A Nation of a Hundred Million Idiots A Social History of Japanese Television, 1953 - 1973 » (1ST)

This book offers a history of Japanese television audiences and the popular media culture that television helped to spawn. In a comparatively short period, the television industry helped to reconstruct not only postwar Japanese popular culture, but also the Japanese social and political landscape. During the early years of television, Japanese of all backgrounds, from politicians to mothers, debated the effects on society. The public discourse surrounding the growth of television revealed its role in forming the identity of postwar Japanese during the era of high-speed growth (1955 - 1973) that saw Japan transformed into an economic power and one of the world's top exporters of television programming.

Part I: Introduction to Japanese Television Culture
DT INTRODUCTION


Part II: The History of Japanese Television Culture
DT CHAPTER ONE: Prewar roots of Japanese television culture: imperal culture, media culture, and radio.
DT CHAPTER TWO: Postwar Media Culture and Japanese Encounters with TV.
DT CHAPTER THREE: Early Japanese TV as a mass public event.
DT CHAPTER FOUR: TV takes root in Japan (1957-1963): family and gender implications.


PART III: Japanese Interactions with Television
DT CHAPTER FIVE: Creating a national television culture: urban television spreads to the countryside.
DT CHAPTER SIX: Intellectuals debate TV: Oya's "Hundred Million Idiots" and Kato's "Television Culture."
DT CHAPTER SEVEN: Protecting the children and cleaning up TV.
DT CHAPTER EIGHT: Politics as spectacle: parades, pageantry, and protests.
DT CHAPTER NINE: America in Japanese television: family dramas and cowboys.
DT CHAPTER TEN: After the American boom: Japanese television gains its independence


PART IV: MEANING OF THE JAPANESE TELEVISION NATION
DT EPILOGUE: Fractured television nation.