Tag - media-mix

 
 

MEDIA MIX

Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 1, 2012
Media awards: Tokyo powers down as idols power up
Media Figure of the Year: Tepco A fact of modern life that the Occupy Wall Street movement brought home to the average person is that corporations are nominally "persons," meaning they have been granted the same "rights" as individuals, at least in the United States. In Japan, such legal definitions...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 25, 2011
When will the Japanese media stop avoiding antinuke sentiment?
On Dec. 15, freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan about his new book, "Yakuza and Nuclear Power," which describes Suzuki's stint as a worker on cleanup detail at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor last summer. Though the book...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 18, 2011
Wrestling with the serious issue of rape
After two-time Olympic champion Masato Uchishiba was arrested Dec. 6 on suspicion of raping a female member of a university judo team, Japanese TV personality and the former first lady of Indonesia, Dewi Sukarno, defended the gold medalist on her blog. She personally called the National Police Agency...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 11, 2011
Mr. Momoe Yamaguchi finally decides to speak
Last week a new movie called "Railways" opened in Tokyo. It's about a driver on a small rural electric train line who retires after 40 years and is sort of a sequel to a film with the exact same title released in 2010. That movie centered on a Tokyo executive who loses his job and decides to pursue his...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 4, 2011
Mass media not clean in soap-allergy controversy
Two weeks ago, the health ministry announced that at least 471 people have suffered severe allergic reactions related to the use of a facial soap called Cha no Shizuku. Sixty-six of these people have also been hospitalized. In May, Yuuka, the direct sales company that markets the soap, started recalling...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 27, 2011
Publishers' ties to distribution a barrier for e-books
On Nov. 13, publisher Takarajima took out newspaper advertisements for its magazine-like book "Denshi Shoseki no Shotai" ("The Real Shape of e-Books"), describing it as a polemic "against electronic books." It includes input from Naoki Award winning novelist Miyuki Miyabe, who explains why she isn't...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 20, 2011
The B-class-food boom reveals true Japanese cuisine
Two weeks ago, an advisory panel to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries recommended it apply to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for recognition of Japanese cuisine as an intangible cultural asset. The panel made its suggestion after UNESCO granted...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 13, 2011
Media takes both sides of TPP debate
Last week Kyodo News conducted a survey on the public's understanding of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Japan is thinking of joining. The TPP basically constitutes a free-trade zone among member countries in the Pacific rim region, including the United States, but right now it is still in the negotiation...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 6, 2011
In abuse cases, family takes priority over the child
November is Child Abuse Prevention Month, an annual government campaign to promote programs that protect children from violence. Most people will say that they know child abuse when they see it, but what characterizes almost all the recent child abuse incidents in the news is lack of intervention on...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 30, 2011
Cyclists piste at Tokyo police crackdown
Last month, comedian Mitsunori Fukuda was stopped and cited for riding a fixed-gear racing bike on a public street in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. These bicycles, also known as "piste bikes," have become popular in the past few years, not so much as a conveyance but more as a fashion statement. They usually...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 23, 2011
Minister attacked for challenging the 'family system'
Yoko Komiyama is the first woman to ever occupy the post of Japan's minister of health, welfare and labor. As a mother, she may have more insight than her male colleagues into issues her ministry addresses, and from the start of her appointment in August she has stirred up controversy, mainly with her...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 16, 2011
Being amateurish is what makes SMAP such pros
NHK's "The Professional" profiles, through interviews and situational coverage, people who are notable for their dedication to some craft or business vision. The series grew out of "Project X," the very popular documentary series about Japan's industrial breakthroughs of the past, and is meant to spotlight...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 9, 2011
Television's skewed version of poverty
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations currently taking place in New York continue to garner more and more attention from the American media, which mostly ignored the movement when it began several weeks ago. Now everybody in America who reads a newspaper or watches TV news understands that the protesters...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 2, 2011
Press miss the point at antinuke demo
Three weeks after Japan's biggest antinuclear demonstration, there is still some dispute over how many people actually attended. The organizers estimate 60,000 and the police say about 30,000. Except for the Yomiuri and Sankei newspapers, which accept the police figure, the mainstream vernacular media...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 25, 2011
Welfare system not faring well
Ten years ago, in her book "Nickel and Dimed," Barbara Ehrenreich chronicled her own experience as a subsistence-level American wage-earner during a period of relative economic vigor. She found a whole class of workers who lived — and would always live — from paycheck to paycheck. In the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 18, 2011
Political elite can't stand outsiders
Yoshio Hachiro's stint as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in the new Yoshihiko Noda administration was not the briefest cabinet assignment on record, but it was certainly one of the most controversial. News outlets reported that it was "public outrage" over two remarks he made which forced...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 11, 2011
High profile case highlights the delicate issue of foster care in Japan
On Aug. 20, police arrested voice actress Shizuka Suzuike at her home in Suginami Ward, Tokyo, on suspicion of causing injuries that led to the death of 3-year-old Miyuki Watanabe in August 2010. At the time of her death, Miyuki had been in Suzuike's foster care for almost a year. The suspect denies...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 4, 2011
Actress's inheritance saga plays out like melodrama
Sometimes the components of a news story fit together so perfectly that you can't help but wonder how much of it was engineered by the press. Actress Hisako Manda, a former beauty queen who found success in recent years as a cover girl for magazines catering to women in their 50s, is currently at the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 28, 2011
Star's exit shows it's not what you know — but who
If you asked anyone in the world with access to any sort of media what last week's big news story was, they would probably say Libya. If you asked the same question of similarly connected people in Japan, they would probably say the retirement of comedian Shinsuke Shimada. The fall of Tripoli didn't...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 21, 2011
Korean television dramas are not the real problem
On July 23, actor Sosuke Takaoka tweeted that he was sick of all the Korean dramas on Fuji TV, a network he "used to be indebted to," and demanded more "traditional" Japanese programming. "If anything related to South Korea is on," he continued, "I just turn it off." The backlash was swift, and the actor...

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