| Budget Amount *help |
¥7,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥7,100,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥1,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥2,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥2,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,300,000)
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| Research Abstract |
This research is a comprehensive study of the contents of Television in Japan. It is among the first of its kind in English. There are numerous genres in Japanese TV, but this study has picked out the most powerful themes, aiming to show their great social power (effect). Various research methods were used, including: content analysis of message (content) and participant observations of and interviews with message producers and receivers. After content analysis, the genre that were deemed most significant, were: news, sports, food, wide shows, and advertising. From these genres, the most important findings were:
1. the large role emotion plays in constructing a community and conferring an identity. This can be expressed locally, regionally, or nationally;
2. the ways in which television constructs gender. Of particular importance were: (a) masculinity, and (b) the hyper-sexualized treatment of women;
3. the multiple ways in which TV constructs nationhood and national identification. Central to this core TV function has been sports-and participation by individual athletes in professional and international sports; and
4. the role that television plays in constructing a cohesive, coherent, nationally-bound "empire" based on the pursuit-and even worship-of leisure.
Numerous publications have come out of this research (listed below),as well as a book manuscript which has been submitted to publishers. The findings have served as the basis for a course I taught as a visiting professor at UCLA (the University of California Los Angeles)in 2007-2008.
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