Recently in communication studies, what is called revisionism has gained more and more attention. Revisionism has its origins both in the Marxism oriented critical approach (especialy in the tradition of Cultural Studies) and the liberal-pluralistic oriented approach (the tradition of administrative research in the U. S.) of mass-communication. Thus several commentators have mentioned that the revisionsism of mass-communication studies recently shows the change of theoretical trend. They point to the 'theoretical convergence' in contrast to the theoretical polarization between critical and traditional approach during the 1970's. In this article, I try to do a critical survey of that opinion. In my view there are two problems behind the 'theoretical tonvergence' theses. First, these days 'theoretical convergence' is discussed only at the 'fact' level, not at the 'value' level. Second, in this process of discussion about the theoretical trend change, the importance of 'value' level of mass-communication studies is relatjvely ignored. However, it is such a 'value' level that makes critical approach of communication studies truely critical. Consequently it can be said that the recent change in theoretical trend is a kind of cirisis for critical theory of mass-communication. For critital theory to survive under what is called post-modern condition, we needed to discuss communication theory at the 'value' level. I try to make this point clear by following the theory and its social-historical context of Cultural Studies approach to mass-communication. The Cultulal Studies, which orients past-modern critical theory, certainly has critical potential under the modern condition. But contrary to its original intention, it can be affirmative under what is called post-modern condition. Such a danger is bigger in Japanese context than in English context where the Cultural Studies were born. If we try to make a critical theory of communication that can be critical toward the condition of contemporary Japanese society, we must be sensitive to an ambivalence of Cultural Studies (especialy its revisionist version). Otherwise, we will take the risk of losing the critical potential of Cultural Studies, and far from being critical, we will only be affirmative to objects that we try to criticise.

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This paper is an overview on the studies of Cultural Indicators Project and cultivation analysis both of which were at first advocated by George Gerbner at the University of Pennsylvania in the U. S. This overview traces the developmental process of these studies from the beginning to the latest issues dealt by these studies deal with. So far there have been several papers which refer to these studies as a part of their papers in Japan, but there has not been a single paper which overviews these studies. In the present paper the author has tried a balanced overview of these studies which are explained as closely related studies. While other papers tend to think that cultivation is one of the cognitive effect models and to consider cultivation analysis as a method of investigating cognitive effects of television, this paper puts an emphasis on its aspects of seeking a culutral or story telling function of television in collaboration with Cultural Indicators ptoject. In the autor's view, Cultural Indicators project and cultivation analysis have gdnerally proved that television has a strong function of homogenizing people's beliefs and values by its recurrent message features, and thus contributing to maintain status quo, but this has a discouraging effect both on the people who try to protest the content of television and on the people who want to seek the potentiality of television. Does not television function as a changing or creative agent? The author believes that one of the main future tasks of these studites is to trace the changes in the content of television as Cultural Indicators project originally aimed and to evaluate their effects on people's beliefs, values, or behaviors. In order to trace the changes in the television content, Cultural Indicators database which has been accumulated in the past two dacades at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania could be put to use. The author guesses that some changes could be found in, the images or portrait of families or sex role of male and female people, for example

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In Japan, the courts have been making rules which deal with the concerns for the right to take or publish photographs of people on the one hand, and the protection of privacies on the other. In the 1950's, the issue arose out of arrests of persons, whose photographs were taken without consent and who protested with violence. They asserted that they had the right not to be photographed. In 1969, the Supreme Court recognized and declared the right fo refuse to be a photograph without consent as the general principle and pointed out some exceptions. In civil cases, publication needs consent as well. The other rules have not come out yet for a long time. However, they have gradually become clear because of redent popularity of photo weekly magazines. In Germany, the problem between the rigrt of privacy and the right to photograph had been discussted at the end of the previous century. And then "das Recht am eigenen Bilde", or the right to one's own picture was created as a kind of copyright law. However, it regulates only publication. Therefore, taking someone's picture without consent is not prohibited. And now it is a source of troubles concernig of privacy and the photograph. At that time in the United States, the problem between the photograph and it's publication was brought forward by the Warrenr Brandeis' argument "The Right to Privacy". Since then, the rules have developed through numerous law suits. The rule in the U. S. is similar to Japanese rule. But ours a little differ from the U. S. rule in that it generally requires consent to take someone's photograph. Our rule, the so-called Third Rule conerning photograph and it's publication, has the purpose of obtaining compromise with the freedom of the Press. Nowadays, problems of photographs arise in many countries. In my view, Japanese rule is effective in dealing with them.

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