Abstract
This chapter looks at the tension between the assumed tendencies of journalism and the deep, inherited social and journalistic structures that anchor news coverage to a particular place, to an assumed audience and thus to specific affective dynamics and identities representation. Empirically, this chapter focuses on four levels of mainstream newspaper coverage—the local, the regional, the national and the international—and tracks how the image and meanings related of the disaster was re-negotiated over time, during five years after the event. By applying a computer-assisted modelling and quantitative text analysis of the key vocabularies of journalism at different levels, it highlights the way that mainstream media function as differentiated affective platforms that emphasize alternative sensibilities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See appendix webpage for details: http://waseda.steman.jp/lab/fukushima-appendix/
- 2.
Author’s interview with evacuees on 26 March 2012 at Koriyama and 17 March 2014 at Iwaki.
References
Arima, T. (2008). Genpatsu, Syoriki, CIA: Kimitsu bunsyo deyomu Syowa rimenshi [Nuclear power, shori, CIA: Reading an inside story of Showa Era with secret documents]. Tokyo: Shinchosya. [Japanese].
Calderon, B. G., Roses, S., & Rivera, A. (2014). The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. An analysis of the most relevant frames in the Spanish Press. Comunicacion y Sociedad, 27(3), 65–81.
Campbell, C. (2017). World Press Trends 2017. WPT/WEF trends report. http://www.wan-ifra.org/reports/2017/10/10/world-press-trends-2017
Chadwick, A. (2017). The hybrid media system: Politics and power (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chouliaraki, L. (2006). The spectatorship of suffering. London: Sage.
Endo, K. (2012). Media ha daishinsai genpatu wo dou katattaka: houdou, net, documentary wo kensyo suru [How did media narrated the great earthquake and nuclear disaster: Verifying coverage, internet and documentary]. Tokyo: Tokyo Denki University Publishing.
Fenton, N. (2010). New media, old news: Journalism & democracy in the digital age. Los Angeles: Sage.
Freeman, L. C. (1977). A set of measures of centrality based on betweenness. Sociometry, 40(1), 35–41.
Honma, R. (2013). Genpatsu koukoku [Nuclear power ads]. Tokyo: Aki shobo.
Ikawa, M. (2012). Genshiryoku heiwariyou hakurankai to shinbunsya [‘Nuclear power for peace exhibition’ and a newspaper company]. In T. Tsuganesawa (Ed.), Sengo nippon no media event 1945–1960 [The media event in post-war Japan 1945–1960]. Kyoto: Sekaishisosha.
Ikeda, K., Yasuda, Y., Tanaka, A., Inamasu, K., Shibanai, Y., & Aizu, I. (2015). Shinsai Kara Mieru Jōhō Media to Nettowāku [Information media and network seen from the disaster]. Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Inc. [Japanese].
Inokuchi. (2011). Hisaichi ni afureru ‘Gambarou’: Media ha douchō atsuryoku ni natte inaika [Disaster-stricken area is overflown with ‘Gambarou’: Would media pressuring sympathy?]. Journalism, 258, 44–47. [Japanese].
Irwin-Zarecka, I. (1994). Frames of remembrance: The dynamics of collective memory. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Japanese Press Research Institute. (2013). Daishinsai, genpatsu to media no yakuwari: Houdou, roncho no kensyo to tenbo [The great earthquake, nuclear power and the role of media: Inspection and prospect of coverages and tones]. Shinbun-tsushin-chosa-kyokai [Japanese Press Research Institute].
Kanda, R., Tsuji, S., & Yonehara, H. (2014). Text analysis of radiation information in newspaper articles headlines and internet contents after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. Japanese Journal of Health Physics, 49(2), 68–78. [Japanese].
Kitch, C. (2002). Anniversary journalism, collective memory, and the cultural authority to tell the story of the American past. The Journal of Popular Culture, 36(1), 44–67.
Kobayashi, H. (2013). Japanese Press coverage of the Great East Japan earthquake: The diversity written forms of “Fukushima” and their respective meanings. Proceedings of Japan society for studies in journalism and mass communication, Fall 2013.
Konno, T. (2016). Seikatsu no kaifuku ni muketa jyumin no jittai to kadai [Actual condition and problems of residents for restoration of their life]. Gakujutsu no doukou, 1, 44–48.
Najima, Y., & Kanda, Y. (2015). 3.11 Genpatsu Jiko go no kōkyō media no gensetsu o kangaeru [Analysing discourses in the public media after the 3.11. Fukushima Nuclear Accident 3.11 ]. Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobo.
Nerone, J. (2015). The media and public life: A history. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Kalogeropoulos, A., Levy, D. A. L., & Nielsen, R. K. (2018). Reuter institute digital news report 2018. Retrieved from http://www.digitalnewsreport.org.
Pantti, M., Wahl-Jorgensen, K., & Cottle, S. (2012). Disasters and the media. New York: Peter Lang.
Perko, T., Prezelj, I., Cantone, M. C., Oughton, D. H., Tomkiv, Y., & Gallego, E. (2018). Fukushima through the prism of Chernobyl: How newspapers in Europe and Russia used past nuclear accidents. Environmental Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2018.1444661.
Sato, T. (2014). Hachigatsu jūgonichi no shinwa: shūsen kinenbi no mediagaku [The myth of the 15th August: A media study of war-end memorial day]. Tokyo: Chikumashobō.
Shineha, R., & Tanaka, M. (2017). Deprivation of media attention by Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident: Comparison between national and local newspaper. In J. Ahn, F. Guarnieri, & K. Furuta (Eds.), Resilience: A new paradigm of nuclear safety (pp. 111–125). Cham: Springer.
Song, Y., & Lee, C.-C. (2017). ‘Collective memories’ of global media events: Anniversary journalism of the Berlin Wall and Tiananmen crackdown in the Anglo-American elite press, 1990–2014. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884917720304.
Takeda, T. (2006). Kakuron: Tetsuwan Atomu to Genpatsu Jiko No Aida [Nuclear study: Between the mighty atom and the nuclear accident]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha. [Japanese].
Takeda, T. (2011). Genpatsu hōdō to media [Nuclear power plant coverage and the media]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. [Japanese].
Tanaka, M., Maruyama, K., & Shineha, R. (2012). Saigai jyakusya to jyouhou jyakusya −3.11go nani ga misugosaretanoka? [Disaster vulnerables and digital divide: What we missed after 3.11?]. Tokyo: Chikuma-shobo. [Japanese].
Terashima, H. (2016). Higashi Nihon Daishinsai Nani mo owaranai Fukushima no 5-nen: Iidate, Minamisōma kara [Nothing ended in five years in Fukushima: From Iidate and Minamisoma]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. [Japanese].
Tollefson, J. W. (2013). The discursive reproduction of technoscience and Japanese national identity in the Daily Yomiuri coverage of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Discourse & Communication, 8(3), 299–317.
Valaskivi, K. (2015). Mass media in Japan. In J. Babb (Ed.), The Sage handbook of modern Japanese studies. London: Sage.
Yamada, K. (2013). 3.11 to media: tettei kensyo shinbun, TV, Web ha naniwo dou tsutaetaka [3.11 and the media: What and how did the newspaper, television and web mediated]. Tokyo: Transview. [Japanese].
Yamakoshi, S. (2017). Sengo Nihon No Media to Genshiryoku Mondai: Genpatsu Hōdō No Seiji Shakaigaku [Issues about media and nuclear power in post-war Japan: Political sociology of nuclear power coverage]. Kyôto: Minerva Shobo. [Japanese].
Yokouchi, N., Abe, S., Shibata, I., Minamida, M., & Kato, H. (2012). Newspaper reports on East Japan earthquake in four countries: Comparative analysis during one month after the disaster (Vol. 9, pp. 1–29). Shakai Gijutsu Kenkyu Ronbunsyu. [Japanese].
Yoshioka, H. (2011). Genshiryoku no shakaishi: sono Nihon-teki tenkai [Social history of nuclear power: The Japanese development]. Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun Shuppan.
Zelizer, B., & Tenenboim-Weinblatt, K. (Eds.). (2014). Journalism and memory. Houndmills/Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valaskivi, K., Rantasila, A., Tanaka, M., Kunelius, R. (2019). Towards a Geography of Mediated Affect: Discursive Spaces and Emotional Dynamics. In: Traces of Fukushima. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6864-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6864-6_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-6863-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-6864-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)