Japan’s mass media : insular news in a globalized world

Abstract

Globalization continues to bring the world closer together in many ways, but this does not necessarily mean that the news provided to us by the mass media is becoming more global in nature. This is particularly paradoxical, given the major advances in information and communication technology that should potentially have led to a broader perspective of the world as a whole. Among those countries with the financial and technological resources to build media with a global perspective, Japan in particular appears to be lagging behind in this regard. This paper begins by examining the proportion of world news provided by a variety of media corporations, and trends regarding the geographical distribution of world news. It then looks at the ‘home’ country angle that can be found in a certain proportion of the news that is ostensibly about the outside world. Finally, it discusses the policy implications of such an insular media, concluding that the current state of affairs leads to a narrow, subjective and incomplete view of the world at many levels in society that benefits neither Japan nor the world at large.