ABSTRACT
The Japanese media (print, broadcast, cyber) and Japanese Government (GOJ) are shaping Japan’s national discourse on minorities in Japan in a racialized manner.2 Going beyond differentiating between citizens and foreigners (as all nation-states do), GOJ policy campaigns systematically defame non-Japanese residents and promote racial discrimination in the media.3 After more than a decade of being portrayed by the highest levels of government as criminals and terrorists, foreigners (gaikokujin or gaijin) have seen their public image changed from essentially “misunderstood outsider” to “social threat.” This has been difficult to counteract, because non-Japanese residents lack sufficient media access to present a counter-narrative. In fact, harassment of foreigners has gotten so bad that local governments are drafting legislation to curtail “hate speech” (heito supiichi), an encouraging but long-overdue response.
