In 2022, Nihon Media Gakkai (Japan Association for Media, Journalism and Communication Studies; JAMS) made significant revisions to its bylaw. As a result, the terms "practitioners," "civic activity," and "media literacy education" were written into it. However, the meanings of all these terms are not self-evident. Therefore, this paper proposes one of the issues that "media studies" should address in the future, based on the 70-year history of the JAMS and its relationship with these terms.

When JAMS was founded in 1951 as Nihon Shimbun Gakkai (the Journalism Society of Japan), there were more practitioners than scholars. With the development of journalism studies, broadcasting studies, and mass communication studies, the number of members grew rapidly and the percentage of scholars increased, leading to institutional reform of the society’s management in the 1980s. The general framework of the society has remained unchanged to the present. In contrast, since its name change to Nihon Mass Communication Gakkai (The Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communications) in 1991, a tension has emerged between mass communication studies and media studies, and the further diversification of research fields has been encompassed by the expansion of research subcommittees.

In addition, the relationship between media studies and media literacy is complex, which is why there have been few opportunities for this society to engage deeply with practitioners in school education and civic activities. On the other hand, since the 1990s in Japan, the concept of "media literacy for senders" and practices based on it have been established by practitioners at broadcasting stations, but there is a twist in that scholars have been less involved here. Furthermore, now that the Internet has become widespread, the validity of the concept of media literacy itself, which assumes an oppositional relationship between senders and receivers, has come to be questioned.

In order to face these issues, JAMS needs to consider not only further activation of its research activities but also its administrative activities.

    Computer technology as an aspect of communication media has been evolving since the 1970s. This study discusses the history of evolution of the media system that was institutionalized while new technologies were being incorporated. The originality of this study is its focus on Stafford Beer, a communication scientist grounded in the British system theory and his philosophies and activity as one of the founders of design theory. In the 1970s, Japan witnessed exceptional research in studies based on mass media and the information society, but there was limited focus on Beer’s theory or practice. The absence of discourse regarding Beer in Japan has become a dynamis in design theory. It is challenging to evaluate Beer’s purely technical ideas and extremely abstract communication theories to interpret him in today’s society. Furthermore, his activity at the time reflected postcolonialism and imperialism as he lectured paradoxically title in the 1970s regarding "design freedom". This study elucidates how Beer subsequently influenced US design theorists and philosophers.

    What is food porn? What does it look like and why is a food image associated with pornography? Does the Japanese boom of "hae" (visually appealing) gourmet food and desserts equivalent to food porn? "Food porn" is a particular mode of representing food in which various techniques, such as contrasting colors, slow motion, close-ups, and framing, are used to exaggerate the food’s aesthetically pleasing aspect and affective impact on viewers. An image (a work or television program) that employs such techniques can also be referred to as food porn. After locating the topic within a larger theoretical framework of mediatization, this article explores the arguments of several well-known food porn research in the US and the UK. The launch of Food Network, a famous television station, in 1993 is considered by previous research as a significant backdrop for the industrialization of food porn. Chan (2003) uses the term "pornography" as a metaphor to describe typical plot lines and characters in food shows that are, in his view, similar to sexual porn. Kaufman (2006) extends Chan’s points by examining the shooting of a Food Network cooking show, audience demography, and the visual grammar of food programs parallel to sexual porn. McDonnell (2016) explains in detail the characteristics of the gaze constructed by, and the scheme of, food porn images. Ibrahim (2015) contextualizes the popularity of user-generated food images on SNS within everyday media practices. I agree with Ray (2007), who is suspicious of the use of sensational terms to critically analyze media representations of food. However, it is noteworthy that Japanese SNS users and cooking magazines employ in their food images the same visual techniques that are framed as food porn by McDonnell. Hypothetically, this might show that the typical way of portraying food in the Food Network shows has been disseminated so widely that it impacted people who do not directly watch their programs.

The purpose of this paper is to review the development of theoretical research in The Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication. Theoretical studies of mass communication in Japan began after World War II. In the course of theoretical interventions into the political and social situation of the time, mass communication theory in Japan relied heavily on mass society theory. This made it possible to articulate media effects theory and journalism theory into mass communication theory. In this articulating process, “the social” and “the political” have played the role of the nodal points. These nodal points connected mass communication theory with not only journalism and media effects studies, but also information society theory and cultural studies.

As media studies have developed, the situation has changed. Media studies has developed under the influence of theoretical fields that are different from traditional mass communication studies. In this paper, we call these theories of media studies as “media theory.” Mass communication theory has been unable to include or articulate with media theory. And media theory in Japan have excluded theories of mass communication studies such as journalism. As a consequence, theories of media and communication studies in Japan are fragmented, and the age of post-theory is about to arrive.

In order to solve this crisis, we need to reevaluate a theoretical significance of “the social” and “the political” as nodal points.

    The Japanese media studies, which originated in the early twentieth century, have experienced some transitions. These developments are reflected in the name changes of one of the most prominent Japanese academic societies for communication and media studies：The Journalism Society of Japan, established in 1951, was later renamed as the Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communications. It is currently known as the Japan Association for Media, Journalism and Communication Studies. In line with the latest change, recent Japanese scholars have been ceaselessly trying to specify the concept of Japanese media studies. Although several researchers consider media studies from the perspective of "medium" and technological transformation, only a few have paid attention to the scholarly works that can be correctively described as the "de-Westernization of media studies" and have been redefining media studies from a global perspective. Consequently, previous Japanese works seem to have failed to consider its fruitful implications. Considering this omission, this study first revisits the development of the de-Westernization of media studies and then examines its implications for understanding Japanese media studies.

The purposes of this paper are introducing the concept of ’mediatization’ to academics in Japan, and analyzing the process of the renaming of the Japan Society for Studies in the Journalism and Mass Communication (JSSJMC) in terms of it. In the first part of this article, I overview the discussions over the mediatization. Many researchers, especially in Northern Europe, have accepted mediatization as a key concept for understanding the contemporary media environment and the social and cultural changes due to it. Not only some researchers criticize the concept itself, however, there are some differences among researchers who support it. Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp distinguish ’social constructivists’ from ’institutionalists’ in their articles on mediatization. I focus on the controversy over the concept of ’media logic’ between Stig Hjarvard, the representative researcher of ’institutionalists’ camp and Couldry in order to clarify the point of contention between them. In the second part of this article, I attempt to analyze the transforming process of the JSSJMC to the Japan Association for Media, Journalism and Communication Studies (JAMS) partly in terms of mediatization. Because it is difficult to regard the process as the ordinary mediatization, I introduce the concept of the ’logic of academic media’ which is different from usual media logic, and discuss how this society has transformed themselves from its viewpoint. For this argument I explain the transformation of Journalism Society of Japan, which was founded in 1951, to the JSSJMC as the process in which the independence of the society from newspaper industry grew and the logic of academic media strengthened. In the age of ubiquitous media in the 21^st century, however, the logic of academic media forced the JSSJMC to face insurmountable problems and consequently it led the renaming to JAMS. Following these arguments, I suggest some important topics which each member of the JAMS should consider by themselves in the final part of this article.