- Kato Hidetoshi's Data Base -
Communication Policies in Japan
Publication Date:199203
Book title: MEDIA, CULTURE, AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN [A COLLECTION OF PAPERS]
Publisher : National Institute of Multimedia Education
Communication policies are sets of principles and norms established to guide the behaviour of communication systems. They are shaped over time in the context of society's general approach to communication and to the media. Emanating from political ideologies, the social and economic conditions of the country and the values on which they are based, they strive to relate these to the real needs for and the prospective opportunities of communication.
Communication policies exist in every society, though they may sometimes be latent and disjoined, rather than clearly articulated and harmonized. They may be very general, in the nature of desirable goals and principles, or they may be more specific and practically binding. They may exist or be formulated at many levels. They may be incorporated in the constitution or legislation of a country; in overall national policies, in the guidelines for individual administrations, in professional codes of ethics as well as in the constitutions and operational rules of particular communication institutions.
The publication of this series has been undertaken as part of the programme adopted by the General Conference of Unesco at its sixteenth session, related to the analysis of communication policies as they exist at the different levels-- public, institutional, professional--in selected countries. The aim of the series is to present this information in a manner which can be comparable. Thus an attempt has been made to follow, as far as possible, a fairly similar structural pattern and method of approach which was agreed between the national institution undertaking the work.
Within this series of monographs the first five studies are devoted to European communication policies. Similar studies for Latin America have been published. These are now followed by policies carried out in Asian countries.
This survey of communication policies in Japan was carried out by Dr Hidetoshi Kato, a professor of sociology at Gakushuin University in Tokyo, at the request of the Japanese National Commission for Unesco.
This study is not an official document of the country it refers to. The views stated therein are the author's and do not necessarily represent the official Japanese views or those of Unesco.
Today's Japan is probably one of the most media-saturated societies in the world. As will be discussed in detail later, there are approximately 120 daily newspapers,1 6,500 television stations, 480 radio stations,2 50 weekly magazines, and 1,500 monthly magazines. In 1975, some 33,000 books were published with a total circulation of 800 million. An average household subscribes to at least 1.5 copies of newspapers every day, and nearly all households have at least one television set and more than two radio receivers.
Although broadcasting is licensed, there are very few legal restrictions on the free flow of communication. Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan clearly states that "Freedom of assembly and association as well as of speech, press and all other forms of expression is guaranteed. No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated."
This supreme guarantee of freedom of speech is the fundamental "communication policy" of contemporary Japan, and every effort is made to protect this basic democratic idea and ideal. Every Japanese citizen is free to express his or her opinion on any occasion, and government interference in the free flow of communication is, by definition, unconstitutional.
However, in both theory and practice, Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution is not always necessarily and unconditionally appreciated; other laws and regulations are often in conflict with it. There even seem to be conflicts within the framework of the Constitution itself. For example, Article 12 of the Constitution states that
The freedom and rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution shall be maintained by the constant endeavor of the people, who shall refrain from any abuse of these freedoms and rights and shall always be responsible for utilizing them for the public welfare.
In other words, freedom of speech and expression should not be "abused" and should be utilized for "public welfare". The concepts of "abuse" and "public welfare" are ambiguous and often subjective, and one may argue that certain news reports in mass media "abuse" the freedom of speech, or are against "public welfare". In this connection, many cases have been brought to court to examine the limits of the freedom of speech and expression. It may be worth while, therefore, to look into several of the court cases in which conflicting principles have been legally interpreted and clarified.
In 1953, the publisher and the translator of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover were sued by the police for publishing and distributing "obscene documents". The prosecutor insisted that the novel was "obscene" to the general public, if not to a sophisticated literary circle, and that therefore the "public display" of such a document constituted a crime defined in Article 175 of the Japanese Penal Code.3 The defendants, on the other hand, held that the prosecutor's interpretation of the Penal Code was both inappropriate and unconstitutional. After a series of disputes in the local court, in 1957 the case was brought to the Supreme Court, where the majority of judges agreed that the defendants were guilty. The final sentence of their findings said that
the freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution is not absolutely unconditional and should not be used against the public welfare and there is no question that the efforts to protect sexual order and to maintain basic standards of sexual morality are contained in the concept of public welfare.
It went on to say that freedom of expression was "under restraint of Article 12 of the Constitution, which prohibits the abuse of freedoms and views such freedoms in the light of public welfare". The questions whether Lawrence's novel was "obscene" or not and whether the decision of the Supreme Court was right or not caused a very controversial discussion not only among intellectuals but also in the mass media, but the important point was that the Supreme Court put priority on Article 12 rather than on Article 21 of the Constitution. In a word, the Supreme Court clearly recognized and declared that freedom of speech was not unlimited.
Following this famous precedent, crimes of "public indecency" became more frequent, in spite of the constitutional guarantee and of the opposing opinion of those who believed in the priority of Article 21 over the Criminal Code and other laws. Today, the most crucial issue in this field is the problem of pornographic materials in both print and the audio-visual media of communication. The Japanese police take the position that Article 175 of the Penal Code can, and should, be applied to pornographic materials, although certain intellectual and literary circles are demanding a complete "liberalization" of pornography on the basis of constitutional rights and freedoms.
Another area where the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech leads to legal conflict is that of defamation. Among hundreds of cases of defamation, a case between a young film actor and a weekly magazine will be introduced here as an illustration. The magazine published an article where the actor was reported as having an affair with an actress. The actor accused the magazine, saying that the news was totally false and that the editors had slandered him. The court, after careful investigation, ordered the defendant to put an "advertisement of apology" in major newspapers and to pay a solatium. This court judgement, made in 1969, became a judicial precedent for similar crimes of defamation. As in many other societies, Japanese magazines specializing in entertainment tend to publish sensational gossip about celebrities without factual evidence, and the court decision was viewed as an important warning against such irresponsible media practices. In making the decision, the judge applied Article 2304 of the Penal Code, which defines the crime of defamation.
A similar and much more famous case was that between a former government minister and a distinguished writer, in 1964. The former minister was a candidate for the governorship of Tokyo, but lost the election. His wife helped him, but divorced him after the election. The writer who was interested in the theme of love and politics, wrote a novel inspired by the incident (using fictitious name) but the reading public was well aware that the novel was based on actual facts. The former minister, displeased with the way the story had been constructed--a mixture of fact and fiction--appealed to the court on the grounds that his privacy had been invaded and that the public might have formed a misleading image about himself. The court recognized the writer's artistic achievement, but decided that he was guilty of giving the public a false impression of the former minister, who unfortunately passed away before the end of the case. The writer settled the case with the family of the deceased by paying consolation money.
The idea of "privacy" vis-a-vis freedom of expression became a public concern after this case which also raised another complicated and conflicting issue, because the right of access to information (the right to know) must also be recognized as one of the fundamental human rights in a democratic society. For example, the mass media and the general public want to know the facts about people who appear in the news (in political scandals, for instance). It is quite likely, however, that an individual will strongly resist invasion of his or her "privacy". As the editors of the Yomiuri Shimbun (one of the leading newspapers in Japan) stated in their article "Standards of Privacy", the protection of the secrecy of private life, as guaranteed in Article 13 of the Constitution5 and the "right to know",another constitution right, are like two parallel lines which never cross each other. The media in Japan today, therefore, are trying to find a crossing point by means of compromise, both individual and social.
Freedom of expression is also restricted in regulations for the protection of minors. On the national level, Article 61 prohibits the publication of the name, age, occupation, residence and any identifying characteristics of a juvenile who commits a crime or is prosecuted, in order to avoid possible future handicaps for that particular person. On the local level, most of the prefectural governments in Japan have established their own local ordinances to protect minors (those under the age of 18). The local regulations include prohibiting minors from attending certain films, purchasing certain printed materials, and being exposed to certain advertisements, so that the younger people can be given minimum protection against public indecency. Persons responsible for the distribution of such information, i.e. owners of cinemas, bookstores, etc., are penalized if they violate the regulations.
To summarize, communication policy in contemporary Japan is essentially a constitutional policy where freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed in so far as it does not conflict with other laws and regulations which specifically define the "abuse" of freedom and/or "public welfare". For obvious reasons, however, the interpretation of "freedom", "abuse", "defamation", and "public welfare" cannot be isolated from each particular socio-cultural and legal context, so that the definition of the relationships between them and priorities among rights have to await the decisions of the courts. It is difficult, therefore, to determine a single communication policy in contemporary Japan.
What has been consistent throughout the history of the dispute, however, is an appreciation of Article 21 of the Constitution, and, as Professor Masami Itoh of Tokyo University aptly said, "in the discussion of communication legislation, Article 21 of the Constitution is both the starting point and final goal".6
Indeed, Japan today, is one of the few countries where extraordinary efforts are being made to secure a free flow of communication. As we have seen already, except for the several specific areas where legal conflicts take place, Japanese citizens are free to express their ideas, and the Japanese public is very conscious of constitutional freedom. Furthermore, there are good reasons why the Japanese public today is so much concerned with the idea of freedom of speech.
As any standard textbook of modern history tells us, Japan from the middle of the nineteenth century until 1945 was more or less a totalitarian State where military power dominated. In those 100 years, there was no such thing as freedom of speech. Censorship was an everyday practice, and media and communication people who held liberal ideas were oppressed by the government. Indeed, many writers and editors who opposed the military regime were put in prison. On the popular level, too, people were more or less resentful of government interference and control over social communication. With such bitter experiences of the past, the Japanese people have been very appreciative of the freedoms guaranteed by the new Constitution which came into being in May of 1947. One of the fundamental reasons why the concept of "communication policies" is relatively unknown and sometimes unpopular with the Japanese, including even communication researchers, lies in the historical control over the free flow of communication. Therefore, the basic thrust of Japanese communication policy is towards the right to freedom of speech, and to keep government interference in communication processes to a minimum.
In the field of broadcasting, for technical reasons, a special law for licensing is in effect, but as we shall see in Chapter 3, broadcasters also are given constitutional rights and freedoms.
Japan is exceptional among Asian countries in the sense that it has achieved amazingly rapid economic growth in the past 100 years. There were many factors which contributed to such growth and development, but the communication policies upheld by the Japanese Government since the middle of the nineteenth century should not be neglected as one of the most effective and encouraging forces behind the modernization and industrialization of the country.
The political and socio-economic change which took place in Japan in 1868 is usually known as the "Meiji Restoration", but in great contrast to the conservative connotation of the term "restoration", what actually happened was a "revolution" comparable to many major revolutions in the West. First, its major goal was to abolish feudalism and the old class system. Secondly, those who took the initiative in this social change--people whose backgrounds were mostly lower-middle class--made drastic efforts to establish a highly centralized government in order to unify the whole country as a modern nation-State, which could not only defend itself from outside pressure but also catch up with the West. The leaders of the new government found in the Emperor an effective means of achieving the unification of the nation and finally succeeded in making him the sole and absolute symbol of the country. Using this symbol, they made the "revolution" a great success.
In order to centralize its power, the new Meiji Government enforced a radical land reform in 1872 with heavy taxation, which produced a tremendous amount of money for national finance. With this ample accumulation of money in hand, the government made investments in the military, heavy industry, education and many other basic sectors of the society. It is no exaggeration to say that the major enterprises of the early Meiji period were either totally or partially subsidized by the government.
In the process of this drastic social change, the government was well aware of the fact that the dissemination of information all over the country had a vital role, because an informed public was the basis for national consciousness and nationalism. With that philosophy and policy orientation in mind, the administrators of the Meiji Government began to promote the newspaper business. As early as 1872, the government enacted "newspaper regulation" (Shimbun Jorei). The preface to the regulations states that "the purpose of newspapers must be the enlightenment and the expansion of knowledge of the general public" and that "the newspaper report must be written in plain language. No unusual style nor uncommon vocabularies should be used". In a word, the new government was trying to encourage newspapers for the general public. While newspapers were private enterprises, very often they were sponsored, directly or indirectly, by high officials of the government. The central government as well as local government all over Japan subsidized newspapers by purchasing a substantial number of copies our of the government budget. In May 1873, the Ministry of Finance, mentioning the names of four specific newspapers, sent a memorandum to each local prefectural government saying that "since these papers carry the news, both foreign and domestic, and can help the progress of knowledge, the Ministry has decided to send copies of these papers each Prefectural government". The average circulation of the newspapers designated in the memorandum, according to Fumio Yamamoto,7 was a very modest number of around 1,000, and the ministry purchased 225 copies of each. In other words, the percentage of government subsidy, in terms of newspaper sales, was 22.5 per cent, but these guaranteed sales gave a sound basis for the newspapers. Moreover, those papers were able to sell more copies because the prestige of the government was behind them. Each prefectural government, following the pattern of the central government, also encouraged and subsidized local papers. High officials of the central government often visited local prefectures to emphasize the importance of newspaper publication as a vital force in making a new modern nation-State.
In 1871, new postal regulations were introduced which gave newspapers a special discount rate. At that time, there was no railway service; all mail was delivered by messengers, and therefore the rate was extremely high. But the Minister of Transportation of the day boldly ordered that only a nominal rate should be charged for authorized newspapers. According to his memoir, delivering a boxful of newspapers from Tokyo to other parts of Japan incurred a considerable loss to the government budget because of the special rate, but the government was confident about the value of newspaper delivery.
With these realistic policies, newspapers soon penetrated every corner of the Japanese islands. In order to increase public exposure to newspapers on the prefectural level, special social measures were taken. In some prefectures, the local government instituted an "assembly of newspaper reading". Though the literacy rate in Japan in the nineteenth century was very high, the price of a regular subscription to a newspaper was beyond the means of the average household. The local governments, therefore, distributed a copy of a newspaper to each village and appointed a priest or a schoolteacher as a "reader". An "assembly" was called regularly by the head of the village, and the "reader" read a copy of the latest newspaper aloud to the villagers, including women and children, who gathered at a temple or a school, to be informed of current happenings both domestic and international. Other prefectures established a number of "newspaper reading stations" where any individual could read the latest newspapers, free of charge.
In other words, an institutionalized "two-step flow of communication" was designed by local governments as well as the central government, and as a result the contents of a single copy of a newspaper were transmitted to hundreds of people. Indeed, the diffusion of information by newspapers was "amplified" through these social measures. Before long a substantial "informed public" was created by such channels, and once the public learned the importance of news media, private subscriptions to papers also increased. The newspaper business in Japan thus developed under the very ingenious protection policy of the Meiji Government. In fact, the major newspapers had become independent and commercially successful media before 1890.8
Encouragement, including subsidy, of newspaper publication, however, was given only to those papers which supported the policies of the government. And the governments, both national and local, suppressed relentlessly those papers which took views opposing their own. The opposition came from two sources. On the one hand, there were groups of people who still clung to the old feudal establishment purged by the new government. For obvious reasons, they resented the modernizing policies of the new government and began to express their conservative political stand through their newspapers. On the other hand, there was a small number of new liberal intellectuals who saw the Meiji Government as a totalitarian dictatorship. They were the advocates of democracy and criticized the centralized power as well as the tyranny of the new government officials. They also tried to appeal to the public and started their own newspapers.
The government naturally did not like to see these anti-government papers circulated among the public, and in 1876, established new regulations on newspapers along with a new law concerning libel and contempt. By this new legislation, a newspaper, if found to be critical of the government's policies or individual officials of the government, might be ordered to terminate its publication, and the editor or reporter of such a newspaper could be punished by imprisonment. Indeed, between 1876 and 1881, more than 200 editors and reporters were imprisoned because their news reports were found to be contrary to the regulations. Dissatisfied and angry, a group of editors and reporters who had published anti-government papers held an ironical "funeral ceremony for newspapers" at a Buddhist temple in 1877.
In order to conciliate frustrated but capable newspapermen, the government offered them high offices in the government, and many of them accepted such appointments. In a word, the government endeavoured to make all newspapers supportive of its policies, and the strategy was, on the whole, successful.
Censorship, of course, was in effect, and information unfavourable or harmful to the interests of the government was under strict control.
From the viewpoint of contemporary principles of democracy, the series of communication policies developed by the Japanese Government in the late nineteenth century was absolutely undemocratic and despotic. Indeed, it is quite true that the Japan of that period was a terrifying police State. But at the same time, it may be argued that in a period of transition to an industrial age, especially in an attempt to make such a transition within only several decades, strict control over social communication was inevitable. If there had been no government interference, it is doubtful whether the country could have been unified and consolidated as an industrial nation-State. The past communication policies of Japan, in this historical context, may be seen as an example of a social dilemma which many societies had to face during development.
Government control over communication continued in the field of Broadcasting as well. Immediately after the successful start of radio broadcasting in Pittsburgh in 1920, Japanese businessmen and technicians became keenly interested, and as early as 1922, several experimental radio broadcasting stations started operating. In 1923, some fifty-five applications for broadcasting licences were submitted to the Japanese Government. The Minister of Communication proposed that the applicants should merge and forme new bodies in three major cities in Japan, i.e. Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. The three stations thus founded started operating in 1925 as legally independent public corporations financed by private capital.
However, in the spring of 1926, the government ordered the three stations to consolidate into a single system called the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (Nihon Hoso Kyokai [NHK]) and nominated former officials of the Ministry of Communication as directors of the new corporation. In spite of strong resistance on the part of the broadcasters, government power finally forced them to consolidate, and they completed the network system in 1928. This was the beginning of NHK, the current public broadcasting system of Japan. NHK is a somewhat unique institution, in that it has been under direct government control but is still financed by private capital.
The year 1945 marked a new starting-point for Japan. As Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers on 15 August 1945, the county was occupied by military force, including those of the United States of America, the U.S.S.R., the United Kingdom, China, and others, but the hegemony of occupation policies was in the hands of the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (GHQ), dominated by the United States. In general, GHQ followed a policy of indirect control by giving instructions and orders to the Japanese Government as a way of materializing the principles of democratization of the country, as defined in the Potsdam Declaration. However, as far as communication policies were concerned, GHQ adopted direct control by means of "advice" and "suggestions" to those in communications, especially the mass media. On 10 September 1945, two days after the inauguration of GHQ, "A Memorandum on the Freedom of Speech and Press" was given to the Japanese mass media, stating that the restrictive laws and regulations on communication which had been in effect under the old regime were completely abolished and that freedom of speech and of the press was established. It emphasized the importance of such freedom as a vital force for democracy. The memorandum put an end to government control over communication which had lasted for a century.
However, the Japanese media were not given complete freedom of expression; quite contradictory to memorandum, GHQ also gave the mass media a "press code" as the standard of news reporting. Several items of the code prohibited any news report which was unfavourable to the occupation forces and their policies; for example, such incidents as automobile accidents, rape, or any act of violence involving occupation personnel were prohibited from publication.
Moreover, GHQ exercised censorship. Major newspapers were ordered to submit a proof copy before publication every day. Every news item was read by the officers of GHQ, and without their approval, could not be published. No reason was given when a news item was rejected. In other words, for the Japanese press, GHQ was a saviour in the sense that it abolished all the restrictions from which the media used to suffer, but at the same time, it imposed another series of restrictions. The "freedom of speech and press" during the occupation period was conditional. Censorship continued until the autumn of 1948, when GHQ recognized that the democratization of the Japanese press had been achieved. The same restrictions and censorship were applied to broadcasting as well. The contents of each programme had to be submitted to GHQ beforehand, and censorship in broadcasting continued until the summer of 1949. During this same period, private mail also was censored.
In the early period of occupation, GHQ was very sympathetic to those liberals and socialists who had been oppressed during the war; therefore, it was not only permissive but even encouraging towards socialistic ideas as a counter to the old military ideology. The publication of the Akahata (Red Flag), the party organ of the Japanese Communist Party, for instance, became legal under the occupation. But, as soon as the Korean War began in 1950, GHQ criticized the Akahata as an agent of aggressive world communism and ordered a purge of its editors. Furthermore its publication was suspended for an unlimited period because it reported that the Korean War was caused by provocation from United States military forces. At the same time, major news services, newspapers and broadcasting stations were ordered to discharge the Communist Party members among their employees, resulting in the purging of more than 700 media people.9
GHQ's control over broadcasting was also very restrictive. In September 1945, only a few days after the formal surrender of Japan to the Allies, the son of the man who had tried to establish the first radio station in Osaka in the early 1920s inaugurated a "preparatory office for the new broadcasting company". By the end of the same year, he and the editorial staff of the Mainichi newspaper had merged to establish a new station call the New Japan Broadcasting Company Limited. Their application for a licence was submitted to the Ministry of Communication.
In addition to this new company, several other groups were interested in broadcasting. In Nagoya, the president of the city's Chamber of Commerce, initiated Chubu Nihon Broadcasting Company Limited, and in Tokyo, the chairman of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, took the initiative in inaugurating the People's Broadcasting Company Limited.
Government officials were also looking into the possibilities of new broadcasting systems, since part of NHK's facilities had been confiscated by the occupation forces and GHQ was said to have a radical plan for reorganizing Japanese mass media. The Minister of Transportation and Communication foresaw the reform of NHK and the communication industry, and began to encourage the establishment of a new broadcasting system based on private capital. His idea was to make this new broadcasting system complement NHK, and the proposal was approved in a cabinet meeting in September 1945.
The proposal was then sent to GHQ for examination and seemed to be received with favour at that time. However, for months, GHQ did not respond to the prospectus; and when questioned the officers of GHQ repeatedly stated that the matter was "pending" or "under consideration". Indeed, GHQ officers had little time for or interest in the new broadcasting system, since they were more concerned with the reform of NHK.
On 11 December 1945, GHQ released a memorandum on the "reorganization of NHK" which suggested (a) the abolition of government control over the NHK organization; (b) the establishment of a new, autonomous public broadcasting system; and (c) the appointment of a new committee, representing the people of Japan, which would select the chairman of NHK and advise him. In addition to the memorandum, the GHQ officers stated orally that they were not considering permitting any private broadcasting, since democratization of NHK would be sufficient to respond to the new needs of the public. The committee suggested by the memorandum was organized. At that time, the idealism of the "new deal" prevailed at GHQ, which preferred to have more or less progressive (left wing) people in the committee. Conservative candidates recommended by the Ministry of Transportation and Communication were rejected. In a word, GHQ's policy was to make a revolutionary change in the organization and management of NHK, bringing in the most radical elements.
The committee nominated the chairman of NHK and made a series of recommendations for its reorganization. GHQ's orders and advice for NHK programmes were two-pronged: they instructed NHK to produce such anti-militaristic programmes as This Was the Truth, The People Who Defended Freedom, and School for the People; at the same time, they tried to introduce the American programming pattern--15-minute time-modules, entertainment such as quiz and participation programmes--which had not previously been known to Japanese broadcasting.
The minister who had initiated and encouraged the move towards the new free broadcasting systems, found himself in an awkward position under the GHQ reform policy in which the reorganization of NHK took priority over development of a new radio system, and he had to recommend that applicants for broadcasting licences petition directly to GHQ, since he had no authority as a co-ordinator between applicants and GHQ.
GHQ's reluctance to give broadcasting licences was some what understandable from the viewpoint of occupation policy. On 11 December 1946, GHQ asked the Joint Occupation Committee (consisting of delegates from China, the United Kingdom, the U.S.S.R., and United States for their decision on the broadcasting system of Japan under occupation. The committee's resolution was to maintain the status quo in Japanese broadcasting and not to permit any new broadcasting system. They agreed to maintain NHK, under the control of GHQ, as the only system. The Ministry of Transportation and Communication was advised by GHQ to confirm the cancellation of all applications for broadcasting licences and to report that the applications would be "kept on file".
The decision of the joint committee and GHQ was needless to say catastrophic for the people who had been working towards independent stations. In most of the preparatory offices in the broadcasting field, the initial capital was almost exhausted and investors lost interest. Moreover, on 4 February 1947, GHQ purged the central figures among the applicants because of their business activities during the war. Most of the offices, therefore, were disbanded, and the shareholders lost all their money.
In the midst of this despair, a few people did not give up but continued their efforts. For instance, a research team was organized to discuss the problems of commercial radio broadcasting under free competition, preparing for the day when commercial stations would be permitted.
The most important and effective continuing effort, however, was to be found in a resolution of the Judicial Committee of the Japanese Government which had been working on the reformation and interpretation of Japan's legal system. One of the basic issues was the reform of laws regulating communication. The Radio Act, which took effect in 1914, stated in Article 1 that "wireless means of communication shall be under the control of government" and that the minister may permit "private enterprise" only under special circumstances. NHK as a public corporation had been one of the exceptions where "special circumstances" were applicable. But the GHQ memorandum on the reorganization of NHK was obviously in conflict with the Radio Act, and furthermore, in Japan's new Constitution "freedom of communication" was described as one of the fundamental civil rights. The committee had to establish new laws which could accommodate both the Constitution and the memorandum and, while doing so, it came to the conclusion that the monopoly on broadcasting by NHK was not legally fair. Thus began a legal dispute between GHQ and Japanese Government. An official of the Ministry of Communication theorized that the monopoly of NHK might be necessary while Japan was under occupation, but in the post-occupation period radio broadcasting based on free competition could be the only hope for Japan.
On 16 October 1947, GHQ called a meeting with officials of the Ministry of Communication and gave its "final suggestion" in which the following four points were made clear:
The new broadcasting law should be based on:
(a) the freedom of speech;
(b) political neutrality;
(c) responsibility for public service; and
(d) maintenance of technical standards.
An autonomous public agency responsible for checking all broadcasting facilities should be established.
The agency should consist of a licensing division and its own broadcasting division to which NHK could be transferred.
Private commercial stations should be licensed.
The GHQ officials added that they did not have any intention of encouraging monopoly in broadcasting, and that they would rather suggest strongly that commercial stations be licensed at the time when "economic conditions of Japan permit such ventures". In other words, GHQ wanted to see the coexistence of both public and commercial broadcasting in Japan
This announcement flatly contradicted the memorandum issued less than a year before, stating that commercial broadcasting would never be approved. What factors had effected this policy change? As discussed in the preceding pages, "resistance" by Japanese Government and business was one of the factors; also, the conflict of occupation policy with the Japanese Constitution put GHQ in a difficult position. But there seem to have been certain internal changes in GHQ. First, GHQ became more and more conscious of Japanese public opinion. Japanese newspapers were very active in discussing the problems of broadcasting, and the opinion trends were carefully translated and studied by GHQ. Secondly, GHQ came to have a more or less optimistic perspective of Japan's future after two years' occupation, and was preparing for a "post-occupation" era. Furthermore, the U.S.S.R., whose position had been against any private broadcasting enterprise, lost much of its influence in the joint occupation committee and this enabled the United States to act more freely. In any event, the policy of GHQ changed some time between December 1946 and October 1947, and the move towards "free radio" was reactivated.10
The next step was to legislate a new "broadcasting law" in the Japanese parliament. The draft was prepared and submitted to parliament in June 1948. The proposed law consisted of 106 articles, but consensus was not reached between GHQ, the Japanese Government, and other interest groups concerned. In particular, government officials, except for the few who drafted the law, were either disinterested in or ignorant about commercial broadcasting. Most of the people were simply unable to imagine broadcasting solely dependent on advertising. Even the Minister of Communication of the day was not confident about the possibilities of commercial broadcasting in Japan. There were technical difficulties as well. An official of the Ministry of Communication reported to the communication subcommittee of parliament that Japan did not have any extra wave channels, and that future prospects for them were poor. Furthermore, a Ministry of Finance official testified before the subcommittee that the ministry was not ready to encourage the banking business to help broadcasting, and he implied that those who wanted to start a broadcasting business would have to do so with their own money.
The detached attitude of both government and parliament was a mystery, but according to a Ministry of Communication official, who explained it several years later, the government was instructed not to pass the law during the session but to postpone it until the following year.
In April 1949, GHQ suggested that two key officials of the Ministry of Communication go to the United States for a month-long inspection tour of American Broadcasting. This suggestion was very important because it made the possibility of commercial broadcasting seem more real and it also provided the opportunity for Japanese broadcasting to look to the United States for model. These two officials learned a great deal. One spent much of his time studying the Federal Communication Commission (FCC and licensing procedures, and the other, an engineer, made an extensive survey of area coverage and frequency allocations. Above all, they were impressed by the development of American broadcasting stations and became quite confident of the success of similar stations in Japan.
Upon their return to Japan, these two officials worked to modify the "broadcasting law" which had been pending since 1948 and, interestingly enough, this time GHQ was in support of the modified draft which emphasized a "broadcasting committee" (an equivalent of the American FCC). In the new draft, articles concerning the "radio code" disappeared and commercial broadcasters were assured full freedom of speech. In a word, the new draft was much more liberal than the one which had been submitted in 1948. And this time, those who opposed the draft were the government and NHK rather than GHQ. In fact, the Prime Minister of the day insisted that the chairman of the "broadcasting committee" had to be one of the ministers and that the Prime Minister had to have power over the committee. Because of his strong insistence, government activity on the law was stopped.
The draft was later submitted again to parliament. Although there was opposition from both the communist and socialist parties, the law, with slight modification, finally passed both upper and lower housed in April 1950 and took effect on 1 June of the same year. In Japan today, 1 June is celebrated as "radio day" (Denpa no hi). It took four years and eight months from the time the Minister of Transportation and Communication advocated the necessity of free radio until it materialized, and as described in the preceding pages, there were many vicissitudes both in occupation policy and government reactions.
The business world, which had lost both interest in and money for broadcasting, recovered; and once again many applications for licences were submitted. According to records, there were eleven applications as of September 1948, when the first draft was still pending, and the number increased after the beginning of 1949. The Ministry of Communication accepted another eleven applications before February 1949, another nine before September of the same year, and by February 1950, there were forty-five applications altogether. When the second draft was submitted to parliament, the number of applications had reached seventy-two. Of these, forty-two met the standard qualifications for applicants, and in April 1951, sixteen of them were licensed. The first Japanese commercial stations to start broadcasting were New Japan Broadcasting (NJB) of Osaka and Chubu Nihon Hoso (CBC) of Nagoya; they began their programme broadcasting almost simultaneously on 1 September 1951. From the conception of "free radio" in Japan until its realization, five years had passed; it had not been easy to achieve.
It will not be necessary to discuss the communication policies during occupation in greater detail, but it should be noted that freedom of speech and expression did not come instantaneously in post-war Japan. The military occupation period which continued until 1952 was the time when Japanese people, especially those in the mass media, experienced a strange kind of "freedom".
However, the government was somewhat uneasy because the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the majority party, felt threatened by possible violent subversive activities by left-wing parties. Therefore, after controversial discussion in the Diet, a new "Anti-subversive Activities Law" was passed in 1952. It states in its Article 3 that while the "law should not restrict the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution unduly", it is forbidden "to print, distribute, or display documents or pictures in public" which are aimed at provoking readers or viewers into taking subversive action (i.e. action to overthrow the government as defined by the Criminal Code). For example, the distribution of a document which suggests or provokes the bombing of a government building would be prohibited under this law. This was the first new legislation with potential for conflict with the constitutional freedom of speech and expression.
Another new law which bears importantly on communication policy is the Public Offices Election Law passed in 1950. In Japan, elections for public offices are basically financed by the national or local budget, and to give equal opportunities to each individual candidate, campaign communication must be fair and equal. Therefore, the law is extremely restrictive about campaign communication. For instance, a candidate for the House of Representatives cannot distribute more than 25,000 postcards provided by the Election Administration Commission, free of charge.11 The number of posters, their size, and the places where they may be displayed are clearly and strictly designated. Every candidate is allowed to utilize radio and television for campaigning, free of charge, on an equal time basis. Candidates are also given equal space in newspapers. Any violation of these regulations on campaign communication is punishable by imprisonment.
These arrangements were made to eliminate the differences between those candidates who could afford lavish campaigns and those who could not. In this particular case, the principle of equal rights is given priority over individual and theoretically unlimited freedom, and there has been little criticism of this particular aspect of communication policy.
However, the fact remains that the distribution of money among political forces is not equal, and thus the principle of equality in communication, especially in terms of political campaigns, is an extremely complicated matter. A good example occurred in 1972, when the LDP tried to buy newspaper space for a series of advertisements very openly attacking the Communist Party as a danger and threat to the national interest. The first reaction came from the media themselves. Some major newspapers, such as the Asahi, refused to run the advertisements on the basis that they would violate the political neutrality of the press. According to their theory, such partisan advertisements were in conflict with the principle of neutrality and equality , especially because opposition parties might not be able to afford to buy the same amount of space. They foresaw the possibility of serious political repercussions in this respect. Other papers, especially the Sankei, accepted and ran the advertisements upon the receipt of their regular advertisement fee on the basis of the "right to communicate" or "right of access". In their view, the press was an instrument to be used by all to express their views and opinions unless these conflicted with "public welfare" as defined by the Constitution; they concluded that a political party had naturally the right to communicate its ideas to the people through the media. They also added that they would be happy to run a counter-advertisement from the Communist Party if that party was willing to do so and to pay the regular advertisement fee. The question, on the part of the media, was one of priority between the principle of neutrality and the principle of free access.
The Communist Party reacted against the Sankei's position and protested strongly, saying that it violated the principle of equal opportunity. For the Communist Party, and other minority parties, the advertisements were a product of a conspiracy between capitalists supporting the LDP and media capitalists. The party, therefore, demanded a similar amount of space free of charge. The Sankei, in keeping with its original theory, categorically refused.
The case was brought to court by the Communist Party which demanded equal space. Tokyo District Court, however, dismissed the appeal in 1974 on the basis that an opinion might be published in the form of publicity and that the LDP's advertisement did not constitute a libel against the Communist Party. The Communist Party, unhappy with the court decision, demanded a revision and as of early 1977, the case was still under re-examination.12 It should be noted that this case reveals an important area where interrelated concepts such as equality, freedom, neutrality, and public welfare conflict with each other, both in theory and practice. Indeed, even those media which emphasize neutrality may be challenged, for instance, by consumers who claim equal opportunity with big manufacturers trying to sell their products through their advertisements. Furthermore, it is often difficult in reality to discern what is political and what is not. For example, electricity companies in Japan today are spending considerable amounts of money to persuade the people through the mass media of the necessity of atomic power as the future energy resource. These companies feel they have to do this because of the strong public opinion against such a venture. As in many other countries, some groups of scientists and engineers are opposed to the use of atomic energy at this stage. In this social context, it may be argued that the electricity companies' advertisements on the issue of atomic energy are essentially political. In fact, it is evident that LDP is supporting the early use of atomic energy and that the opposition parties are against the idea. In a word, the use of nuclear power is an ideological and partisan issue. Can newspapers insist on their political neutrality while selling their space to electricity companies for such advertisements?
To give another illustration, there is the problem of public relations activities on the part of the government, on both the national and local levels. The Government of Japan, divided into dozens of ministries, is spending an equivalent of approximately U.S.$70 million a year on public relations. The government, of course, has a responsibility to tell the people what it is trying to do, and it spends the budget allocated for public relations on the mass media. But here again, it is rather difficult--almost impossible--to prove that such administrative public relations activities are not political. The administrative departments of the government are simply agents who put what legislative authorities decide into practice, and since the legislature (parliament) makes its decisions based on democratic rule, theoretically speaking, there is nothing wrong about government public relations activities. In fact, most themes in such campaigns are so neutral or even moralistic that nobody can argue about their political implications. For example, the ministries have urged the people, through the mass media, to conserve energy, protect the ecosystem, drive carefully, use contraceptives, and accept many other "policies" about which everybody would agree for obvious reasons. But on controversial legislative decisions, the opposition parties and their supporters could say that related public relations activities were nothing but propaganda for the LDP. In this respect, the political neutrality of the media can be considered another crucial issue in the public communication policies of contemporary Japan. The issue is less crucial in the case of printed media, however, because newspaper publishing is a free enterprise and is expected to be a partisan medium of communication. A political party, a labour union, and any interest group can, if it wishes, issue any kind of publication for information or propaganda purposes on its own behalf. At least two political parties in Japan today, the Communist Party and Komeito (a radical Buddhist-oriented party), have been quite successful in publishing their own party organ on a daily basis, each with a circulation of more than a million. Being daily newspapers, they qualify for several privileges such as special postal rates. In other words, there can exist an unlimited number of newspapers and other forms of printed media, and there is no reason why a newspaper should be neutral, though neutrality and objectivity may be essential selling points for a commercial newspaper with a huge nation-wide circulation.
The real problem of neutrality and "public interest" is in the area of broadcasting, because the channels of communication in the electronic media are very limited in number for technological reasons. Indeed, the dominant legal interpretation held by Japanese jurists is that radio waves with limited channel capacity are a part of public property to be shared by the public at large.13 A radio or television station, therefore, should not belong to a private party and should not represent any private and/or partisan interest. The Broadcast Law which came into effect in 1950 clearly states that a broadcasting station must serve the general public interest and that licences will be given only to those selected applicants who are qualified to serve that fundamental interest. After careful studies of the institutional and administrative aspects of licensing in broadcasting, Japan decided to follow a modified American FCC pattern: according to the Radio Wave Act (1953), a person who wishes to establish a broadcasting station must submit an application to the Minister of Communication, and the minister's advisory committee, consisting of five "knowledgeable persons", reviews the application. Only if the applicant is found to be qualified does the minister give a broadcast permit. Retention of the licence requires compliance with the principles described in the Broadcast Law.
Article 1 of the Broadcast Law defines three basic rules by which broadcasting is controlled to act in the public interest: (a) broadcasting must bring its usefulness to the public through maximum diffusion of information; (b) broadcasting should not be politically or ideologically biased, but should protect its freedom of expression by assuring truthfulness and exercising self-control; and (c) broadcasting should contribute to the desirable development of democracy, with broadcasters remaining aware of their social role. To the extent that broadcasters do not deviate from these standards, they will not be interfered with or controlled.
If someone claims that a particular broadcast gave information that was not true and thereby violated his rights, the broadcaster is required to complete an investigation within two weeks. If the information is found to be false, the broadcaster must make a public announcement correcting or cancelling it.14 The complainant can also claim monetary and other kinds of compensation, according to the civil code. The issue of "truth", therefore, is under the strict control not only of the law but, through it, also of the general public.
The basic institutional characteristic which makes the Japanese broadcasting system unique is the fact that it is a "mixed system, i.e. one in which non-profit-making public broadcasting and commercial broadcasting coexist. As discussed earlier, broadcasting in Japan was under the direct control of the government from 1920 till 1947, and NHK, a public corporation, was the sole broadcaster in Japan; commercial broadcasting was added to NHK as a new licensee. However, in the post-war socio-political change, NHK could not continue to exist as before, and had to be "democratized". The democratic nature of NHK was made clear in Chapter 2 of the Broadcast Law, where it was defined as a corporation which broadcasted to "every corner of Japan " for the purpose of public welfare. Under the law, the decision-making of NHK is in the hands of a "managing committee" on which various sectors of the society must be represented. The committee members are appointed by the Prime Minister, upon the approval of parliament, and of the twelve committee members, eight must represent different locations in Japan, and four are chosen "at large" from throughout the nation. At the same time, the members must also represent such professional areas as education,science, labour and industry. In a word, the committee must represent a fair cross-section of the whole Japanese society. No civil servant, executive or employee of another media organization can be appointed as a committee member. The president of NHK is appointed by the committee.
Institutionally speaking, NHK is therefore strictly under public control, and efforts have been made to keep the corporation independent from the government. Since the managing committee is the representative of the whole population of Japan with the approval of parliament, its decisions are regarded as public decisions, and thus the general public is supposed to be participating in NHK's policy-making. With these premises, Article 32 of the Broadcast Law states that "Those who own receiving equipment which can receive NHK's broadcasts must make a receiving contract with NHK"; this contract requires a person to pay a monthly subscription fee. The amount of the subscription fee, as well as the whole annual budget of NHK, must be reviewed and approved by parliament through the Ministry of Communication. As of 1976, subscribers to NHK's colour television and radio (both AM and FM) inclusive, totalled 20 million, with black-and-white television, AM and FM subscribers at 5.2 million. These figures indicate that approximately 80 per cent of Japanese households (32 million) are paying subscription fees, and since some 2 million households are exempt from the contract for reasons of sickness, physical handicaps, poverty, and difficulty in reception of broadcasting, it is safe to say that almost every Japanese household is under contract with NHK. According to Toshio Kataoka, 97 per cent of those who made the contract paid the fee,15 which is 710 yen (U.S.$2.40) a month for colour and 420 yen (U.S.$1.40) for black and white. The total annual revenue of NHK, by simple mathematical calculation, is some $500 million. Yet, because of inflation, in 1975 the budget had a deficit of some $6 million, and an increase in the subscription fee and other measures are being considered. There is no doubt that NHK is one of the largest public broadcasting corporations in the world.
In return for the subscription fee, NHK is obliged (a) to meet with public expectation by presenting rich and good programmes which can contribute to the betterment of cultural standards; (b) to produce local programmes as well as nation-wide programmes; and (c) to contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage and to the creation of a new cultural tradition (Article 44).
At present, NHK has five major channels of broadcasting: (a) general television, eighteen hours every day (including ninety minutes of local programming); (b) educational television, for school and general education, eighteen hours every day; (c) the "1st radio", general programming, nineteen hours daily (including two hours of local programming); (d) the "2nd radio", mostly educational, eighteen hours; and (e) FM radio, with news, information, and music, eighteen hours (including approximately two hours of local programming). Also, on the instructions of the Minister of Communication, NHK engages in international broadcasting, thirty-seven hours a day aiming at eighteen different regions of the world and using twenty-one different languages. The costs of international broadcasting are covered by the appropriate government budgets, and no portion of the subscription fees is used for this category.
In spite of general agreement and support, the nature of the subscription fee has been a continuing topic of discussion among jurists. In general, the fee is interpreted as a special public allotment from each individual receiver to maintain the activities of NHK, but there is scepticism about the compulsive nature of the contract, and a small (even negligible) group of people refuse to pay the subscription fee. Hiroshi Soh, an expert on broadcasting institutions, looking at this veto-group, wrote that refusing to pay the fee might violate the principle of equal sharing and suggested administrative punishment for those who do not pay.16
Commercial broadcasters, in comparison with NHK, have far fewer restrictions on their activities. They are obliged to provide programming wellbalanced between (a) educational and cultural; (b) news reporting; and (c) entertainment programmes. On the average, as of 1975, the ratios of these three categories were 25.6 : 13.0 : 61.4 (total 100 per cent) for radio and 36.7 : 11.6 : 51.7 for television, though the definitions of the categories, especially "educational and cultural", are somewhat ambiguous and tend to be arbitrary. Commercial broadcasters are prohibited from placing commercial messages in the educational programmers for school.17 By law, each commercial broadcasting station, as well as NHK, must have a "programme review board" as its advisory organ. The boards consist of learned people, and usually, each board meets once a month. The advice given and recommendations made by the board do not have any compulsory authority, but the president of each station must take the advice in consideration for further planning and programming. Other than these specific restraints, commercial broadcasters are free in their programming, though they follow the self-regulatory rules and standards which will be discussed in Chapter 5. Commercial broadcasting is totally dependent upon advertising for revenue, and in 1975, the total revenue was the equivalent of $1,500 million.
Commercial broadcasters are independent of each other, but most of them are affiliated in networks. There are four major networks in Japan: Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), Nihon Television (NTV), Nihon Kyoiku Television (NET), and Fuji Television (CX). With two NHK channels (general and educational) in major urban areas in Japan today, the public can select from six television channels. However, because of Japan's mountainous geography, there still remain approximately 0.8 million households which do not have good reception, and efforts are being made by the Ministry of Communication in co-operation with NHK and commercial broadcasters to install more relay stations, often in combination with CATV.
As discussed in preceding chapters, the fundamental philosophy of communication policy in Japan is freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the Constitution, although there are many legal conflicts, both explicit and implicit, between this constitutional right an other laws. In this social context, the most important factor in communication practice consists in the autonomous and self-regulatory policies adopted by the media. The media, for obvious reasons, should not "abuse" their right or contradict the principle of "public welfare". Unless media themselves are aware of and accept their social role and responsibilities, freedom may mean chaos and anarchy. Unless media maintain a consistent philosophy of their own, they may contribute to the destruction and degeneration rather than to the encouragement and development of democracy. In order to make their function clear and to avoid undesirable legal and moral conflicts, the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association adopted "The Canons of Journalism" in 1946 which "stress the spirit of freedom, responsibility, fairness and decency" in defence of the press as "a vital right of mankind". But at the same time, the association felt that certain "voluntary restraints" were necessary to achieve the goals of a free press in a democratic society. The "voluntary restraints" described in the canons are as follows:18
Emphasizing the responsibility of the press, the canons also recognize the strong impact of newspapers in shaping public opinion and conclude that "newspapers and journalists, when they fail to observe these principles, will invite public condemnation and disapproval by other papers and journalists and in the end will be unable to operate or work" and that the members of the association "should make efforts to co-operate and maintain a higher ethical standard by promoting their moral unity, guaranteeing free access to news materials and assisting each other in newspaper production".
Similar self-regulatory measures were taken by broadcasters. NHK, being a public broadcasting corporation, naturally adopted very strict codes in order to achieve its goals as described in Chapter 4. Commercial broadcasters were also aware of their social responsibilities, and the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters (NAB) in Japan established its own radio broadcasting standards in 1951 and television broadcasting standards in 1958. These standards were consolidated in 1970 under the name of broadcasting standards, and the members of NAB are obliged to follow them. In the preface, the standards define the objectives of commercial broadcasting in Japan as "the development of culture, the betterment of community welfare, and contribution to the prosperity of industry and commerce" and stress the necessity "to respond to the trust placed in us by society, without fear of reprisal, abiding by the right of the freedom of speech and expression, ever in the spirit of democracy". The standards are divided into sixteen chapters containing in all some 140 detailed articles but the six basic principles are as follows:19
To respect fundamental human rights, and to strive for the promulgation and establishment of democratic principles.
To respect and abide by legal and social codes, and strive for the stability of social life.
To take into consideration effects upon youth and the family and to strive for the proper education of the new generation.
To strive for the progress and development of education and culture.
To provide information essential to social life, as well as healthy entertainment, contributing to a wholesome life structure.
To strive to provide commercials which are honest in content and beneficial to the broadcast audience.
The ratio of commercial messages to total broadcasting hours is not to exceed 10 per cent, so that the public shall not be exposed to excessive commercials. Also, the standards give as many as fifty specific restrictions on the contents of commercial messages; for example, publicity about medicine or cosmetics should not conflict with particular administrative laws and regulations of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. Advertisements from real-estate brokers who are not legally registered by each prefectural government and approved by the Ministry of Construction should not be accepted by the broadcasters.
Though not explicitly described in the standards, commercial broadcasters usually maintain "sustaining" programmes which are free from commercial sponsors in order to maintain their autonomy and independence. The ratio of "sustaining" programmes varies by station, but according to recent figures, on the average, commercial broadcasters in Japan keep 26.9 per cent of radio and 13.4 per cent of television broadcasting hours for such "sustaining" programmes.20
Other than the standards adopted by the members of NAB, each individual broadcasting organization usually has its own codes and standards, depending on its philosophy, locality, and other factors, and often in accordance with prefectural regulations and ordinances.
In view of the tremendous impact of the mass media, especially electronic media, upon the younger generation,21 as far as the standards are concerned, broadcasters are extremely cautious about the contents of their programmes, especially in terms of sex and violence. Article 67 of the standards says that "matters relating to sex should be expressed in such ways as not to cause feelings of unpleasantness or consternation". Articles 55 and 56 read "Expressions of violence, regardless of their intent, shall be handled in an unfavourable, negative light" and "Expressions of violence shall be limited to minimum".
In spite of the ethical restrictions so clearly stated in the standards, and in spite of the advisory functions of programme review boards for broadcasters as prescribed in the Broadcast Law, broadcasters tend to exercise liberal and often arbitrary interpretations of self-regulatory restrictions, since the broadcasting business is very competitive in terms of "ratings". As many critics have pointed out, and as many laymen claim, the programme contents of contemporary commercial broadcasting, both radio and television, are full of sex and violence. Indeed, the public often may wonder if the broadcasters are aware of the existence of the standards.
In order to check the contents of broadcasting programmes on behalf of the public interest, an organization, Broadcasters Council for Better Programming, was established in 1965. The council is funded jointly by NHK and NAB, and consists of learned people outside of the broadcasting business who represent the public interest. The council meets every month solely to discuss the contents of current programmes and to plan better programming. The official records of the council, usually containing criticism and recommendations, are distributed among broadcasters. Because of the third-person nature of the council, the contents of its monthly bulletin are generally candid and persuasive, but the council's recommendations and resolutions are only for the reference of broadcasters and do not have any binding authority. Each broadcaster is simply expected to respect and preferably comply with such monthly recommendations.
Self-regulatory measures taken by mass media are often problematic and sometimes controversial. For example, when a television station produced a documentary programme of the war in Viet Nam early in the 1970s, the station's management decided not to put the programme on the air on the grounds that certain parts were too bloody and might upset the audience's feelings. The station's labour union, on the other hand, insisted that the public should be informed of the realities in Viet Nam, and further accused the management of being afraid of possible pressure from the United States. According to the union, the management's self-control was excessive and eventually might mean a surrender of its power.
One classical example took place in this connection in 1968 when a newscaster of one of the broadcasting companies criticized the construction plan for the new Tokyo international airport during his news programme. The president of the company spoke against the newscast, saying than an employee's freedom of speech and expression was subject to the policies of the company, and that individual freedom as a constitutional right must not be confused with the freedom of a responsible broadcasting company which had to comply with the standards. The company union supported the newscaster's position but, finally, he left the company and was elected a member of the Upper House of the Diet, representing the Socialist Party.22
These instances raise a complex legal problem of "editorial right". As early as 1947, the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association adopted a resolution that the ultimate "editorial right" was in the hands of the management executives or managing editors to whom managerial authorities were delegated. The implication of this resolution was that individual reporters of the press had to comply with the policies and decisions, either explicit or implicit, of the management. The "editorial right" issue has been crucial for newspaper publishers, since many unionized employees had demanded editorial participation in the process of democratization in postwar Japan, and whenever reporters submitted stories which were contrary to the managerial policies, the publishers tended to exert the "editorial right" over such stories.
The "editorial right", essentially based on the ownership of media, has been challenged repeatedly not only by labour but also by legal experts. Though the "editorial right" has often been exercised when publishers found that their employees were politically "biased" and that such biases were a threat to the principle of neutrality, theoretically the publishers also may well be "biased". Shinjiro Yamane, for instance, argued that "the sources of editorial right are Articles 12, 13 and 21 of the Constitution" and that the media employees "are endowed with the right and duty not to report information which conflicts with public interest, even when ordered by the employers to do so".23 Similarly, Tamiya and Tsuganezawa, in their writing, took the position that the nature and function of "editorial right" was both philosophically and legally doubtful because (a) under the concept of "editorial right", freedom of speech may simply mean the freedom of owners and managers of the media, and (b) the "editorial right may restrict the 'right to know' and further may violate Constitutional rights of the public at large".
Certain media, however, solved this intricate problem by separating economic ownership and editorial management. For instance, as early as 1919, the Asahi Shimbun, one of the most influential newspapers in Japan,adopted a resolution at its shareholders meeting which said that "shareholders cannot interfere with the contents of editorials and stories published in the paper must be based on the separation and independence of editorial management from capital".
Another solution, which has been adopted by some media, especially newspaper companies, is to have 100 per cent of their stock shared exclusively by the "insiders", i.e. employers as well as employees. According to Shinichi Itoh,24 sixteen out of ninety-six major newspapers in Japan are following this pattern. In other words, the Japanese media today are trying to protect themselves from pressures, including the pressures related to economic ownership of the media business. There is still another problem, and that is the relationship between the media and the public. In short, the problem can be defined as a dilemma between "reflective" and "directive" theories, According to the "reflective" theory, the media are supposed to reflect public opinion and taste, and therefore have to present whatever the majority of the public wants. This theory, of course, serves to justify the "rating" competition among broadcasters, for instance, If the "rating" of a programme is 30 per cent, it may mean that the programme is offering more to the public than one with a "rating" of only 3 per cent. The broadcaster may insist that the higher rating figure is an index of popularity which, in his opinion, means better service to the public, regardless of the contents and quality of the programme.
On the contrary, those who believe in the "directive" theory would argue that the fundamental function of the media is to improve public and taste. For example, according to the "directive" theory, a good, sophisticated programme, even if the rating is 0.3 per cent, is serving the public much better than a low-brow popular programme with a rating of 30 per cent. While the "reflective" theory tends to be another example of Gresham's Law that the bad drives out the good, the "directive" theory faces the dangers of more or less dogmatic value judgements. The media, consequently, must seek certain compromise points between these incompatible theories, and this task is a difficult but inevitable part of the policy-making process of the media.
6. Problem of Communication as a Profession
One of the most crucial issues for the Japanese mass media and journalists vis-a-vis "the powers", especially government authorities, has been the problem of confidential information sources. As part of the universal ethical code of the journalistic profession, journalists, including newspaper reporters, producers, etc., feel that the confidential information source is vitally necessary for news gathering and that the right to maintain such secrecy must be unconditionally guaranteed and protected. In general, therefore, people engaged in the journalistic profession do not reveal their information sources under any circumstances.
However, in some instances, government agencies demand to know the identity of sources when they consider this information vital to national security, public welfare, or other areas of public interest. To make the problem areas clear, several cases will be introduced in the following paragraphs for illustration.
A classic example is a case known as "the rejection of testimony" by a reporter of the Asahi Shimbun, in 1952.25 The incident began in 1950 with an article about bribery involving an officer of the Tax Revenue Office in Matsumoto District. The reporter wrote the article transcribing the contents of warrant before the officer was even arrested. The district court was disturbed because the information could only have come through a "leak" by the police force, obviously constituting a crime under the strict laws regulating the behaviour of civil servants. Therefore, the court ordered the reporter to reveal the information source so that proper and prompt action could be taken against the possible suspect inside the police force. The court summoned the reporter to testify, but he refused to name the person, insisting that the secrecy of an information source was a part of the ethics of the press. The court found the reporter guilty for his refusal to testify and fined him. The reporter, dissatisfied with the court decision, appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that in order to have freedom of speech, a reporter had to have freedom with regard to the means by which he gathered the necessary information and that confidential sources of information were vital to the maintenance of such freedom. After careful examination of the case, however, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The Supreme Court decision recognized certain exceptions from "the duty of testimony", such as the professional secrecy of medical doctors, but stated that the law regulating criminal suits could not extend such exceptions to include newspaper reporters. The decision stated that "Article 21 of the Constitution simply guarantees freedom of speech and expression equally to the Japanese citizen and does not assure any exceptional guarantee to the journalists", that the article could not be interpreted "as protective of the right to refuse to testify in the sacrifice of the duty to testify when it bears vital importaof judicial authority working for public welfare".
In a word, the decision gave priority to the concept of "fair trial" over "freedom of information", including confidential sources of information. For reporters, this case raised a problem of serious conflict between their ethical and legal duties, and this Supreme Court precedent became one of the most controversial subjects not only among journalists but also among jurists and communication researchers.
A similar incident occurred in 1969, when Fukuoka District Court ordered four broadcasting stations in the area to give it certain news films which would help the proper and prompt action of the police force.26 Each station had had a news camera crew at Fukuoka railway station in 1967 when a violent demonstration had taken place involving destruction of public buildings and injury of people. The police on the spot, naturally, arrested, the individuals who used violence. However, since it was a mob action, certain individual identifications were extremely difficult. The police, therefore, wanted to have access to the candid news film, where what actually happened had been objectively recorded, so that they could carry out police procedures in accordance with the Criminal Code. The court, consequently, asked the broadcasters to submit the films as evidence early in 1969. The broadcasters, however, declined to present the films on the basis that it would interfere with the information-gathering activities of the media in the future, since the public and/or information sources did not expect that film might be used as court evidence. The media further insisted that such a precedent might cause distrust of the media on the part of the public who had the "right to know". And again, Article 21 of the Constitution was used to justify the media's position.
Fukuoka District Court dismissed the media's protest, and the case was brought to the Supreme Court in November 1969. The Supreme Court paid due respect to the freedom of the press, including the freedom to gather information, and further recognized that the primary function of news film was for broadcasting and that it might be inconvenient to the media if such film was used as evidence for a criminal court. "However", the decision said, "the freedom of information gathering does not imply that such activities are completely free from any restriction" and "under a Constitutional postulate such as the support of the concept of fair trial, a certain degree of restraint may be imposed upon the freedom of the media in conducting these activities." After these general remarks, the Supreme Court referred to this particular case and said:
More than two years have passed since the crime was committed, and the accurate identification of both suspects and victims is even more difficult....The films taken by the broadcasters from neutral angles on the spot, therefore, have importance of indisputable value for proving whether the suspects under arrest were guilty or not. Especially in view of the fact that the films under question had already been broadcast to the public, the contents of the films cannot be regarded as confidential or secret.
In brief, the Supreme Court dismissed the protest and justified the decision made by the District Court.
The issue was again the question of priority between the right to fair trial and the right to freedom of the mass media, and the Supreme Court concluded that the former was more important to the public interest. The decision was supported by many jurists, while the media, supported by other scholars, were dissatisfied with it.
Another precedent related to the freedom of news gathering is sufficiently noteworthy to be introduced here. In 1952, a photographer of a local newspaper in the Hokkaido district, took photographs in a court room during a murder trial. The court notified the press that photographs should not be taken during the court session, and that cameras might be used only before the trial began. In spite of this precaution and the judge's order, the photographer jumped to the judge's seat and took pictures of the defendant. The court fined the photographer for causing interruption and disorder in the court room. The photographer appealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that as a reporter he had freedom to gather information and that the court deprived him of his freedom. Legally speaking, the Criminal Procedure Code, in its Article 215, stipulates that permission is necessary for those who want to take photographs, but the photographer in this case challenged the article as unconstitutional, since it restricted the freedom of news gathering.
The Supreme Court ruled that the purpose of Article 215 of the Criminal Procedure Code was to keep order in a court room and to protect the fair interests of the defendants and others involved, and that the article was not unconstitutional. Moreover, in this case, the Supreme Court decided that "information gathering" consisted of "preparatory activities" for "actual reporting" and that these two stages had to be distinguished. In discussing this particular decision, Kinuko Kubota, a law professor, pointed out that in the phase of "information gathering", there were often potential conflicts with the right and freedom of other parties which had to be adjusted before publication, and therefore, the freedom of "information gathering" was a freedom approvable by the Constitution, which was different from the "freedom of speech and expression" guaranteed and protected by the Constitution.27
Since similar incidents involving photographers and court trials took place often even after this Supreme Court ruling, and in order to avoid unnecessary friction, the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association reached an agreement with the judicial authorities regarding news photographers' activities in the court rooms. The agreement contains the following rules: (a) News photographers are permitted to take pictures for a period of 3 minutes before a session begins; (b) the types of photographic equipment are limited to small cameras with minimum noise; (c) no artificial lighting should be used in court rooms; and (d) the number of photographers must be kept to a minimum.
The most recent and the most problematic judicial case involving a newspaper reporter was the case known as "the leak of confidential government documents".28 Early in 1971, when negotiations about the return of sovereignty area Okinawa to Japan from the United States were in progress between the two governments, a reporter of one of the leading newspapers approached a secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and obtained copies of confidential documents from her. The "leak" of the information was revealed, and the Public Prosecutor's Office prosecuted the reporter and the secretary. Since civil servants were prohibited by the National Public Service Law from disclosing secret information to unauthorized persons, the secretary was tried and found guilty by Tokyo District Court in 1974. She did not appeal against the decision and was dismissed from her position. In the same court decision, the reporter was found not guilty because he was merely a recipient of the information. The Prosecutor's Office, however, appealed to the Tokyo District High Court on the grounds that the manner in which the reporter had solicited the information from the secretary, involving sexual seduction, could not be considered as a normal and regular information-gathering activity of media reporters, and that the reporter also was guilty. The District High Court, after two years of careful re-examination of the case, decided that the reporter's activities went beyond normal news gathering, that he apparently suggested that the secretary leak the information, and that thus his activities were contrary to the law. The District High Court's decision was made in May 1976, and the reporter, who was found guilty, appealed to the Supreme Court. As of early 1977, the case is still under examination by the Supreme Court.
In short, there have been conflicts between the media and government authorities in many respects; some of these conflicts constituted court cases where the media's rights of freedom of speech and expression were found to be restricted by other related laws and certain compromises were imposed upon journalists. Despite the many self-regulatory measures discussed in Chapter 5, the mass media in Japan have been faced with one new legal problem after another. The relationship of the media with the public authorities is a dynamic process in which the nature and function of the media are continuously re-examined. The communication professions are, therefore, not easy ones.
Certain remarks should be made here with regard to the organizational aspect of Japanese mass medial As known among communication researchers, the Japanese, mass media are often "big business", and this includes NHK. Of course, there are many local papers with a circulation between 100,000 and 200,000, but they are minor papers as far as circulation is concerned, because in Japan newspapers are often "super-mass" media. the circulation of the "big three"--Asahi, Mainichi and Yomiuri--is somewhere between 6 million and 7 million each, morning and evening editions included. No newspaper in the world can compete with the "big three" except Izvestia, which has an 8.5 million daily circulation.
The "big three" have some 10,000 employees each, and NHK has more than 30,000. Their activities, other than regular publishing or broadcasting, are diversified and unusual. One newspaper owns a baseball team and an amusement park. Another has been sponsoring inter-high school baseball on a national scale every summer. Another newspaper sponsors an archaeological expedition to the Near East, and yet another runs a medical centre as a public service. It is almost institutionalized for NHK to sponsor visits of eminent artists, such as the entire New York Philharmonic Orchestra or the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow. To outsiders, the media industries in Japan may seem to be a kind of charitable organization, a foundation supporting cultural and academic ventures, entertainment and sports. Among commercial broadcasting stations, there are some which own such subsidiary enterprises as recreation parks, hotels, taxis, real estate, etc.
The "big three" newspapers and NHK are enormous organizations, and they are still expanding. Many technological innovations also are being introduced. Newspaper branch printing offices in remote places such as Kyushu or Hokkaido are receiving electronic signals from Tokyo headquarters, permitting whole pages of the Tokyo edition to be printed simultaneously in the local printing offices.
The centralization of media in Japan has had another effect, that is, the decline of local media. Until the turn of the century, Japanese media were essentially local. The transportation of bulky papers was difficult, and papers were primarily concerned with local issues. But the big media wiped out the minor media in many instances, and this led to urbanization or "Tokyonization" effects.
More important is the recent trend of affiliations and mergers of the media. as described in preceding chapters, there are four major commercial broadcasting networks in Japan, and these networks are affiliated with the major newspapers both in terms of capital investment and of personnel placement. The Asahi is affiliated with the NET network (the name NET was changed to Asahi Television System in January 1977), while the Mainichi and the TBS network are affiliated. The Yomiuri is subsidizing the NTV network, and the fourth major national paper, the Sankei, has substantial control over the Fuji Television network. A considerable percentage of the shares of the key station of each network is owned by its affiliated newspaper, and many managerial personnel of each station are ex-newspaper people who used to work for the "mother" company. Very often, an affiliated newspaper and broadcasting station work jointly in information gathering, and mutual reliance and co-operation have been common practice. In a word, the major "communication industries" in Japan today are what might be called "information conglomerates", each of which has both press and electronic divisions.
There are advantages in this type of "information conglomerate". In the first place, with its huge organization of hundreds of reporters stationed in many parts of not only Japan but also the world, a "conglomerate" is capable of abundant and high-quality information gathering. Indeed, Japanese mass media today may be proud of their global coverage of news and the promptness with which they bring such information to the general public. Moreover, an interplay between printed and electronic media in this fashion makes for a constructive coexistence: for instance, a newspaper often runs a small advertisement which says "For up-to-the-minute news, watch Channel 6", while a television station transmits a message to its audience which says "For details, read the Mainichi".
On the other hand, three are disadvantages and even dangers in the "information conglomerates". First, such a huge specialized organization of mass communication may, depending on the definition and context, become a monopolistic enterprise which may violate the Antimonopoly Law. Indeed, in some cases, the major "information conglomerates" may become a subject of investigation by the Fair Trade Commission. The monopolistic nature of the media, furthermore, may be a threat to smaller local media serving local communities. As pointed out in the preceding paragraphs, highly centralized super media may have a drastic impact on not only local media but also local subcultures.
The mass media in Japan are generally very sensitive and responsive to the public. Major newspapers have their own specialized research divisions which regularly conduct quantitative surveys and analyses of trends in public opinion. The topics covered in such surveys vary from time to time and according to the policies of each newspaper, but both publishers and editors are deeply concerned with the results obtained. The research data are usually published in the papers and the trends of public opinion are utilized to modify the contents of the media. For example, a survey of favourite sports revealed that professional baseball was the most popular spectator sport of the Japanese people. The newspaper, responding the outcome of the survey, increased the space given to baseball in its sports section.
Of course, here again, the question of the "reflective" and "directive" functions of the media may arise. On the one hand, the paper was "reflective" of public opinion, since the readers' interest in baseball was reflected in an editorial policy; on the other hand, it may be argued that because of the increased space devoted to baseball reports, the paper not only reinforced audience interest in that particular sport but "directed" the interest of readers to it, so that the number of baseball fans might have increased as the result of the space increase. The communicator and the communicatee in this sense have a mutual cause-and-effect relationship, and it is difficult to say simply that the media are the "reflectors" of public interest.
This point may be well illustrated by a series of news articles on the Mutual Security Treaty (MST) between Japan and the United States in 1960. The MST, essentially involving many aspects of military agreements, was criticized and attacked by the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and labour unions and students affiliated with these parties. Their opposition to MST which was supported by the majority Liberal Democratic Party, took many forms including petitions and demonstrations outside the Parliament building. The media found these actions serious and reported what was happening. Almost every day, the headlines of newspapers were on demonstrations, and often the contents were heavily emotional. They reported that the number of demonstrators increased day by day, and tended to editorialized that the government had to listen to the "voiceless voice" of the public and to reconsider the MST issue. Indeed, it seemed that some media became excessively sympathetic of the demonstrators. Newspaper photographs showed the scenes of violent confrontation between demonstrators and police almost every day. Broadcasters also brought the news from on the spot.
With such emphasis on anti-MST movements, public interest in the issue was heightened. As Masaki Takizawa reported,29 television viewers spent increased time watching newscasts during May and June 1960, when the series of demonstrations took place. Fifty per cent of the television audience was found to be concerned with, and at least psychologically involved in, the reports of demonstrations and confrontations. It is interesting to note that the progressives liked the live broadcasts of demonstrations and thought that broadcasters took an anti-government position. As a result, more people came to participate in the demonstration, and at its peak, almost 1 million people were involved. A student was killed and hundreds injured and/or arrested. The situation became critical.
At this point, the newspapers suddenly changed their tone. They decided that further big headlines risked bringing about a minor civil war and appealed both to the government and demonstrators to calm down. As the issue disappeared from newspaper headlines, the demonstration died down. In brief, the public is conscious and attentive to the media while the media also are sensitive to the public. Indeed, many sectors of the public are extremely active in inviting attention from the media. For instance, a citizens' organization planning to hold a meeting on local or regional problems may send a letter of invitation to the media or telephone in the hope that the event may be announced to the general public through the media. Hundreds of "press conferences" are initiated by private industries almost every day as a part of their public-relations programmes. For example, an automobile manufacturer may invite reporters on the occasion of the introduction of a new model. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that hundreds of invitations and/or news terms are delivered to the editorial room of a newspaper or news desk of a broadcasting station every day and every minute. In order to encourage extensive contributions of news from the general public, especially from individual citizens, major newspapers have had a "readers' line" since the early 1970s. This line, a telephone connected directly to an editorial desk, especially assigned to this particular task, rings almost constantly, and a reader can talk to the editor not only about the news but also about his or her interpretation and opinion of any subject. Naturally, the desk cannot publish all the phone call records, and certain screening is necessary, but every day at least five or six significant conversations are summarized and published in the paper.
More traditionally, there is a page totally devoted to "letters to the editor" in almost every newspaper in Japan. The number of letters the Asahi Shimbun receives for this page, for instance, amounts to 4,000 every month, and some ten letters appear on the page each day. Occasionally, letters criticizing the paper are published in the spirit of the readers' freedom of speech and expression. In these ways, a private citizen has opportunities to participate in newspaper production.
Most newspapers conduct a monthly "readership survey" to determine the extent of readers' interests in each section of the newspaper. For example, 20 per cent of the readers may have a clear memory of a report of a political scandal on the front page, while 5 per cent of the readers utilized a cooking recipe in the "home" section. Such differences in the degree of attentiveness are carefully studied, and according to such readership surveys amounts of space, style of presentation, and other editorial adjustments are made so that a paper can give maximum satisfaction to its readers. The survey data are also distributed among advertisers who are looking for better ways of reaching the readers.
In broadcasting as well the media are extremely interested in audience reactions. The best known and at the same time the most problematic means of obtaining such reactions is by "ratings", and other than those conducted by NHK and other stations, at least three professional companies are engaged in rating, on a commercial basis and using different methodologies and techniques. The broadcasters are very sensitive to the figures revealed by the ratings. Commercial broadcasters are particularly interested, since the number of people watching each programme is a decisive factor for sales, as well as the pricing to advertisers, of commercial messages during the programme. The rating system has been criticized, however, since broadcasters as well as advertisers tend to over-emphasize the importance of ratings and surveys of this kind usually pay more attention to quantitative analysis than to qualitative study of audience characteristics.
To supplement ratings, and to obtain more articulate audience reaction, most if not all broadcasting stations have institutionalized what is known as the "monitor" system. Usually, a station asks about a dozen citizens with various backgrounds to contribute essays on the programmes of the station every month. The essays are issued as a pamphlet for distribution to the managerial and the production staff of the station to give them some idea of the more qualitative aspects of audience reaction. An individual can apply to serve as a monitor, and stations usually pay a modest honorarium for essays, but in order to obtain more diversified opinions from the audience, monitors serve only semi-annually or annually at the most.
Audience participation in broadcasting programmes is very popular. Historically speaking, "participation programmes" started as a part of the "democratization" policy of the late 1940s. The first to be inaugurated in 1946 was a daily NHK radio programme titled Our Opinions. It is the equivalent of the "letters to the editor", column, and selected letters on various subjects are read by an announcer. This 15-minute morning programme still continues. To gather lively opinions and comments on a particular issue, for example, women's status, NHK also started Voices of the street. In this programme, a producer with a portable tape-recorder goes out in busy streets and asks passers-by for short comments on a random, ad hoc basis. When the programme started in the early 1950s, many people were hesitant to express their opinions, but as it became known and familiar, they became more relaxed and ready to participate. The tape is edited and put on the air.
A less serious but even more "participatory" programme which has continued for more than twenty-five years on the NHK network, both radio and television, is the Amateur Singing Contest every Sunday at noon. As the title indicates, this is a programme in which any person who wants to demonstrate his or her talent in singing can take part. A contestant's performance is judged by professional juries, i.e. musicians, composers, etc., but the main purpose of the programme is to encourage amateurism, and it is not an "audition" at all. The producer has been very careful not to let the programme become semi-professional, and conscious efforts are made to choose contestants of different personality, age, sex, occupation, and other socio-cultural characteristics. Every week, thousands of applications are accepted at local stations of the network, and through regional primary contests, twenty-five contestants are invited to be on the air. Commercial broadcasters are also interested in "participation programmes", and various contests, quizzes and games are broadcast almost everyday by almost every station. Commercial broadcasters, however, sometimes prefer "participation programmes" simply because they are much less expensive to produce. Most participation programmes both on NHK and in commercial broadcasts are produced in places like public halls where more of the audience can join in.
A more recent trend in broadcasting, especially radio programming, is the combination of broadcasting facilities with private telephone lines. In this type of programme, a listener can communicate with the announcer and the whole conversation is heard by other listeners; very often, each conversation on the air brings about a series of questions and answers inviting other listeners to join in. For example, a radio programme late in the morning, with an audience primarily of housewives, consists of such conversations and light music. A young housewife wanting to know how to cook a particular kind of fish may pick up her telephone and put the question to the announcer, or the master of ceremonies, of the programme. The announcer will transmit the question to all the listeners and solicit suggestions. Almost instantly, the telephone in the studio will ring, and an elderly lady with much cooking experience may give a detailed recipe for the fish. the master of ceremonies in this type of programme is a co-ordinator of various questions, answers and opinions, and composes the programme by telephone conversation, his or her own brief talks, and music--in other words, by improvisation. Sometimes, at short notice, an expert on a particular problem may be invited by telephone to join the programme. For instance, to answer a question about the safety of electric blankets, a professor of electrical engineering may be asked to explain, in plain language, to listeners about electric devices used in blankets, or a psychologist may be invited to talk about mental hygiene. The programme does not have any pre-arranged scenario, but is produced on an ad hoc basis, and sometimes may become "educational" in the strict sense of the term, while at others it may be a "counselling" programme. Recent technological innovations have succeeded in eliminating the noise caused by the combination of telephone circuit and microphone and in attaining better sound quality of such conversations on the air. It is not an exaggeration to say that thousands of listeners pick up their telephone to participate in such programmes, and on several occasions the line connected to the broadcaster's studio was so overloaded by hundreds of call signals which came simultaneously that it broke down.
Though there has been no systematic study of the psychological mechanism involved in participation in the mass communication processes, it may be argued that "participation" often has cathartic effects. There is no doubt that serious writers who send letters to the editors of newspapers to express their candid opinions and interpretations of current affairs are helping to improve social communications by their sincere participation, but it seems that many people pick up the telephone and talk to their favourite announcers without giving much thought to their possible public contribution. Many of the telephone conversations on the air tend to serve more for individual catharsis than for social participation.
An extreme example of such cathartic effect may be found in late evening and midnight talk programmes which millions of teenagers listen to while preparing for the extremely competitive university examinations which have made the Japanese education system famous. In these programmes, young people simply share their boredom and frustration through their letters and telephone conversations, and researchers are inclined to think that what are generally called "participation programmes", may have certain pathological aspects as well as truly constructive and participatory aspects.
In a white paper on communication (1976) the Ministry of Communication summarized major trends in Japanese social communication in reference to the increase of public access to information and said:
During the period from 1970 to 1975, the annual per capita number of pieces of mail (by sender) increased from 111 to 126, the number of telephones per 100 persons increased from 22 to 38, the average number of daily copies of newspapers per 100 persons increased from 35.0 to 36.5, and the average annual per capita consumption of magazines jumped from 18.7 copies to 21.8.
The white paper made a further quantitative analysis of the increase of information, utilizing the indexes to thirty-four different media (including postal service, telegrams, conversation, school instructions, and other interpersonal media as well as the mass media), and concluded that between 1970 and 1975, the total supply of information showed an increase of 1.22 times.30
In fact, as many media critics pointed out, the term "increase" may be too modest to describe what has been happening in Japan in recent years. It is an "information explosion" rather than a simple "increase". The number of computers in use as of 1974 in Japan was almost 30,000, exceeded only by the United States. Early in the 1970s, Nippon Telegraph Telephone Public Corporation connected the private telephone system with a computer, making a data service accessible to the general public. Upon the payment of a nominal fee, a private citizen can use the computer for individual calculation, and, as was suggested in a previous chapter, the use of the telephone is the most common communication practice among Japanese people. With nationally systematized area codes, telephone connections between two points in the country are instantaneous, and the telephone cable is being used for many purpose in combination with other communication facilities. Both telex and facsimile transmission of written messages is widely used by private firms for communication between, for instance, their headquarters and branch offices. As discussed already, major newspaper send whole pages by facsimile from a central printing office to regional printing offices so that the same contents can be delivered simultaneously throughout Japan. As early as 1970, the Asahi Shimbun experimented with "delivery" of the newspaper to a private subscriber by means of facsimile. In this system, a small device installed in a household can receive printed pages through an electronic circuit. At present, the system still remains at an experimental stage, but experts forecast that newspaper delivery by facsimile will be used extensively before 1990.
Another experimental use of the telephone cable is the "tele-conference", and Nippon Telegraph Telephone Public Corporation has already established rooms to be used exclusively for tele-conferences, both in Tokyo and Osaka, the two largest industrial centres. Business executives who want to use the facility can rent rooms which accommodate ten participants each, and the businessmen of the two cities can have a conference by means of cable television. The rental rate, during the experimental period, is approximately U.S.$100 per hour.
Less known and yet more important is the use of cable radio in rural communities. Cable radio was encouraged by the Ministry of Agriculture in the 1950s, and with government subsidiaries and in co-operation with Agricultural Co-op, thousands of agricultural communities adopted this system. The cable network in a community, with a central switchboard usually located in a community centre, can be used as an individual telephone line, but at the same time, through the cable, messages can be transmitted from the community centre to each household. For example, early in the morning, a person in charge of cable radio may quote the current price of agricultural products so that farmers can prepare for the shipment of their products. When a primary school in the community is to have a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meeting, the announcement can be heard in every household through the cable radio. As of 1976, approximately 5,500 rural communities in Japan are equipped with such devices.
In comparison with cable radio, the main function of which is to transmit particular messages to particular communities, cable television (CATV) in Japan is still in the developing stage. Although there are some 8,000 cable television systems as of 1976, more than 90 per cent of these are simply relay stations which transmit regular broadcasting programmes to a small community in a valley where direct reception is extremely difficult, and in these instances, very often the facilities are subsidized either totally or partially by NHK and other agencies. However, government agencies such as the Ministry of Construction are looking forward to a more systematized and autonomous "cable city". In planning Tama New Town, a gigantic housing project in the suburb of Tokyo, multi-purpose cable was installed throughout the whole area, and an experimental CATV has already been inaugurated. There is no doubt that a similar use of cable will become a popular practice in many communities, both rural and urban.
Indeed, one of the major trends in social communication in Japan today is the establishment of media on a smaller scale, i.e. community media, which are complementary to mass media. Local governments are very enthusiastic not only about prospects for their public relations activities but also about institutionalizing regional or community media of communication. For example, in the Tokyo metropolitan area, each administrative ward office publishes a monthly tabloid containing ward information on such topics as garbage collection schedules and events at the community hall, and delivers it to each household free of charge. Obviously citizens' participation can be greater in these smaller media than in the nation-wide mass media. As Norio Tamura emphasized in his article,31 the smaller media, including community media, are the basis of grass-roots democracy, and there is no doubt that the development of the smaller media is complementary to that of the mass media both in form and contents.
Differentiations among media of communication are also observable on the personal level. As in the case of the computer-connected telephone system, technological devices have been made to "tailor" information to meet particular individual needs. One important development in this area is the use of the video-cassette tape-recorder. The open-reel video-tape recorder was introduced in the 1960s, but Japanese manufacturers developed a 3/4-in video-cassette early in the 1970s. The system is used for many purposes. In a school or a private firm, for instance, it is used for educational purposes. A programme, either recorded from regular broadcasting or specially produced, can be played repeatedly at any time, at the convenience of the users. The video-cassette is especially useful and effective in the learning of foreign languages.
Starting in 1975, manufacturers finally succeeded in inventing less expensive video-cassettes primarily for home use. As of early 1977, 1/2-in video-tape cassette recorders are on the market with a retail price of between $500 and $700. A tape-cassette lasting 100 minutes can be purchased for $20. These are still expensive commodities, but within an affordable price range for middle-income families, and over 200,000 1/2-in video-cassette tape-recorders were sold in 1976. With this equipment, a broadcast programme can be recorded at home, and the machine is so simple that even 7-year-old children can easily operate it. Market researchers forecast that these simple video-cassette tape-recorders will be among the most promising commodities of the 1980s, and the market is already rapidly expanding. With this new equipment, the nature of television viewing may gradually change. Viewers, after recording their favourite programmes, either for education or entertainment, may prefer to repeat these programmes rather than to watch broadcasting. At least, video-cassettes may become complementary to television broadcasts as phonographs and audio-tapes are to radio broadcasts. A technical problem, however, remains unsolved. As of 1977, there are at least two different technologies developed by two different groups of manufacturers. Both groups are using 1/2-in tape, but specifications are totally different. As a result, the video-cassette tapes are not interchangeable. In addition, there are 3/4-in cassettes and 1-in tapes. Therefore, unlike phonographs and audio-tapes, the distribution and uses of video-cassettes are very limited, and the public is pressing for standardization of the system so that it can have access to information taped in video-cassettes.
Another important social trend in Japanese communication and communication policies today is the utilization of media for educational purposes.32 As suggested in the preceding chapters, the social needs for education are extremely high in Japan and, historically, the media have been very concerned with their educational functions. As early as 1933, NHK inaugurated educational broadcasting aimed at school classrooms, and in 1941, among 23,253 primary schools all over Japan, 16,263 had at least one radio receiving set and approximately 10,000 of them were ready to utilize school programmes. After an interval of several years during the war, in 1953, with the completion of NHK's second network, educational radio broadcasting for schools extended its service, and in that year, thirteen programmes of 3 hours and 15 minutes per day were scheduled.
Today, NHK, being a large nation-wide network organization, has a second channel in both radio and television exclusively used for education and broadcasting for approximately 16 hours every day. In the morning and early afternoon, the programmes in the educational channels are directed to classrooms from kindergarten to the high-school level. Almost all Japanese schools are equipped with television, sometimes with a set for every classroom, and 60 per cent of the schools are utilizing instructional television programmes regularly. Teachers are invited to a series of NHK seminars to discuss the effective use of programmes in their school instruction, and the board of education in each prefecture has been encouraging the use of educational broadcasting.
In the evening, the educational channels broadcast programmes for adult education, including foreign languages, physics, chemistry, music, and so forth, and NHK has a publications bureau which issues textbooks for these non-school educational programmes. Each season, about a quarter of million copies of foreign language (English, French, German, Chinese, Russian and Spanish) textbooks are sold, and when NHK began broadcasting an introductory course of computer programming, its publications bureau received requests for a half million copies of the related text.
Further efforts were made to combine broadcasting with formal education. For people who did not have an opportunity to attend high school, NHK provides special programmes through which they can earn regular high school credits. The organization, called NHK Gakuen (NHK School), was established in 1963.
In the first year of operation some 12,000 students registered in NHK Gakuen and took courses through broadcasting programmes. In order to make its service complete, NHK Gakuen made a contract with seventy-four high schools all over Japan so that students of various areas could have schooling opportunities in their own local communities.
As of spring 1974, there were 11,521 registered students at NHK Gakuen, and in the past ten years, 14,402 students have graduated successfully from this unique school. The drop-out rate varies year by year, but of the students who entered this school in 1963, 17.5 per cent them graduated successfully in 1967. This ratio was much higher in comparison with the success rate of the average regular correspondence high school (7-8 per cent).
In this system, upon application, a student receives a set of standard school textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education, a set of study books specially designed to supplement instruction through broadcasting, and blank forms of "reports". A student is expected to write his learning "reports" after watching the assigned programmes and send them to the headquarters, where teachers make corrections and comments and send them back to the students. A student can also ask questions in writing to any instructor who appears on the programmes, and the instructor may reply. The broadcasting hours are from 9 to 11 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and in the two hours, four independent lectures of 30 minutes each are given.
The combination of broadcasting with higher education has gone even further. In 1967, the Ministry of Education began its own investigation into the possibilities for a new university system through broadcasting, and in the autumn of 1969, the Preparatory Study Committee for a Broadcasting University was set up under the auspices of the ministry. The committee, consisting of a dozen scholars and experts, continued research and made an interim report, in which "broadcasting university" was defined as a regular university which would offer instruction by means of broadcasting. The credit requirements would be met in four years (rather than five) by two hours of listening and/or watching per day and ten to nineteen days of schooling each year. A tentative broadcasting schedule was proposed which comprised eighteen hours of curriculum broadcasting everyday, including Sundays, over both radio and television. As for schooling arrangements, the committee proposed to establish "learning centres" in each prefecture so that students would have easy access to their classroom instructions. The first experimental broadcasting is scheduled for 1978.
In concluding this study, it should be emphasized that in recent years the concept of the "right of access", including the "right to know" in its broadest sense, has increasingly attracted public attention, and as discussed in Chapter 7, social participation becomes continually more active. In this context, and coupled with the development of evermore sophisticated communication technologies which have made Japan famous in the world market, the uses of broadcasting for higher education will offer one of the most promising areas for future development of Japanese mass communication and communication policies.
| End of fiscal Year | Broadcast stations | Subscribers | |||
| Radio | Television | Radio | Television | Of which colour | |
| 1924 | 1 | - | 5,455 | - | - |
| 1925 | 3 | - | 258,507 | - | - |
| 1930 | 9 | - | 778,948 | - | - |
| 1935 | 30 | - | 2,422,111 | - | - |
| 1940 | 38 | - | 5,668,031 | - | - |
| 1945 | 91 | - | 5,728,076 | - | - |
| 1950 | 114 | - | 9,192,934 | - | - |
| 1952 | 137 | 1 | 10,539,593 | 1,485 | - |
| 1955 | 176 | 6 | 13,253,608 | 165,666 | - |
| 1960 | 248 | 70 | 11,802,387 | 6,860,472 | - |
| 1965 | 299 | 783 | 2,361,046 | 18,224,213 | 3,995,800 |
| 1969 | 560 | 1,974 | - | 22,087,548 | 7,662,636 |
| 1970 | 611 | 2,448 | - | 22,818,567 | 11,794,279 |
| 1971 | 662 | 2,882 | - | 23,520,254 | 15,630,946 |
| 1972 | 706 | 3,333 | - | 24,433,463 | 18,335,615 |
| 1973 | 738 | 3,768 | - | 24,924,985 | - |
SOURCE: Japan Statistical Yearbook, 1975.
Kato Hidetoshi's Data Base
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