The machine without the ghost: Early interactive television in Japan

This article is part of an ongoing ethnography of the Japanese television industry focusing on its attempts to experiment with live, interactive content that was manipulable via smart devices, laptops, and remote controls. Based on 18 months of fieldwork in the Japanese television industry in four major TV network offices and two production companies, it also incorporates interviews with more than 30 broadcast company employees. I use two case studies of early interactive television programming to discuss the strategies producers have used to create community and promote identification among audiences of these shows: ‘ Arashi Feat. You’ was a live music event that courted a large audience through the involvement of a massively popular boy band and promoted the idea of ‘turning viewers into users’ by allowing them to play musical instruments along with the band. ‘ The Last Award’ allowed participants to submit and evaluate each other’s videos live through a dedicated user interface. Through these examples, I argue that participation alters the nature of television spectacle and results in changes to the way producers address and inscribe audiences as cocreators of content. The rhetoric used by interactive television accordingly defaults to ‘we’ and ‘us’ and features accessible and relatable celebrities as surrogates for the audience.

Serializing accumulation: Resident Evil and the synchronization of Hollywood cinema and Japanese television

How does the tendency toward series reboots, sequels, and remakes in contemporary Hollywood intersect with television’s capacity for serialization? How does the logic of promotion in transmedia entertainment connect to television’s ability to perform simultaneity in relation to other forms of screen media? This article will describe and analyze how the Resident Evil films have been broadcast on Japan’s Asahi TV network throughout the 2010s, focusing on how the week-after-week programming of the films acts as a case for demonstrating how transmedia serialization brings into relief qualities of narration and aesthetics within the context of convergent screen industries and global media production. Focusing on the concept of accumulation, this article will argue how the mode of viewing invited by Asahi TV’s mode of presentation is one that can be addressed both in terms of how viewers make sense of complicated networks of meta-textual continuity and of how convergent media forms rely on practices of simultaneity in media consumption.

History of Television Broadcasting Development in Japan (From Experimental Broadcasting to Nationwide Broadcasting in the 1960s)

The article views and analyzes the early period of the nationwide television broadcasting in Japan (from the mid 1920s to the end of the 1960s). Previously, this problem has not been a subject of research in Russian oriental studies, and taking into account the operation of established television broadcasting system in modern Japan, it seems necessary to identify the features of the genesis and evolution of the nationwide television broadcasting in Japan at its earliest stage, using both historical-genetic and problem-chronological methods. Based mainly on the media history research of Japanese media historians, which are introduced into the Russian scientific community for the first time, the stages of the genesis and nationwide spread of television broadcasting in Japan are consistently identified: the pre-war period of experimental broadcasting, the reform of the media sphere during and after the occupation of Japan by the GHQ, the origins of the integrated system of Japanese public and commercial television broadcasting nigen taisei. In addition, the author concludes that television played an important role in the process of spreading Western values of democracy, as well as the renewed values of the nuclear family institution in Japan, which were declared by the GHQ, US occupation authorities. Based on the results of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the fundamental foundations of the modern multifaceted and original culture of Japanese television, as well as the model of broadcasting companies’ interaction: competition and coexistence of public and commercial television broadcasting, were laid precisely in the key period for the history of Japanese television ‒ the 1950‒1960s. The findings of this research can serve as a basis for studying the next stages in the evolution of television broadcasting in Japan up to the present period. This paper is aimed at orientalists, students of similar specialties, as well as a wide range of people interested in the history of Japanese media. Keywords: Japan, media history, television history, television in Japan, nationwide broadcasting

Freeter, Arafo, House Husband: Shifting Values of Hegemonic Masculinity and Emphasized Femininity in Four Japanese Television Dramas

This study examines the shifting values of masculinity and femininity in four Japanese television dramas: At Home Dad (2004), Around 40 (2008), Freeter, Buy a House (2010), and Wonderful Single Life (2012). These corpus data are analyzed using Connell’s concepts of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity. The findings of this study focus on the following: 1. Characters in the four television dramas challenge the dominant discourses of masculinity and femininity by living as freeters, house husbands, and arafos. 2. To criticize hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity, these dramas depict the negative aspects of living a rigid lifestyle encompassed by traditional gender roles and feature main characters who show alternative lifestyles of masculinity and femininity. 3. Hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity values shadow the emergence of alternative masculinity and femininity in contemporary Japanese society.

Kesantunan Pragmatik dalam Irai Hyougen Bahasa Jepang pada Acara Berita Asaichi

Penelitian ini berfokus pada deksripsi bentuk irai hyougen dan bentuk kesantunan dalam irai hyougen yang muncul pada percakapan di acara berita Asaichi. Penelitian dilakukan lewat kajian pragmatik. Identifikasi komponen percakapan yang mengandung irai hyougen dilakukan berdasarkan bentuk irai hyougen maupun implikasi percakapan. Penanda kesantunan diamati lewat kemunculan ungkapan hormat, ungkapan kerendahan hati, ungkapan penimbang rasa, ungkapan beri-terima, serta ungkapan tidak langsung. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pada acara Asaichi, irai hyougen dinyatakan dalam bentuk suikoukei irai hyougen, meireikei irai hyougen, youkyuukei irai hyougen, ganbou hyoushutsuteki irai hyougen, dan enkyokuteki irai hyougen. Penanda kesantunan irai hyougen ditemukan dalam bentuk penggunaan kenjougo, penggunaan bentuk formal dari nomina dan pronomina, sebutan hormat, penggunaan irai dalam bentuk tidak langsung, penambahan adverbia maupun partikel akhir kalimat untuk menunjukkan rasa hormat pada petutur, menunjukkan kerendahan hati, empati, kehati-hatian, penghindaran kesan paksaan serta penghalus tuturan. This article examine form of irai hyogen and politeness which reflected in irai hyougen in Japanese television programme called Asaichi. In this study, using pragmatic approach, forms of irai hyougen are being examined through lexical forms, grammatical forms and conversational implicature. Politeness in irai hyougen are being examined by the emergence of expression of respect, expression of humility, expression of concern for others, expression of giving and receiving favor, indirect expression in irai hyougen. The findings of the study showed that in Asaichi, irai hyogen are expressed through suikoukei irai hyougen, meireikei irai hyougen, youkyuukei irai hyougen, ganbou hyoushutsuteki irai hyougen, and enkyokuteki irai hyougen. Politeness in irai hyougen can be identified by the use of kenjougo, formal forms of noun or pronoun to defer the hearer, terms of respect, indirect request pattern, the use of adverbs and sentence ending particles to show humility, empathy, carefulness, to smooth the request, and avoiding constraint in request are preferable.

Kesantunan Pragmatik dalam Irai Hyougen Bahasa Jepang pada Acara Berita Asaichi

Penelitian ini berfokus pada deksripsi bentuk irai hyougen dan bentuk kesantunan dalam irai hyougen yang muncul pada percakapan di acara berita Asaichi. Penelitian dilakukan lewat kajian pragmatik. Identifikasi komponen percakapan yang mengandung irai hyougen dilakukan berdasarkan bentuk irai hyougen maupun implikasi percakapan. Penanda kesantunan diamati lewat kemunculan ungkapan hormat, ungkapan kerendahan hati, ungkapan penimbang rasa, ungkapan beri-terima, serta ungkapan tidak langsung. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pada acara Asaichi, irai hyougen dinyatakan dalam bentuk suikoukei irai hyougen, meireikei irai hyougen, youkyuukei irai hyougen, ganbou hyoushutsuteki irai hyougen, dan enkyokuteki irai hyougen. Penanda kesantunan irai hyougen ditemukan dalam bentuk penggunaan kenjougo, penggunaan bentuk formal dari nomina dan pronomina, sebutan hormat, penggunaan irai dalam bentuk tidak langsung, penambahan adverbia maupun partikel akhir kalimat untuk menunjukkan rasa hormat pada petutur, menunjukkan kerendahan hati, empati, kehati-hatian, penghindaran kesan paksaan serta penghalus tuturan. This article examine form of irai hyogen and politeness which reflected in irai hyougen in Japanese television programme called Asaichi. In this study, using pragmatic approach, forms of irai hyougen are being examined through lexical forms, grammatical forms and conversational implicature. Politeness in irai hyougen are being examined by the emergence of expression of respect, expression of humility, expression of concern for others, expression of giving and receiving favor, indirect expression in irai hyougen. The findings of the study showed that in Asaichi, irai hyogen are expressed through suikoukei irai hyougen, meireikei irai hyougen, youkyuukei irai hyougen, ganbou hyoushutsuteki irai hyougen, and enkyokuteki irai hyougen. Politeness in irai hyougen can be identified by the use of kenjougo, formal forms of noun or pronoun to defer the hearer, terms of respect, indirect request pattern, the use of adverbs and sentence ending particles to show humility, empathy, carefulness, to smooth the request, and avoiding constraint in request are preferable.