Many of us know NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai) for its film documentaries, its cultural programs -- stunning or plodding, depending on your perspective -- or its Sunday morning singalongs. It is a reliable standby, serving up solid, if not particularly interesting, viewing during most people's waking hours.
In his new book, "Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television News," Ellis Krauss argues that NHK played a critical role in legitimizing the Japanese state in the 1960s. Following the AMPO demonstrations of 1960, it was clear to many that democracy had not put down deep roots in Japan. Krauss, a longtime Japan hand who teaches political science at the University of California at San Diego, believes that NHK's news programs, the most widely watched news programs at the time, played a key role in embedding democratic institutions in the Japanese consciousness.
"The dominance of NHK's television news from the 1960s to the 1980s helps to explain how Japan's democratic state became legitimized and thus stabilized following the instability and polarized political conflict immediately after the war," he writes.