The ratio of people gaining news from only the Internet and not watching TV is increasing. Think of the media’s situation in Japan, we can see the information gap between TV and the Internet. It means that the information shared from TV and the Internet is becoming different.

Especially when the current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in office, the world press freedom index by reporters without borders is much lower than other administrations. Even though Japan was ranked 11st in 2010[1], they were

22nd in 2011 and 2012[2].

53rd in 2013, 72nd in 2016 & 2017, and 67th in 2018[3].

Because of pressure from the government and self-censorship of media, the mainstream media, especially TV, do not play the investigative role so much.

However, when we look at the Internet, we can find huge amount of investigative, logical, and reasonable information on the regime. The internet community has been sharing much more critical information than TV.

Importantly, the logical and factual information shared by the Internet users are having larger proportion of the information the public has. It is not minority and those who using the Internet cannot bear watching what mainstream media cover when they are not getting into the investigative role. The sense of community on the Internet is increasing. In recent years, some journalists of newspapers have been working well, but weakness of journalism still remains. In order to live in a better society, journalism is one of the important aspects.

If Japan’s TV continue to behave this way, people will increasingly leave TV. The current situation that the Internet shares more useful information with the public is one of the reasons that people have been coming to prefer to use the Internet as means of getting news. The different information shared by TV and by the Internet causes the information gap between them.

[1]https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-2010 Accessed 15 February 2019

[2]https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-20112012 Accessed 15 February 2019

[3]https://rsf.org/en/japan Accessed 14 February 2019

When we take a look at the situation on YouTube, there are a lot of illegally uploaded videos. It’s been problematic and those are mainly TV programs. Even though several TV stations make some of their shows available on the Internet, the videos violating copyright has been being uploaded online.

The problem is that each tv station has each system providing video service. For example, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) provides the online service as NHK on-demand, another TV station Nihon TV has Nittere on-demand, and etc. (Though Nihon TV make their TV shows available on Hulu.)

However the strength of YouTube is a variety of videos gathered in just one platform which is much more convenient for audiences. Like in the current YouTube Premium, there are videos users need to pay for watching. Even if the current YouTube is not suitable for TV stations to put their TV programs on, the TV stations can negotiate. People now watch contents in their favourite time, the conventional style of TV is not practical in our life.

What matters is not whether TV stations use YouTube as their new platform or not, but the unification of the platform. For example, Japan’s TV stations make one platform although they have their own platform at present. Cooperating together to set up the largest video-sharing platform where people get together spontaneously will be advantageous in terms of monetizing and preventing illegal uploads. If they ask users to pay subscription fees per month or per video, it would be lucrative for TV stations and the scale gets larger, more and more audiences would gather.

They can put advertisements from enterprises per 15 or 20 minutes and they can also make some TV shows free to attract more viewers.

Given the current situation, we should think about and take actions for how we could prevent those uploaders and attract viewers on the right place.

A society can be expressed as a triangle. For example, when I organize it in terms of intellectual framework, the top is where those who are having great academic background, but the number is a few. As it descends to the bottom, it widens and the number grows.

The framework of a society which is signified by the triangle is extendable. Most of people live within the frame, but there are some people staying outside of it. The former is different from those who called Elites. Elites are located in the top of the triangle and those who take the (almost)best score in all subjects. They are within a framework and some of them are on the line of the border and pushing it to expand. Among elites, a handful of people can cross the line and move back and forth. However the difference is the vector of the power extending the frame. People outside of a framework pull the border to expand from the outside. They sometimes first make some their own areas developed themselves far from the society, but then connect it to it (= these are so-called genius). Some of them can also enters and leave the borders. On the other hand, Elites expand it from internal area. There is another type of people staying inside of the border pushing it even if they are not on the top in terms of academic background. Those stay nearby the frame.

Besides, many people are not conscious of the framework and spend their time within the frame. This is actually individual preference whether they eager to develop the society or not.

This theory can be adapted to the school situation. Famously Thomas Alva Edison dropped out from a primary school. But he is the person having great curiosity and made the greatest achievements in specific fields. And there’s no doubt that he is the greatest inventor. This means that only people taking the best grades in almost all subjects at school is not necessarily a case that people develop a society (or human history).

The powers from the internal and external expand our society and the frame is expandable.

Upload: 8 February 2019, Last update: 18 February 2019

In the press conference of the chief cabinet secretary, Hideki Uemura, the director of press room, often interrupts the questions to the spokesperson posed by Isoko Mochizuki who is a journalist working for Tokyo newspapers. This endangers the right to know of the citizens since journalists attending the conference are trying to gain deeper parts of news for the citizens.

Even Uemura sent an document pointing out that her questions are mistaking facts[1]. However, the questions posed by Mochizuki are logical and based on her factual investigations. I often think that the answer from the spokesperson cannot be a response to question. In the conference, the problem is not question of the reporter, but it is the answers of the spokesperson. The Uemura’s interruption have negative influence on our right to know. I would like him to explain in which part and phrase of her question is not accurate.

She has been stepping into deeper parts and trying to get valuable information for the public. It means that she is asking questions as a representative of the public. Japan’s journalism must not be defeated by the pressure. I hope that not just Mochizuki and other several good journalists, but also others should play more investigative role. In the meantime, citizens should get together to check whether our rights are working or not.

[1] Sentaku shuppan’s article on Yahoo! JAPAN ニュース. https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/article?a=20190201-00010000-sentaku-pol&fbclid=IwAR3gKvVnlz8GeMZVv5ZiiOW6qYZOUHwuKRbS_jm5n_mK4EQ-MwDJ72JhhBE Accessed 8 February 2019, & IWJ’s interview video to Mr. Uemura on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLwiKPKPgCc Accessed 8 February 2019

Living in Japan makes me notice that Japanese people often put importance on tradition. Certainly, Japan has a variety of unique traditional cultures. Tradition is built on the accumulation of history. However, it cannot be infinitely a tradition, it can disappear. In order to make the traditions continue, people have to reform or make some changes, otherwise some of them would disappear being left behind the mainstream of a society.

In this article, “tradition” means “Dentou” in Japanese. The English word “tradition” is translated as “Dentou” and “Kanshu” in Japanese, but in my definition, “Dentou” and “Kanshu” is different and the word “tradition” in this article is meaning only “Dentou”. “Dentou” is with more respect, on the other hand, “Kanshu” is continuing a thing like “Dentou”, but has less respect or is worth less respect than “Dentou”. There might be some people against my definition above, but it is sure that Dentou should be what people in a society recognize it with respect.

Just because people want to maintain a tradition doesn’t mean just persisting in a old way. Survival of a tradition is keeping to get popularity from the members of a society constantly and not easy.

The most famous traditional example is Kabuki. Everyone would recognize this as a representative traditional show of Japan. What matters is that after Kabuki appeared in 1603[1], the popularity of Kabuki has been continuing in the past 400 and more years without changing the essence and it’s been incorporating new aspects. Therefore, the society has always been finding out the traditional value to Kabuki.

Since the life of human being is not eternal, there’s possibility that people come not to recognize the value of a tradition. The value is shared by the member of a society. And if the number of people sharing it in a tradition decreases, the traditional value of a tradition will also decrease. When a tradition declines, it becomes history. For example, a tradition recognized by 100 members of a society declined and if it is recognized as a tradition by just 30 members, it becomes a history for the rest of 70 members.

However, since Kabuki often steps into new fields and make a success in getting on the mainstream of each era, the momentum doesn’t decline. Kabuki doesn’t decrease the traditional value shared by the public and it has been being a traditional culture. This is the very what we should call tradition. Kabuki needed in the past and will continue to need to put new elements into the show getting on the main stream of the era. Particularly, the famous Kabuki actor Ebizo Ichikawa indicates the need of reform[2]. But the essence doesn’t change and it has flexibility to incorporate new factors without changing the essential factor.

As time passes, new products appear. Particularly, the traditional industry in Japan is at stake right now because of lack of successors and development of mass production. Even though the quality of a product by a professional is higher than that of mass production, the public in the modern and future world would increasingly find out values in a product from mass production. Because of price and as technology develops the quality is not so defeated by a hand-made one. In the future, it will be improved more and more. That leads people to move to another product. Keeping the completely same way doesn’t catch up with the trend of next era and it makes a tradition open for a narrow range of people. This the cause that a tradition declines.

There may be a lot of traditions disappeared we do not know, those traditions couldn’t continue to be recognized value by the public are buried in the pile of history. Keeping a tradition being a tradition doesn’t mean persisting in doing the same way, it needs to have flexibility to get through various eras. The flexibility doesn’t change the essential of a tradition, but putting new elements into a tradition getting on the stream of each era.

I used the word “survive” or “continue”, but it is “evolution” and “development”.

Footnotes

[1]http://www2.ntj.jac.go.jp/unesco/kabuki/jp/2/2_01.html Accessed 5 February 2019.

[2]https://www.kabuki-bito.jp/news/5293 Accessed 6 February 2019