Structure of Japanese Media - Essay Example

Japanese Media

Among the contributors to the economic development of Japan in the 20th century is the advancement of mass media such as television broadcast, newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts. Ideally, over millions of people in the world use either a TV or a radio broadcast Television broadcast had its genesis back in the early 1950s and took its roots in Japan in 1963. Currently, almost 90% of TV broadcast uses Japanese as a standard language due to its immense impact on standardization of words.

Basically, broadcasting is the transmission of programs or information through television or radio. However, television broadcasting can be broadly divided into three groups: terrestrial broadcasting, satellite broadcasting, and cable broadcasting. Terrestrial broadcasting can either be digital or analogue. Both digital and analogue terrestrial uses radio waves to transmit the signal. Following the terrestrial broadcasting, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation is advancing terrestrial broadcasting technology to transmit ultra-high-definition television channel ( Shirai et., al pg 35-42). Satellite broadcasting uses broadcast signals relayed to and from satellite then the message is received by satellite dishes. More often the signals are encoded digitally in a decoder, for example, the DSTV decoder. Cable broadcasting, on the other hand, is not broadcasted across the airwaves but through a coaxial cable.

Almost all the Japanese media are incorporated in a single broadcasting corporation, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). NHK is neither a private broadcaster nor a national broadcaster like BBC but is a public broadcaster. It is the only licensed broadcast nationwide in Japan, and its financial resources are based on reception fees. Consequently, the users of the NHK should pay the reception fee for the programs even though no penalty is levied on the defaulters. Although NHK is a public broadcaster, other private licensed broadcasters are also in Japan. NHK opened up to accommodate the private broadcasters leading to the licensing of the private broadcasting institutions. Despite being licensed, the private broadcasters were required to meet the unique wants of the region and rely basically on the advertising revenue. Among the reflections of the private broadcast, the program is the pressure from the government and the intentions of the critical stakeholders of the station. This may have had a great impact in terms of freedom of speech, especially for TV shows. In this case, TV shows will tend to show weaker freedom when compared to other media.

Ideally, mass media is governed by rules and regulations to reduce exaggeration and misleading information to the public. Japanese media being a mass media appreciates the rules and regulations of the press. Development of some rules and principle are therefore incorporated in Japan mass media. Firstly, there is a mass media concentration exclusion principle. The policy seems to be ideal to the Japanese media as it regulates the concentration of the information to the public, a significant problem related to broadcasting. Secondly is the broadcasting law that regulates broadcasting content and operation methods applied by both TV and radio stations. The broadcasting content is open to both local and foreign content. Finally, the electric wave law in broadcasting is a law that ensures fair and efficient use of radio waves by all the users. Moreover, it may be used to establish broadcasting stations, allocation of licenses for broadcasting, and bandwidth of the signals.

Entertainment programs and commercial programs characterize mass media. Japanese media too involves broadcasting both entertainment and business programs to their viewers and listeners. Companies and individuals making adverts in the Japanese press are mandated to pay an advertising fee for broadcasting TV commercials. The cost is dependent on the audience ratings, which provide the foundation of the calculation of the cost. Additionally, the commercial value is the inclusion of price the consumer pays for the service and the product; in other words, a fee is charged for watching a TV program, no TV program is free. The Japanese media uses the price to run the media in terms of maintenances, labour cost, among others.

Notably, Japanese media have a good number of TV stations, radio stations and magazines such as Nippon Television, Yomiuru Shimbun newspaper, and Japan Radio Network. Ergul &Hakan ( pg 12). The nationwide broadcasting network of Japanese TV stations centrally located in Tokyo is called vital stations. The TV station that is Tokyo TV station provides the programming for all the regional TV stations despite them producing their programs. This is because of the centralized program production in Tokyo. However, centralized program production does not limit nationwide coverage and advertising revenue. All local networking TV stations can acquire them.

Structurally, Japanese mass media is made up of groups of companies. For example, sports newspaper and radio/TV stations are covered under an umbrella of first newspaper companies. Nonetheless, the groups may be strong or weak but do not replicate the functionality of the media. NHK as well was formed from a group of radio stations that came together in the early 1950s. This is evidence of Japanese media structured from groups.

Evaluation is the most effective key determinant of the level of services offered by a program. Being a critical factor in a business-oriented environment, Japanese mass media appreciates its use by carrying out an audience rating. Practically, this is a data that shows how many TV and radio programs and commercials are being watched and listened to every day. The information is used as an index to evaluate the influential power and advertising affectivity of the mass media. Additionally, the level of public interest during commercials and programs are as well determined by audience rating.

Audience rating can be classified based on the type of broadcast a household uses. The classification includes; terrestrial audience rating or the real-time viewing and total audience rating (Min, Sook, pg, 10). Terrestrial audience rating is an index that shows the number of individuals that watch TV programs and commercials on the ground wave. To get the data, programs and commercial broadcast are evaluated and surveyed. On the other hand, the total audience rating is an index that assesses both the real-time and time-shift viewers. Every time a person watches both real-time and shift in a week, the data will be recorded as single watch time. Audience rating by the Japanese media has as well assisted the owners of the media in determining the cost of running the press.

Despite several characteristics of Japanese mass media, a unique feature is portrayed in the magazines, specifically, articles related to disasters in Japan, such as a nuclear explosion. For instance, an article in the first page of the magazine in Japan expresses the acknowledgement of the Japan Prime Minister, Kan, to the countries that supported Japan during the disaster while inside the same magazine is an article is titled "Lower pay, fewer benefits, more radiation," expressing "day-workers" at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant who does not get bothered by the dangers of the disaster. The magazine provides a comprehensive insight into international media.

The government as well uses the Japanese media in the wrong way even though it pays the advertisement fee. To clear the air on a misunderstanding of a hydrogen explosion, the media is instructed to use ambiguous words by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company, something malicious internationally. The impact of the misleading information by the Japanese government through social media has affected the general well being of the country. The country has lost the trust of other countries.

Generally, mass media in Japan is widely used in the world despite the abuse of media by the government and individuals owning the stations. The significant contribution of Japanese media is the development of high definition television signal.

CONCLUSION

Mass media in the 20th and 21st century plays a vital role in the development of both developed and developing countries. Japan being one of the countries that have gained through mass media, appreciate the use of the media by developing its media known as Japanese media. Japanese media established a corporation called Japanese Broadcast Corporation that is commonly known by its standard language and development of high-vision terrestrial TV broadcast. Characteristically, the media is made up of groups of companies with laws and rules guiding their operations. The media make use of audience rating to evaluate the level of services offered to their customers. Commercial programs are also charged as part of regulations. Finally, all the Japanese media have a central location for programming despite being private or public. The primary TV station is located in Tokyo.

Work cited

Asakura, Shingo, et al. "Hardware implementation of spatially coupled LDPC codes for broadcasting." 2016 International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications (ISITA). IEEE, 2016.

Ergül, Hakan. Popularizing Japanese TV: The cultural, economic, and emotional dimensions of infotainment discourse. Routledge, 2018.

Min, Gyung Sook. "Audience rating survey apparatus and audience rating survey system using the same." U.S. Patent No. 10,448,097. 15 Oct. 2019.

Shirai, Noriyuki, et al. "Transmission System Design of UHD-1/4K and UHD-2/8K Terrestrial Television Broadcasting and its Performance Proof by Large-Scaled Field Experiments." SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal 129.6 (2020): 35-42