ABSTRACT
What are characteristic features of the media in Japan? Through an examination of the development from mass media (television and newspaper) to global digital/social media (the Internet), this chapter analyzes the ways in which the Japanese media created a postwar ideology through the process of homogenizing popular culture and contributing to the construction of the ideal of the nuclear family through the 1970s and the simultaneous introduction of market segmentation strategy. It also explores the characteristic features of contemporary Japanese popular/media culture, in particular by looking at otaku culture since the 1980s. Finally, the relationship between media, society and politics, in particular the recent rise of nationalism, is discussed.
