Week 3 Blog Post for Media in Japan

 Japanese Media and the Freedom of Speech

“What do you think about freedom of speech in Japanese media?”

With this essential question in mind, this week’s discussion session about ‘freedom of speech’ relied on concepts/notions such as ‘censorship’ and ‘ideology’. Our group actively sought to share insights about the Japanese media culture and made comparative analysis between Japan and our home countries of Korea, and China.

We also talked about the ratings for the degree of freedom level. Interestingly, all our ratings were ranging in between 4 to 5, quite surprised by the fact that it turned out lower than expected. However, we had a hard time coming up with the reasons for such low ratings.

The highlight of our discussion was about the degrees of political freedom of speech in our home countries. The main topics were “how often do we see protests and petitions going on in our daily lives and how is the media covering those issues?”, “is the freedom of speech guaranteed by the government and the media?”, and “to what extent does the public feel comfortable to talk about what they wish to be told?” With all these matters surrounding the censorship, we had an active and productive discussion session.

Compared to other countries, I personally think that the freedom of speech for Korean media is well-guaranteed by the government, protected by the law and democratic cultural atmosphere. In the late 20th century, public willingness to speak up for unjust and unfair aspects of the society led to massive protests. People continue to unveil the anti-democratic aspects and speak up for the social elements that needs to be reformed.

Our group members were overwhelmed to find out about Korean news having independent sections dealing with discussions and debates about certain controversial topic. They were also surprised to know that it is quite common to see protests going on in Korea. To me, it seemed that China and Japan had a completely different media culture and political scenes. Then I was reminded of the notion of “initial-policing” and “self-policing” that was dealt within the class session. For China t was the matter of initial policing by the government and more of self-policing for Japan through their efforts to avoid confrontations and enjoy the vagueness.

It was interesting to learn how information and ideas can be manipulated and pushed by certain political powers and the media become an effective medium for such activism. However, as clearly mentioned within class, the results of censorship do not differ much. By strategically “choosing what to show and what to kill” ideologies are differently framed by the media through certain techniques. This logic oftentimes causes sentiments within diplomatic relationships. Therefore, sensitive issues are generated by the difference in how people would view, frame and make usage of the information. Media and texts become powerful and strategic tools to manipulate and justify favorable ideologies in pursuit of national interests. Long continued territorial dispute surrounding a single island (between Korea-Japan) as well as a relatively recent dispute about origins of Kimchi (between Korea-China) are some of the examples. What Japan’s media and textbooks state about the island largely differs from those of Korea’s. It is always overwhelming to hear completely different or contradicting ideas about the territorial dispute during conversations with my Japanese friends. more than ever, we are left with uncertainty of selecting what to accept and what to kill, as the media will continue to closely interact with people and penetrate our daily lives.