The Political Mobilization Of Modern Japanese Press(1868-1945)

As the powerful weapon of political mobilization, modern Japanese press was closelymonitored by the government, thus creating an awareness of Total War on national and sociallevel, strengthening the sense of Community of Fate between the nation and the people. Theconsequence of this is that, on the one hand, the press played a key role in the promotion ofliberty, civil rights and constitutional democracy and in the opposition of military dictatorshipin Japan; on the other hand, it also involved itself in the struggle between the support of theking and the support of the shogunate, the active propaganda of external expansion, serving asthe accomplice to a series of aggressive wars.Based on relevant theories and studies in Japanese media history, Japanese politicalhistory, Journalism and Communication, also with the use of Japanese original archives, thedissertation explores the interactive relation between the Japanese press and politics between1868and1945with “political mobilization” as the central clue, especially the formation ofthe Total War System under the political intervention and monitoring, and its applicationduring the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan-Russian War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, aswell as the propagation and the influence of the thoughts of such preeminent thinkers asChomin Nakae, Fukujawa Ukichi and Tokutomi Soho. The dissertation intends to provide afull picture of the development and function of modern Japanese press by way of an objectiveand just analysis of its war responsibility and reflections on the history.The dissertation focuses on the interaction between politics and the press in thefollowing six stages: the Meiji Period, the Democratic Civil Period, the Taishou Period, theFirst Sino-Japanese War Period, the Japan-Russian War Period, and the Second Sino-JapaneseWar Period to elaborate on such questions:I. During the Meiji and Taishou Periods, namely, the period in which Japan wasadvancing toward modernization, the relation between the government and the presswas quite complicated. On the one hand, they cooperated for their common goal; onthe other hand, they struggled against each other for the reason of imposed control,which was an inevitable stage for the advance of modern press in a society undergoingdramatic changes. Overall, the press in Early Meiji Period played a part of politicalmobilization in the process of political and social mobilization.II. After the Japanese government adopted a foreign policy of aggression, it commencedto impose a stricter control over the press, which eventually resulted in the shift of thefocus of the press. The press gave up the role as a defender of constitutionaldemocracy, a powerful weapon of political conflict, but became a politicalmobilization tool by which the government could control the public opinionsdomestically, and practiced aggressive policy abroad by way of war propaganda,detailed war coverage, deceptive report, even direct involvement in war mobilization,which helped to support the aggressive wars to the largest extent and their prolongingprocess.III. The Japanese press bore unshrinkable responsibility for the war in modern Japan’shistory. Due to the incomplete democratization after the war, the press also inheritedthe ideas before and after the war on nation and state to different degrees. Till today, the political mobilization by the Japanese press is still prevailing.Under the paradigm of Total War, with the method of Trans-war history, the discussionon the history of Japanese press and political mobilization proves that the complex relationcontinues even after a long after-war period.