ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide an ethnographic glimpse of the media production processes that function behind the wideshows – an essential yet underexplored subject in the field of media studies in Japan. The chapter provides a brief look at the commonly used ethnographic techniques and explains how they were devised in the current fieldwork. I first discuss my methods for participant observation (of the offices, studios, meeting rooms, the preproduction and post-production units) and interviews (with production members and TV personalities) as a means of offering a bird’s-eye view of the wideshows. I also provide my observations regarding the prevailing factors that reveal power relations among the production members, impose hierarchies both behind and in front of the cameras (e.g. gender roles, modality of employment, office design, organizational hierarchy, and type of affiliation with TV station).
