In many ways, the Japanese weekly newsmagazines constitute their own genre. As noted in part two, they are often described as bizarre blends of various types of U.S. magazines, such as Newsweek, the New Yorker, People, Penthouse, and the National Enquirer. They are similar to Newsweek or Time in that they often present more-detailed coverage of selected topics from each week's news than is offered on television or in most newspapers. They can be a bit like the New Yorker, however, in that they carry a fair amount of literary and cultural commentary, albeit usually less sophisticated than the New Yorker's best material. In their fluffy celebrity gossip, they also resemble People, and yet, like Penthouse (and similar men's magazines), many feature pornography and target (with but a few exceptions) men. And like the U.S. "supermarket tabloids," such as the National Enquirer, they are widely acknowledged to be less reliable than more establishment-oriented news publications. Tabs or not tabs? This last point has led many Japanese intellectuals and Western visitors to dismiss shukanshi as mere tabloids, unworthy of serious consideration. This is a grave error. Although the weeklies' standards of journalistic ethics may be low and their sensationalism quotient high -- and although they often contain lowbrow, even downright sleazy material -- they are a far cry from U.S. or even most British tabloids. Not only are Japanese weeklies different from the Western tabloids, they are also far more influential. For example, shukanshi are absolutely nothing like the U.S. supermarket "tab" Weekly World News, which commonly features tales about alien matings and Elvis Presley sightings, and regularly runs headlines such as "Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient!" and "I Watched A Wild Hog Eat My Baby!" to quote the titles of two recent books on the U.S. tabloid industry. In fact, shukanshi feature a far wider array of material than the celebrity-oriented gossip that makes up the bread and butter of the National Enquirer, the Star, and other popular U.S. weekly tabloids; or of the Sun, the Daily Mirror, Sport, and the other British tabs. Shukanshi run serious political news, book reviews, and fiction, as well as social commentary. Moreover, depending on the magazine, much of the material can adhere to good or even very high literary standards -- something not often found in the U.S. or British tabloids.
 |
"I knew at least one famous political scientist who reads (weeklies) faithfully ... so as not to miss anything of real importance that the respectable press had chosen to ignore." -- Ivan P. Hall |
|
Writers such as Bill Sloan, S. Elizabeth Bird, and Jim Hogshire have argued persuasively that the influence of U.S. supermarket tabloids is greatly underestimated. They argue that many readers take the tabloids very seriously, often relying on them as their sole source of written news, and that many readers' worldviews and sometimes even politics are heavily influenced by them. Hogshire in particular cites a number of examples of flag-waving by the U.S. supermarket tabs that have helped to rally readers behind various national causes. No doubt the U.S. and other Western tabloids regularly capitalize on nationalism. Perhaps most important, however, all three authors point out that the total circulation for the top six U.S. tabs was more than 10 million in 1997. This is greater than the combined circulation of all 15 Japanese weekly newsmagazines and comparable to the total circulation of the top ten national U.S. daily newspapers (as well as Yomiuri Shimbun).Still, for all their readers, the U.S. supermarket tabloids are simply not as influential on the national political scene as the shukanshi are on Japanese politics. The U.S. tabs rarely if ever cover social, cultural, or political issues as thoroughly or regularly as Japanese weeklies do. This has become particularly true in recent years, as U.S. tabloids have further narrowed their focus on celebrity gossip and bizarre human-interest stories. Even though Japanese weekly newsmagazines do have a distinctively tabloid flavor to them -- some more pungent than others -- this is but one aspect of the industry. And while it is true that British tabs can be political, and even politically influential, they rarely carry the kinds of fiction, erotica, literary reviews, or thoughtful social commentary that some Japanese weeklies do. In short, the Japanese weeklies are a breed apart. One reason for this difference is that Japanese news consumers comprise a significantly different demographic from Western consumers. Western countries often have a much more "polarized" readership, with a small proportion of readers that confine themselves to the highest level of sophisticated reading material and a larger proportion of readers consuming less-sophisticated material. In contrast, Japan tends to have a very large middle set of readers, with significantly smaller proportions than in the West of readers who confine their reading to "intellectually elite" publications or to the tabloids. Ivan P. Hall explains the situation with the same "dinosaur analogy" that was used in a different context in the introduction to this book: "It's a mass-middlebrow audience -- with the bulge higher on the scale of intellectual sophistication and reader education, as contrasted to the "dinosaur" configuration of Europe and America (with national variations, to be sure) -- a small head of limited highbrow papers and magazines attached to a huge lowbrow, mass-circulation body. ... I see the Japanese weeklies as the underbelly of this huge national mass-middlebrow market, rather than as genuine lowbrow or trash-level stuff on the Anglo-American tabloid level. Tokyo University professors read the weeklies, and I knew at least one famous political scientist who reads them faithfully, he told me, so as not to miss anything of real importance that the respectable press had chosen to ignore." The genesis of shukanshi The first weekly newsmagazine in Japan, Sunday, was published in 1908 and carried mainly gossip and human-interest stories. In 1922, Asahi and Mainichi newspapers began publishing weekly newsmagazines as well, with the aim of covering some of their stories in greater depth and from other angles and points of view than in their more fact-oriented newspapers. Both newspaper-owned weeklies are still published today. In 1956, just three years after television had been introduced in Japan and just four years after the end of the occupation, the prominent book publisher Shinchosha Ltd. initiated its weekly magazine, Shukan Shincho, considered by many the first true Japanese weekly newsmagazine, or shukanshi. From the start, Shukan Shincho differed from anything else in the Japanese news media. It simply did not have the same news-gathering infrastructure or experience as its newspaper-owned competition. Having been relegated to a distinctly "outsider" position, but inspired by the exciting new visual aspects of television, Shukan Shincho introduced a controversial, sensationalist stance that gained immediate popularity. Shukan Shincho broke new ground in adopting both a language and a political stance that appealed directly to everyday Japanese. Although today the magazine is generally considered the most "literary" of the weeklies, often using comparatively sophisticated language that does not shy from obscure literary and other references, its use of informal language early on made it fresh and appealing.
Page: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 next>>>
|
