The Research Of The Times’ Reports On Japan In Meiji Period

The Times, founded in1785, as a comprehensive daily newspaper, whichis one of the mainstream media of the United Kingdom, focus on a wide rangeof fields, and has a good reputation in nearly every field. The style ofthe newspaper is very serious, and report content is also very detailed.Its readership mainly includes the elite from political, industrial andcommercial finance and the intellectual. From the second half of the19thcentury to the beginning of the20th century, with the powerful nationalstrength, The Times also sent reporters to many parts of the world,including China, Japan, and reported news of the related countries. Whatthe paper use is the reports of the Times about Meiji Japan, includingmany fields such as political, economic, cultural, social, military,diplomatic. With a good understanding of the reports about Japan of theTimes, we can not only understand the historical process of Meiji Japan,but also know Japanese image of western media better.According to comb reports about Japan of the Times, the main goal ofthe paper is to explore the true extent of reports, analyse the reasonof influencing newspaper reports, and make every effort to fill the blankin the research of domestic academia.To achieve the aim, the paper is divided into five parts.The first part is the first chapter, which introduced background andsignificance of topics, research reviews, research methods and writingideas, as well as main innovations and shortcomings.The second part consists of the second chapter, the third chapter andthe fourth chapter, and respectively combs the reports of the Times aboutJapanese politics, economy, society.The second chapter introduced report about the politics of MeijiJapan and held the view that Japan was progressive and positive in the aspect of political system reform and policy on Korea is a positive andprogressive. But the newspaper also reported that the parliamentarypolitics was not mature, with the backward of rule of law and the lackof free speech.The third chapter introduced report about the economy of Meiji Japan,and held the view that Japanese economy made great development, and afterthe Sino-Japanese War， Japanese economy developed faster, with theinternational competitiveness. But the newspaper also thought that theJapanese economy was faced with complex problems in different periods suchas rising costs and personnel lack of ability.The fourth chapter introduced report about the society of Meiji Japan.From it,we can know that in Japan, education, urban landscape and nationalimage made great achievement. But it also criticized the religiouspolicy, high suicide rate and the extreme xenophobia of Japanese people.The third part is the fifth chapter, which mainly analyses the truthof The reports. After related research, the author thinks that the reportsof the Times, which is related with the evolution of Japanese politicalinstitutions, the race in Korea between Japan and Russia, military system,Japanese military power at Tripartite Intervention and militarydevelopment plan in1897, is basically objective and accurate. But inother aspects such as power of the emperor, the Japanese intention of theSino-Japanese War, the declaration of war, the Koshing Incident and PortArthur Massacre, the reports of the newspaper is seriously false, evenwith prejudice.The fourth part is the sixth chapter, mainly discusses the two mainfactors affected the reports of the Times——Value and interests. TheTimes judged Japanese society by European standards. On the one hand, theTimes maintained the interests of the United Kingdom in the issue of therevision of treaties. on the other hand, the newspaper kept up with the diplomatic policy of the United Kingdom on the issue about regionalsituation.The fifth part is the conclusion, which generalizes the former paper.The reports of the Times cover range is wide and detailed. But thesereports are not always true. real news helped western world understandJapan, but false report misled the newspaper readers. These reports evenplayed a very negative role on some key issues. Values and interests weremain reasons that affected the reports of the Times...