ABSTRACT
A televised electoral debate is an important event that can help voters determine which candidates will get their vote. Globally, these debates represent some of the biggest, most heavily watched television events during campaigns. In Japan, however, televised debates do not attract much attention, and Japanese interest in elections and voter turnout are, generally speaking, quite low. This chapter considers the function of mediated electoral debates in Japanese society using two important debates as case studies: the General Election debate in 1960 and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership election debate in 2001. Furthermore, the Japanese public has not always dedicated much attention to the country’s electoral debates. The public paid huge attention to the electoral debate when the country was in crisis, but little when they considered their society to be stable. This chapter considers the social function of electoral debates from a perspective of media event theory and shows that electoral debates as media events in Japan have helped create an atmosphere of consensus and a public perception of its society as a stable one.
