ABSTRACT
The Japanese broadcasting system, more than any other, bears witness to a national effort to deal with the problem of freedom of expression in a mass society. The Japanese have built a ‘free’ system inside a set of powerful, politically independent, institutions, and have found that a public broadcasting system has still to compete for viewers against a commercial system. Japanese newspapers were vehicles for political opinion, usually opposition opinion in the days of the Yokohama Mainichi. Although Japanese culture is strikingly different in its traditional content from that of any western country the genres of TV have somehow found a way to impose their nature and needs upon it. The broadcasting culture of Japan breeds psychological intensity and reflects the traditions of extreme self-control and self-impulsion which are ancient Japanese characteristics.
