Media's Role in Japan's Foreign Policy Process : A Case Study of the Comfort Women Issue in 2007

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  • 日本の対外政策決定過程におけるメディアの役割 : 2007年慰安婦問題を事例として
  • ニホン ノ タイガイ セイサク ケッテイ カテイ ニ オケル メディア ノ ヤクワリ 2007ネン イアンフモンダイ オ ジレイ ト シテ

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the media's role in Japan's foreign policy process through revising R.M. Entman's model and analyzing a case with a revised model. In studies about the nexus of media and foreign policy, the media is not regarded as an actor who critically reports about a government's performance. Rather, preceding studies show that media preferentially covers information a government posts. However, the rapid spread of globalization after the Cold War helps heighten the linkage between domestic and foreign problems. This enables the public to access information about foreign countries much easier and requires us to reconsider media influence. This paper examines R.M. Entman's study, which has attracted special attention among the scholars in this field. His study proposed a model-the Cascade Model-for analysis of the nexus between foreign policy process and media's role (Entman 2004). This paper points out some problems of this model, and proposes a revised Cascade Model. Also it applies the revised model to Japan, specifically the Comfort Women Issue in 2007. As a case study, this paper analyses the interaction between the actions of political elite and news coverage of Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun. In this case study, the argument that media preferentially covers a government's interpretation is not supported. On the contrary, the media criticizes the government from their point of view. Additionally, Prime Minister Abe made a decision to back off from his own belief that comfort women are prostitutes. Finally, he accepted the traditional government's interpretation, the Kono Statement, through the intervention of media and public opinion. In this case, a media frame which reflects the views of Japan's public and each media was found, and this frame pressured on Prime Minister Abe to accept the Kono Statement.

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