Looking for anti corruption advocates? "Don't look at Japanese media" critics say!

The role of the media in Japan in summer election 2009

demonstrated the invaluable work of the journalists.

Invaluable? Says who?

When the DPJ and his leaders Ozawa Ichiro and the prime

minister Hatoyama Yukio challenged the long-standing

dominance of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),

which had held power since 1955, it was also the victory

of the media and in particular of the TV "tarento".

These media celebrities publicized Japan's aging

generation of conservative leaders who were more skilled

at back-room deal making than sorting out the nation out

of her amnesia, somatic disease and addiction to a one

party rule.

The "system" encroached all rooms of power, allied (but

not friend) with the bureaucracy into a regime that

paralyzed the archipelago and drowns the "Japizen" into

disarray.

One point, still, is not resolved, the combat against

corruption, abuse of power, attempts to take advantage of

position or ranks.

Months ahead will show if Japanese media show

responsibility or play the same old tune of sleeping in

the same bed with old politicians.

I have my idea on this, but let's see what others think

about it and what they wrote.

How to raise awareness

"When corruption and bribery become so institutionalized

in society that people view corruption as the fixed and

incontestable norm. To break down such a system, the

public’s ignorance of their rights, cynicism, fear of

reprisal and mentality of submission to the status quo

must first be defeated. Perhaps most importantly, the

efficacy challenge needs to be addressed, people need to

believe that they can actually do something about

corruption so that they can act on that belief," writes

Fumiko Nagano. http://tinyurl.com/ybwwqno

Corruption? Look the other way!

"The social, economic and political consequences of

corruption have been widely analyzed, and have been the

subject of numerous writings in many developing

countries. However, corruption in both developed and

industrially advanced countries is generally ignored and

insufficiently addressed. While the nature and

consequences of corruption in advanced societies varies

dramatically, there are many similarities when it comes

to the impact of corruption on democratic institutions.

Japan is one such country worthy of study. Though it is

a highly developed society, corruption and all forms of

bribery are deeply entrenched in Japan's political

culture and bureaucratic functions." " in Japan --

Institutionalizing the Right to Information, Transparency

and the Right to Corruption-Free Governance"

The solution: expose the culprits to public scrutiny

"Media and Politics in Japan. Edited by Susan J. Pharr

and Ellis S. Krauss University of Hawaii Press":

"No country in the industrial world is as media-saturated

as Japan. Its five national dailies -- each with a

circulation of over 2 million -- translate into the

highest per-capita newspaper circulation in the world.

Some 90 per- cent of adults read newspapers daily, and

the average person watches more than three hours of

television a day. Given the rising importance of the

media in all the industrial societies, Japan thus

presents itself as a laboratory for exploring the role

the media play today in democracies...

... Remarkably, despite the widely acknowledged

importance of the topic, relatively few scholars outside

Japan have conducted research on the contemporary

Japanese media's role in politics...

... In industrial societies today, some politicians, no

matter how intelligent their grasp, how astute their

political judgments, or how incisive their issue

positions, cannot be packaged successfully, while others

can. This has led numerous scholars and other observers

to conclude that the media are recasting political

leadership itself, at least in the case of national

political elite. Meanwhile, media-borne scandals --

whether over nannies in America or stashed gold bars in

Japan -- thin the ranks of those who would serve the

public...

As the bureaucracies of the advanced industrial societies

"note, register, inventory, tax, stamp, measure,

enumerate, license, assess, authorize" (to quote the

French anarchist Proudhon) by way of policies that reach

into ever increasing domains of human behavior, the media

become powerful screening devices for vast flows of

information. Only a tiny fraction of the work of the

state in the United States, Japan, or elsewhere becomes

exposed to public scrutiny, and many of the struggles

within bureaucracies and among and between interest

groups represent efforts to capture or deflect media

attention or to turn it to advantage. Not only do

politics and bureaucracy feel the media's presence and

power; so, too, does the public. Despite a vast amount

of research, mystery surrounds the simple act of voting

in a media age: from what confluence of forces and

factors do voters make their decisions on candidates, and

how do the media confound the process?...

How do the media confound the process?

""The Japanese press has never been a particularly active

watchdog," conclude Ellis S. Krauss and Priscilla

Lambert, in "The Press and Reform in Japan," published in

Harvard's Kennedy School of Government scholarly

quarterly:

"None of the scandals of the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s

provide examples of the press initiating and pursuing an

investigation into government misdeeds."" Indeed, the

country's cautious, neutral newspaper culture, it

suggests, may be incapable of leading a crusade against

the society's encrusted uneconomic ways and vested

interests. That's the inescapable conclusion of this

major new study." writes Tom Plate (UCLA) writing about

how non-confrontational Japanese newspapers reinforce a

political culture of caution in "The medium is the

message".

So, from here, where are we? Is it right that "Media

Intimidation in Japan" remains the spear of the regime as

wrote David Mac Neill in "A Close Encounter with Hard

Japanese Nationalism" ?

"Where does hard nationalism end and soft nationalism

begin, and do the high-profile activities of hard

nationalists in Japan have a wider role in helping to

legitimize previously taboo ideas and positions within

society? says Mc Neil. The question of "why censorship

finds such fertile soil in the Japanese broadcasting and

newspaper world" is another enigma of the Japanese

power... "Comfortably wrapped in the notion that

Japanese life is ruled by harmony and consensus, and in

the relative absence, even as an ideal, of the conceptual

freedoms built up over generations in other societies, it

is not difficult to understand why in many instances

compromise comes easiest."

Consensus? Is it the added value attached to conformism

and paralysis? With nowadays few or nearly no foreign

media gatekeepers, except to entertain audiences in

"infotainment" programs? Read the piece of Karel Van

Wolferen down the page*.

Some rather cynical watchers consider the power of

corruption linked to the absence of criticism by Japanese

media (as seen during Koizumi and the role of advertising

like the Dentsu agency) and the islanders who are just

one foot in the grave, the mask glued on the face with no

expression, both oral or physical.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the China sea, a new

Empire is stretching its lead over any regional rival.

But this certainly is an other story...

*On the media, this essay from Karel Van Wolferen:

"The Bureaucracy of American Journalism"

http://www.karelvanwolferen.com