes that should be taken up by mass communication research in the future, by critically reviewing the intellectual achievements of the members in the past. As mentioned earlier, it is nearly impossible to review all the achievements in the past 40 years. Moreover, whereas our endeavor to critically review the past achievements in order to show the direction we should take in future will be generally accepted by the members, some specific reviews might be received with strong objection. However, those objections are in fact the other aim of this issue. As we are in the midst of dispute over the change of the name of our society, we believe that critical review of past achievements by its members will help us to grasp the controversy over the name as problems of methodology in mass communication research. The review of the past has revealed that the Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication is a society for those who are studying journalism and mass communication, and not the particular media of newspapers as the name"Shimbun Gakkai"suggests. The editorial responsibility for this issue rests on Makoto Tsuruki and Toshitaka Hayashi, who are members of the board of directors of the Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication. We hope that this issue will contribute to the activating of the society. We would also like to thank the following members of the editorial committee as well as those who wrote the reviews for this issue.

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Though Habermas is a so-called second generation of the Frankfurt school, his theory and practice are diferrent from those of the first generation, Adorno and Horkheimer. Such a difference is eminent in a new paradigm Habermas bases in constructing critical theory. As opposed to the paradigm of philosophy of consciousness, Habermas relies on the paradigm of philosophy of language. This shift in paradigm is a key point of Habermas's critique of Adorno and Horkheimer. When Habermas tries to understand Adorno's theory both sympathetically and critically, it becomes apparent that his paradigmatic shift has much importance for critical theory. Habermas tries to interpret the implication of"Mimesis", which is one of the most important terms of Adorno's aesthetics, not subjectivelly but inter-subjectively. In other words, based on the paradigm of philosophy of language, Habermas makes an attempt to re-interpret Mimesis not as aesthetic experience but as rational communication. Such a theoretical strategy in constructing critical theory has many advantageous points. I do not deny this, but can't help feeling that Habermas has thrown the baby out with the bath water in the process of re-interpreing Adorno based on the communicative action paradigm. In this article, I want to shed light on this point. According to the Habermasian view of communication, linguistically mediated communication that is oriented to reaching mutual understanding is free of domination and repression. So"linguisticalisation"(linguistic articulation) of individual inner nature is a crucial step toward human emancipation. Adorno's view of language is contrary. In his theory, language is seen as typical"identification logic"that is the resource of modern domination. As Habermas remarks, the late Adorno's distrust in modern rationality is total and excessive, so we cannot support his pessimistic view of language and communication. However, can we not say the same thing about Habermas's view of communication, if only opposite? I think that the Habermasian view of communication, which is excessively rationalistic, cannot critically grasp the domination that is immanent in communication. Of course, we cannot deny the liberating potential of linguistically mediated communication that Habermas tries to clarify, but at the same time, I think we must be sensitive to the repressive potential which lurks in language and communication. The lack of such an ambivalent attitude toward communication makes us unable to critically grasp the so-called"information society". Through the critical survey of Habermas's view of communication, I have tried to make a step toward a critical theory of information society that can grasp both repressive and liberating potential of modern society.

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So far, many studies have been undertaken concerning the effects of public opinion polls on the election outcome; e.g. the bandwagon effect, underdog effect, etc. In 1977, the law concerning publication of these polls was enacted in France. These polls are controlled by the Commission of Public Opinion Polls, which is one of the"autorite administratives independantes", and their publication is banned one week prior to the voting day. In April-May 1988, the presidential election was carried out in France. More than one hundred forty polls concerning this election were published between November 1987 and April 1988. This situation, a flood of polls, is related to the presidential election, legislated in 1962 under the initiative of President Charles de Gaulle. Two years after the first presidential election in 1965, a senator introduced a bill in the Upper House in order to control the polls and ban them for the week before the election. The law enacted in 1977 has many defects. The definitions of some terms are obscure and some provisions are not well adapted. However, this law is supported by many persons, on account of the anxiety about"sondocratie"(control by the polls) and the generous regulation by the Commission of Public Opinion Polls. I will analyse this law, focusing on the 1988 presidential election. We can see some incidents in this election; such as an appeal to the Commission by a candidate Raymond Barre, and a leakage of the poll results by the"Renseignements generaux", an intelligence office, etc. Lastly, I will analyse the theory of resolution of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and criticize the provision banning the publication of the polls.

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