Media Harassment in Japan: An Interactionist Approach[1]
Tsukasa Kuwabara[2]
Professor
at Kagoshima University
1. Starting from a
gvague painh
In August 1981[O1] [O2] ,
when I was a sixth[O3] [O4] -grader,
two classmates forcibly pulled down my bathing suit while I was swimming and
removed it, leaving me stark naked.
In July 2001, when I was suffering
from diarrhea, someone suddenly opened the cubicle door while I was doing my
business at a unisex public restroom (Japanese style) within a Japan Railways
train car, exposing my derriere to the public. The person who had mistakenly
opened the door was a lady about 70 years old.
Both of these incidents
have left me with emotional scars that cannot be erased. In the past, I have
attempted to verbalize and externalize these two incidents.[3]
However, I thought there was a strong possibility that others might perceive
these events as gnot a big dealh based on their gcommon sense.h In any case, I
find that I cannot properly deal with the aforementioned emotional scars unless
I somehow transform my experience into a medium known as language and drive it
outside my heart. By doing so, I cause my experience to have a solid existence
in the gworld of reality out there,h in a format that can be understood by an
indefinite number of others. Furthermore, if I do not perform such an act of
setting forth[4] my
experience in the realm of this world of reality (in other words, defining it),
I will not be able to actively assert my emotional scars when interacting with
others. Shameful events themselves are difficult
to describe. However, recounting the details of emotional scars caused by such
events is even more difficult. Even though these events are impossible to verbalize
unless feelings of shame are pushed forward, one feels compelled to choose
language that conceals and tones down (or denies) such feelings of shame.
Because of this, the details depicted tend to become vague. I have been
carrying such vague pain around with me all this time.
One day, a person who
had a similar vague feeling of pain consulted me.
This man explained that
while he had been bathing at a public bath house in Kagoshima City, a newspaper
photographer suddenly had entered the venue. The photographer had bowed and
immediately had started snapping photos. The man recounted having the following
feelings: gIf this happened to a woman, it would be understandable to be
concerned about this. But I felt embarrassed being concerned about such an event.h
I felt that this person was carefully selecting—or forcing out—his words while
discerning how he himself appeared in my eyes (i.e., assessing onefs own identity as viewed by the other
person[5]).
Although I was experiencing tremendous difficulty when it came to defining my
own experience, it was surprisingly easy to verbalize (define) what had
happened to others, disclosing their experience to the real world out there in
a form that is (or I think that is) understandable to an indefinite number of
other people.[6]
Based on my own
perspective, or on the perspective of a person who suffers from an emotional
scar described above, the experience of the aforementioned man seems to be
strongly intertwined with two types of gobviousness.h The first type stipulates
that gmen are beings who do not (or should not) feel a sense of sexual
embarrassmenth (this is an obviousness that I also share, wonder about, and am
attempting to deconstruct). The other type deals with gthe freedom of reporting
and interviewing by the mass media.h I am not so skillful as to be able to
concentrate on two different things simultaneously, and even if I can
effectively verbalize or define things concerning other people, I still
struggle to properly define things pertaining to myself (though this problem
may not be unique to me).
Thus, I have decided to
focus my attention concerning this issue on the latter type of obviousness, the
one that does not involve me—that is, the freedom of reporting and interviewing
by the mass media. I have actively engaged in deconstructing this obviousness.
My discussion with the man described above became an impetus drawing my
attention to the phenomenon of harm
caused by media reporting (also known as gtrial by mediah).
2. gServingh and ga platterh
I have been engaged in
study related to Herbert Blumerfs theory on Symbolic Interactionism since 1994.[7]
In 1971, Blumer published a paper titled gSocial Problems as Collective
Behavior,h[8]
and we translated it into Japanese in 2006.[9]
Blumer made the following statement at the beginning of the paper:
My
thesis is that social problems are fundamentally products of a process of
collective definition instead of existing independently as a set of objective
social arrangements with an intrinsic makeup.
Blumer was not intending
to say that objective social arrangements are of no concern in the formation of
social problems.[10]
Instead, he stated that even if many people are tormented by such gobjective
social arrangements,h these social arrangements or conditions will not become a
social problem unless not only those people but others as well come to consider
them as a social problem.
Many gobjective social
arrangementsh in Japan have passed through the process described by Blumer.
Sexual harassment is a clear example. Before the point at which events
involving ga type of social behavior, performed by men toward women, that has a
high likelihood of causing emotional damage to women beyond simple discomfort
as a general ruleh were given the name[11]
of gsexual harassmenth and constructed as social problems, they were viewed as
essentially a non-issue. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that
until that time, gcommon senseh had dictated that women who viewed such events
as problems were themselves the problems. Even if one wanted to turn such
events into an issue of concern, there was no suitable language—or gnameh — available by means of which to do so.
Yoshiko Miya, in the
foreword to her book Sexual Harassment:
The New Edition (Asahi Bunko, 1999), described such circumstances prior to
the 1980s in the following manner:
gSexual harassmenth has been
described as an old, yet also a new problem. Although the term itself seems
like something new, the phenomenon itself has existed from olden days. (new paragraph/omission)
The
phenomena that exist around us would be seen as non-existent if there were no
language to scoop up such phenomena. Thus, to describe a phenomenon, a new
language or a gservingh of a concept will become necessary.
The
term gsexual harassmenth was indeed this new gserving.h
In
order to serve it, a gplatterh on which it could be served was also needed.
However, the fact that a platter known as gthe era,h as well as another platter
known as gawareness of human rightsh—in particular,
the rights of women—had been prepared played a large role (new
paragraph/omission).
Although
through the 1980s, we concentrated on the task of listening to female victims,
the women who recounted their suffering feared being identified as an involved
party more than anything. They were cautious regarding the process of being
interviewed and, even if they agreed to an interview, they did not express
their true feelings easily. To begin with, the task of verbalizing the
experience they had gone through was fraught with difficulty. Often described
as a gsecond rape,h raising issues involving sex required the victim to prove
to the people around her that she was 100% a victim. Back in the 1980s, there
were many Japanese lawyers who, despite being specialists in law, were
completely ignorant about sexual harassment. Therefore, they had to start by
obtaining Western works and studying them.
Following the gera of
labor pains,h as Miya put it, described above, the 1990s saw the social
establishment of gsexual harassmenth as an object[12]—that is,
gthe phenomenon itselfh was established as a social problem—. Immediately after this event, various other types of
social issues, such as academic harassment, power harassment, and alcohol related
harassment, became successively framed under the broad umbrella of a
superordinate category, gharassment.h The term gsexual harassmenth thus not
only established sexual harassment as a social problem but also served to
expedite the turning of other previously gburiedh and objective social
arrangements or conditions into social problems.
What requirements must
be met for an objective social arrangement to attain the status of a social
problem? According to Blumerfs paper cited earlier, such objective social
arrangements need to pass through five stages—or to clear five hurdles—along the way: the emergence of a social problem, the
legitimation of the problem, the mobilization of action with regard to the
problem, the formation of an official plan of action, and the transformation of
the official plan in its empirical implementation (page 301/translated, page
45). The one thing that remains important through all five stages is that the
social arrangement must gcontinue to be defined as a social problem.h
After that, what
requirements must be met for a certain objective social arrangement to continue
to be defined as a social problem within a society?
The
cooperation of the mass media (for molding a gplatterh): Blumer himself, albeit
in simple form, pointed out the importance of mass media in his aforementioned
paper (page 302/translated, page 47). The impact of
the four types of mass media (TV, newspaper, radio, and magazines), especially
that of TV and newspapers,[13]
remains substantial even in modern-day Japan, despite the Internetfs growing
number of users and its extension into every crevice of society. No matter how
much an objective social arrangement may be defined as a problem by online
users, it is nearly impossible for the arrangement to attain a status as a
social problem without backing from TV or newspapers (hereinafter, gmass
mediah). Even though a great number of sites that view a certain objective
social arrangement as a problem may pop up online, as their number increases,
the likelihood that multitudes of people will access each site decreases
inversely. And even if many people access each site, should these people fall
into the state of pluralistic ignorance,[14]
such an objective social arrangement will not become a widely recognized issue
within the general public. This means that it will not become established as a
social concern or readily obvious as a social problem.
Language
that contains an explicit definition (for gservingh): Even if one decides to
define a certain objective social arrangement as a social problem and to make
claims concerning it,[15]
a language appropriate for representing this arrangement will be indispensable
in most cases. It is even more favorable if this language has a signified[16] that has been explicitly defined and a signifier[17] which can be easily spread among other
people. A language possessing a moniker that is easy to use when mentioning the
said arrangement (i.e., the ease by which an image can be conjured up from the
moniker) and possessing at the same time the clarity of the specification of
the concept will become powerful tools when one is seeking to turn a certain
arrangement or condition into a social problem.
3. The difficulty of gharm caused
by media reportingh
The first time I saw the
term gharm caused by media reportingh (it might be permitted that we call it
gmedia harassmenth hereinafter in this paper) in the mass media was in a
newspaper report in Minami-Nippon Shimbun[18]
on the Okinawa rape incident by American soldiers that took place on June 29,
2001. This gservingh was a perfect tool for me, as I was attempting to
deconstruct the obviousness of the freedom of reporting and interviewing by the
mass media. Initially, the mass media described the perpetrator of this harmful
reporting—media harassment—as ga certain segment of the media.h They kept
reporting the story as if they themselves (the TV and newspaper outlets) were
outsiders. However, immediately after the (old) Protection of Human Rights Bill
was submitted in 2002 to the Diet, the mass media were forced to report in such
a way as to acknowledge that they themselves had been active perpetrators in
order to protect their own rights and interest. Therefore, the mass media were
forced to frequently use the term gmedia harassmenth in their broadcasts and
newspapers. During this period, the object
of a social problem, referred to as gmedia scrum,h was being formed.
Ironically, the serving and the platter for media harassment were provided
simultaneously by the perpetrators, the mass media themselves.
However, after the
above-cited bill was abolished in October 2003, the term gmedia
harassmenth disappeared rapidly, at least in the mass media. The terms
gmedia harassmenth and gmedia scrumh lost their platter, although the terms
were again accompanied by a serving and a platter during the formation process
of the Basic Plan for Crime Victims from February 2004 to December 2005.
Despite having lost its
platter, the serving of gmedia harassmenth remains alive in various places
other than the mass media. However, without its platter, media harassment no
longer maintains its obviousness as a commonly known social problem.
Moreover, the serving of
gmedia harassmenth itself was problematic, because the definition of the
concept was/is vague. In contrast, sexual harassment has a very detailed
definition that stipulates exactly what actions, committed by what persons and
in what settings, constitute the harassment. It also stipulates the types of
relationship—in reality or in the eyes of victims—that may exist between the
perpetrators and the victims. In contrast, media harassment is defined broadly
as ga type of human-rights violation where people who are or were being
reported on by the TV, newspapers, and magazines have their characters defamed
or their privacy abused. It destroys their lives and isolates them from their
neighbors and friendsh (Kazuyuki Azusawa, Trial by Media: Harmful Media Reporting,
Iwanami Shinsho, 2007, page 22).
Yoshiko Miya, in her
previously mentioned work, states that her own mission is to gdig up phenomena
that have been buried within a society and expose them to societyh (ibid, page
4).
Many books, articles and
papers have been written on media harassment.[19]
However, I have yet to come across a detailed and clear definition of the term.
In a future paper, I intend to attempt a more specific clarification of media harassment. (To be continued.)
4. Bibliography
I would like to continue
to expand and enhance this section.
*Organizations (those that traverse
industries) dealing with human-rights violations by the media
TV, radio: BPO (The
Broadcasting Ethics and Program Improvement Organization)[20]
Magazines: Magazine
Human Rights Box[21]
Newspaper: None
*Organizations addressing media
harassment
LAMVIC (Lawyersf Network
for Media Victims damaged by news coverage)[22]
GoHoo (watchdog for accuracy
in news reporting)[23]
*Citizen groups that examine media
harassment
The Liaison Committee on
Human Rights and Mass Media Conduct[24]
The Association of
Reporting and Human Rights[25]
A Society for
Researching Human Rights and Media Reporting (Sendai)[26]
The Tokai Association
That Examines Mass Media and Human Rights[27]
The Association That
Examines Mass Media in Kyoto (currently not in operation)
The Kitakawachi
Association That Examines Broadcasting and Human Rights[28]
The Kansai Society for
Human Rights and Media Reporting[29]
Fukuoka Association That
Discusses Reporting (Representative: Hirofumi Uchida, professor at the Faculty
of Law, Kyushu University)
*Major researchers, activists, and
involved parties
Yoshiyuki Kouno[30]
Kenichi Asano[31]
Masanori Yamaguchi
(Representative, The Liaison Committee on Human Rights and Mass Media Conduct)
Kazuyuki Azusawa[32]
Minami Ooka[33]
* Related literatures, sites and
memos[34]
Discussion Papers In Economics
and Sociology, No.2001
Media Harassment in Japan: An Interactionist Approach
Tsukasa Kuwabara
2020/07/10
FACULTY of LAW, ECONOMICS and HUMANITIES
OF
KAGOSHIMA
UNIVERSITY
[1] This paper is the English version of the following paper: Kuwabara, T., (2012), Clarifying the Concept of gHarm Caused by Media Reportingh [= https://web.archive.org/web/20160304105240/http://jairo.nii.ac.jp/0016/00010644 ].
[2] https://megalodon.jp/ref/2020-0404-1044-36/https://web.archive.org:443/web/20200404014402/https://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/11454418/ecowww.leh.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/staff/kuwabara/
[3] Kuwabara,
T., . The Errata of gIntroduction to a sociological
perspective of Symbolic Interactionism(3) (The Summary
of a doctoral dissertation, Tohoku University)h KEIZAIGAKU-RONSHU~ OF KAGOSHIMA UNIVERSITY ( No.54 ) et al.. Discussion Papers In
Economics and Sociology (0701). 2017-10-04. URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20200201032332/https://sites.google.com/site/20120430prfphd/home/the-errata-of-introduction-to-a-sociological-perspective-of-symbolic-interactionism-3-the-summary-of-a-doctoral-dissertation-tohoku-university-keizaigaku-ronshu-of-kagoshima-university-no-54-et-al-discussion-papers-in-economics-and-sociology-issn-1347-085x-no-0701.
Accessed: 2017-10-04. (Archived by
https://megalodon.jp/ref/2020-0404-1347-46/archive.ph/4lc5C).
Kuwabara,
T., . No. 0501, 0601, 0701: Collection In One Volume
Edition. Discussion Papers In Economics
and Sociology (0902). 2017-10-04.
URL:https://web.archive.org/web/20171004051328/http://www.peeep.us/cf31a989.
Accessed: 2017-10-04. (Archived by WebCite® at
http://www.webcitation.org/6txEzBiXL).
[4]
or
gfixing firmlyh
[5] Cf. Kuwabara, T., and K. Yamaguchi, 2013, An Introduction to the Sociological Perspective of Symbolic Interactionism, The Joint Journal of the National Universities in Kyushu, Education and Humanities, 1(1) [= http://archive.ph/Erx12], p. 5.
[6] http://archive.ph/mso17#selection-1379.0-1379.142
https://web.archive.org/web/20171118072547/https://megalodon.jp/ref/2012-0918-1705-27/liveweb.archive.org/http://www.geocities.jp/issn03890104no57/DPno0701Reflected/anti-humanrights.htm
[7] Kuwabara,
T., 2019, gSymbolic Interactionism Notesh Web Release, Journal of Economics and Sociology, Kagoshima University, 93: 33-39k**=*l.
@Kuwabara,
T., 2011, Book Review: Introduction to
the gSociology of Selfh by Mamoru Funatsu, The Book Review Press, 3019 [ https://web.archive.org/web/20141109085850/http://www.geocities.jp/ptk20120118/Comment-on-Mamoru-Funatsu.pdf
].
@Kuwabara,
T., and K. Yamaguchi, 2013, op. cit. pp.1-11.
[8] https://www.jstor.com/stable/799797
[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20160404203553/http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/120001394128/en/
[10] http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/40019193469
[11] On
the importance of gnameh or gnamingh in the formation of gobjects,h see the
following: Strauss, A. L., 1959, Mirrors and Masks, Free Press.
[12] Blumer, H. G., 1969, Symbolic Interactionism, Prentice-Hall, pp. 10-12.
[13] In particular, gpseudo-environment composition abilityh and gagenda setting ability.h
[14] http://archive.ph/kfiQd#selection-4447.462-4447.484
[15] http://archive.ph/lH7cW#selection-507.19-507.43
[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signified_and_signifier
[18]
https://web.archive.org/web/20030603204607/http://373news.com:80/index.php
[19] https://scholar.google.co.jp/scholar?q=%E5%A0%B1%E9%81%93%E8%A2%AB%E5%AE%B3%E3%80%80%E5%AE%9F%E5%90%8D&btnG=&hl=ja&as_sdt=0%2C5
[20] https://web.archive.org/web/20160313142445/http://www.bpo.gr.jp/
[21] https://web.archive.org/web/20150810005527/http://www.j-magazine.or.jp/opinion_001.html
[22] https://web.archive.org/web/20150810113956/http://lamvic.j-all.com/
[23] https://web.archive.org/web/20150813001453/http://gohoo.org/
[24] https://web.archive.org/web/20150923022713/http://www.jca.apc.org/~jimporen/index.html
[25] https://archive.is/JgLZz#selection-9677.0-9677.29
[26] http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/40004395067
[27] http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/40004395068
[28] http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA56717342
[29] https://web.archive.org/web/20090721054310/http://www.geocities.jp/citizenandmedia/
https://web.archive.org/web/20060219120620/http://www.geocities.jp:80/citizenandmedia/backnumbertop.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20130729025446/http://www.geocities.jp/shimin_media/
[30] https://web.archive.org/web/20160505103701/http://www2k.biglobe.ne.jp/~ndskohno/
[31]
https://web.archive.org/web/20140723122736/http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/~kasano/
[32]
http://archive.vn/A8CL7#selection-2399.44-2399.84
[33]
https://web.archive.org/web/20140817225330/http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~norin/
[34] https://twilog.org/TK65802767/search?word=Media%20Harassment&ao=a