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Mass Media and the Development of Civil Culture

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Book cover The Meiji Restoration

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Abstract

In parallel with the developments outlined in the foregoing chapter, there was a palpable transformation occurring in the sphere of mass communication, a process that the government might well have liked to consider it was able to control, as it seemed capable of doing so in most other areas of conduct. However, this dimension of Japan’s post-Restoration cultural development was to prove more complex an issue to engage with. Ironically, the push to encourage the emergence of broadly disseminated daily newspapers and journals was very much initiated by the government itself; newspapers were a distinctive accoutrement of Western societies and had clear benefits from the point of view of—potentially at least—developing an avenue for government-coordinated programs of mass education, civilian regulation and propaganda. In practice, however, this was not easy to achieve.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Waikato, New Zealand

    Alistair D. Swale (Senior Lecturer)

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© 2009 Alistair D. Swale

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Swale, A.D. (2009). Mass Media and the Development of Civil Culture. In: The Meiji Restoration. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245792_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245792_4

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-36925-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-24579-2

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