A Research On Disaster Reporting Of Japanese Media

On the afternoon of March11,2011, a9.0magnitude earthquake took place in Japan’s northeast coast. This is the largest and heaviest earthquake in the history of Japan. One hour after the earthquake, the tsunami engulfed the Pacific coastal cities like Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, causing more than20,000people’s deaths and disappearances. Power supply facilities of unit1-4in Fukushima nuclear power plant were damaged in the disaster, resulting in the explosion of the nuclear power plant and consequential crises. Confronting the frequent natural disasters, like the one stated above, the Japanese media has formed a practical and distinctive system of reporting.In this major disaster, the performance of Japanese media has caught world’s attention. This thesis targets news reports of Japanese media on nuclear power events of the Great East Japan Earthquake, using content analysis, field survey and literature research to interpret the performance of Japanese media in major disasters and crisis management, gaining inspirations for Chinese media’s disaster reporting.Most of the existing Japanese media were established in the second half of19th century and have constituted a complete and mature media operating system eventually. This thesis explains the performance of Japanese media in disaster reporting from the following three perspectives---ewspapers, television and radio.As for newspapers, through quantitative analysis of Yomiuri Shimbun’s and Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the Great East Japan Earthquake, we can see the coverage and superimposition of the disasters enables the national-level newspapers to maintain a constant worldwide exposure; local newspapers provide thoughtful living information of the affected areas based on the contingency plans, fulfilling the responsibility of news organizations. As for television, NHK channel shows the strength of public broadcasting institutions. Its Earthquake Early Warning and objective reporting style are praised by the international media world/industry. Five private television stations try to learn from NHK, but they are questioned about the professional ity and persistency in disaster reporting for as being’private’television stations. As for broadcasting, Japan’s major broadcasters have gradually formed a clear reporting concept as’report peace over disaster’. In addition, the unique emergency broadcast system has played an irreplaceable role in the situation when modern technology is encountering aphasia.Considering disaster reporting of Japanese media, we should pay attention to the disaster culture of Japanese society. Disaster culture is associated with disaster prevention and disaster reduction. Along with the changing times, disaster culture is constantly deepened, innovated, and penetrates through every aspect of Japanese society. There are three key elements in Japanese disaster reporting:disaster prevention reporting,’reporting peace over disaster’and living information reporting. They are the very reflection of mass media influenced by disaster culture. Meanwhile, as a kind of news practice and exploration of Japanese media, verification reporting has played a crucial role in the development of disaster reporting. Starting from1995Hanshin Awaji Earthquake, the turning point in the history of Japanese disaster reporting, this thesis examines the consciousness of verification in the Great East Japan Earthquake and illustrates the significance of verification reports in modern society.Disaster reporting in the Great East Japan Earthquake also indicates various shortcomings of Japanese media’s crisis response. In this thesis, the problems of Japanese media in disaster reporting are summarized as the following three aspects:1) the improper handling of media reports on nuclear radiation cause Japanese civilians’ panic and economic losses;2) As information released by the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company become the main source of media’s nuclear power information, the mass media? do not play the role of supervising and criticizing, therefore ignoring the ambiguity of government information, resulting in severe homogeneity;3) It is difficult to remove press club system from Japanese media world/industry because of the government’s and media’s mutual interest which hinders the multi-angle, multi-interest demands of disaster reporting.It is once again proven in the Great East Japan Earthquake and the chain reaction of nuclear power event in Fukushima that "social expansion" of natural disasters will bring great destruction and loss to modern society. Although the Japanese media’s disaster reporting is not perfect, and Chinese media environment is very different from that of Japan, there are many aspects in Japanese media’s disaster reporting that are worthy of our using for reference. The thesis mainly enlightens Chinese media from the following four aspects:emergency plan, professionalism, consciousness of verification and reserve of science and technology talents.