Tag - media-mix

 
 

MEDIA MIX

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 14, 2011
Media coverage often 'the last push' to suicide
In May, 24-year-old TV personality Miyu Uehara was pronounced dead shortly after a friend found her hanging from a door in her Tokyo apartment. Uehara's death was called an "apparent suicide" by the media, and while the terminology was cautious the reporting itself took for granted the belief that Uehara...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 7, 2011
Fabricated public opinion is the norm
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's energy agency recently contracted with an outside advertising company to monitor "inaccurate" online information regarding nuclear energy. In response, the media cried "censorship," but as pointed out in last week's issue of Aera, the agency has employed...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 31, 2011
Nadeshiko Japan show that a relaxed approach gets the best results
The national women's soccer team that just won the FIFA World Cup in Germany is called Nadeshiko Japan. "Nadeshiko" is the name of a flower, but it also represents a certain ideal of Japanese femininity that's demure, quiet and accommodating to men; or, at least, it used to be. Japan's victory over the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 24, 2011
Today is D-Day for analog television
Sony recently announced it would discontinue production of the MiniDisc Walkman in September. It was just over a year ago that the company dropped the cassette Walkman, so within the space of 18 months two media will have bitten the dust. Though audiophiles may lament the end of another era, to most...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 17, 2011
When Sanma goes, so may the laughs
The tabloid Tokyo Sports has reported that one of the longest-running shows on Japanese TV, "Waratte Ii to mo" ("It's OK to Laugh"), may go off the air next spring due to sagging ratings. Hosted by the sunglass-sporting comedian Tamori since its inception in 1982, the noontime show's mix of celebrity...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 10, 2011
Japan's attention to detail is all in the delivery
While in California recently, I saw a reality program called "Undercover Boss," in which the president of a company disguises himself as a new hire and works beside his frontline employees. The boss thus comes to appreciate how important those people are to the success of his business. At the end of...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 3, 2011
Antinuke stance within establishment slowly gathers steam
In May, Wakamono Manifest Sakutei Iinkai, a policy research group dedicated to issues relevant to people under 40, posted results of a survey in which members were asked who they wanted to lead Japan. There was no consensus, but the individual who received the most votes was Liberal Democratic Party...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 26, 2011
Game changer as advertisers take a sporting chance
Earlier this month, teen golf sensation Ryo Ishikawa was driving his Audi when he was stopped by police and told that his international driver's license, obtained in the United States, was not valid in Japan. It was an innocent faux pas, but Ishikawa was forced to apologize profusely through the media...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 19, 2011
Conduct most becoming of Sado's Berlin triumph
In the past two weeks, three television programs, each on a different network, covered conductor Yutaka Sado's debut with the Berlin Philharmonic. Though Sado's one-off gig would normally mean little outside the rarefied world of classical music, TBS and NHK each decided it merited an in-depth special....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 12, 2011
Those opposing Kan offer no clear reason he must go
The 2012 U.S. presidential election campaign officially started two weeks ago, when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced he would be a candidate for the Republican Party nomination. Romney chose as the setting for his momentous, though unsurprising, announcement a beautiful old family farm...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 5, 2011
Bodikon girl's remarkable selfmade comeback
One of the more enduring TV formats is the Ano hito wa ima (Where are they now?) variety special, which tracks down celebrities of the past to find out what happened to them in the decades since they vanished from our collective consciousness. The hunt is more interesting than the capture, since the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 29, 2011
Kan government struggles to raise reconstruction funds
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), the British economist who advocated government intervention to regulate financial health, has lately been cited in the Japanese press in reference to the current administration's plan to raise the consumption tax (CT). When he held the post of finance minister for five...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 22, 2011
Nuclear policy was once sold by Japan's media
Prime Minister Naoto Kan's decision to ask Chubu Electric Power Co. to shut the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture met with mixed reactions. The residents of nearby Omaezaki are concerned since the facility employs about 2,800 people, but Chubu's subsequent announcement that it would...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 15, 2011
Cheap BBQ meat boss pays a high price for being variety show favorite
Since the earthquake of March 11, there's been a lot of bowing and kneeling on TV. Everywhere the executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. go in the Tohoku region, they are compelled to not only bend over for residents of the area, but in some cases get down on the ground and perform dogeza, the act of...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 8, 2011
New drama addresses the politics of surrogate pregnancy in Japan
Keiko Matsuzaka started out as a glamorous ingenue who sang and acted. Her career didn't differ greatly from those of other late Showa Era (1926-89) idols, except that she gave in to the unflattering changes her body underwent after entering middle age. Most other actresses who are still working in their...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 1, 2011
Tohoku charity a minefield for Japanese celebrities
One of the worst-kept secrets on television is the location of Dash Village, a remote farm that was built by the boy band Tokio in the late 1990s. It has since been maintained by the quintet as part of a running feature on their Sunday night Nihon TV variety show "Tetsuwan Dash," and in order to discourage...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 24, 2011
Decentralizing Tokyo may save the nation
The concentration of money and power in Tokyo is to a degree unthinkable in the United States. — Edward Seidensticker
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 17, 2011
The unnatural state of Japan's self-restraint
Immediately after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, Japanese television started covering the disaster full-time. As things returned to some sort of version of normal, the spaces where commercials were supposed to run were first filled with public service announcements provided by the Ad Council...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 10, 2011
Ishihara may just benefit from 'divine retribution'
There are 11 men vying today for the office of Tokyo governor. Four are taken seriously by the media, the eccentric inventor Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu is humored as a perennial also-ran, and the remaining six are dismissed as margin-dwellers who are in the game to draw attention to themselves or advocate...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 3, 2011
Japanese antinuclear voices are still struggling to be heard
On March 26, NHK covered an antinuclear power demonstration in Germany that attracted thousands of protesters. The report pointed out that the demonstration was sparked by the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor. The next day, there was a march by Japanese antinuke protesters in Tokyo. Though...

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