Shinbunshi: The Early Meiji Adaptation of the Western-Style Newspaper

In 1866, when Fukuzawa Yukichi published the first edition of his Seiyō jijō (Conditions in the West), he included a chapter on ‘Newspapers’. This medium of communication had yet to take root in Japan and Fukuzawa thought it necessary to fill this gap in his readers’ knowledge. A single Japanese-language newspaper, the Kaigai shinbun, was being published in Yokohama, but it was a strikingly unsuccessful venture in journalism since it had only two regular subscribers. ¹ The English-language Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser, Japan’s first newspaper in any language, first appeared on 22 June 1861. ² When the publisher, an English commission merchant, transferred his agency from Nagasaki to Yokohama, he started producing The Japan Herald from 23 November 1861. By 1866, a number of English-language newspapers were being published in Yokohama, but they were intended for residents of the foreign settlement, an exotic world apart from the mainstream of Japanese life. ³ In any case, only a few Japanese could understand the language in which these newspapers were written, even if they did know about them. ⁴