ABSTRACT
The fi rst contribution to the ‘internationalising’ of media studies that my Japanese ethnography makes is the introduction of key Japanese emic concepts and the adaptation of these in ways that reject the myth of the homogeneity of the Japanese. This highlights culturally specifi c forms of social group-and self-creation. In presenting fi ndings about Japanese audiences I wish to avoid hitherto overused dichotomies between ‘Western’ and ‘Japanese’ phenomena and between collectivism and individualism (cf. Rosenberger, 1992). Within research informed by such distinctions, Japanese people have often been portrayed as lacking a sense of self and selfdetermination (cf. Befu, 1997). The present concept of self-creation, I hope, challenges, or at least provides an alternative understanding to, this view.
