Does NHK Make You Smarter (andSuper NewsMake You ‘Softer’)? An Examination of Japanese Political Knowledge and the Potential Influence of TV News

Abstract

A fundamental component of liberal democracy – citizen knowledge – has only recently been examined in Japan; rarer still are assessments of the impact of media consumption on political awareness. In this paper, we utilize two recent sources – the Japanese Election Studies III (JESIII) and GLOPE2005 – to address two related questions: (1) what factors influence Japanese political knowledge? and (2) is the changing media environment in Japan having an influence on what citizens know about political affairs? With regard to the first question, we find, in line with previous studies in the US context, that knowledge is explained by education, gender, and politically impinged employment as base factors, with interest, efficacy, and civic duty playing a role as second-stage behavioral factors. Evidence of other traits presumed to distinguish the more informed Japanese – dissatisfaction with politics and community mobilization context (living in urban areas, districts with higher voter turnout, and having larger social networks – remains mixed. Regarding the second question, we find that the effects of media exposure on knowledge vary. Where the GLOPE2005 finds an influence of regular newspaper reading, the JESIII indicates that watching a TV news program ‘often’ also boosts knowledge. The JESIII results reveal further that,ceteris paribus, regular exposure to NHK contributes to higher levels of knowledge at a rate that is comparable to a one unit increase in educational attainment. Conversely, we find that softer news programs (e.g., Fuji TV'sSuper News) have a depressive effect that appears to decrease knowledge as exposure accumulates. The direction of the causal arrow is not entirely clear. At the same time, our findings lend credence to previous work that raises concerns about the ‘infotainization’ of Japanese (and US) news programming (e.g., Taniguchi, 2007; Prior, 2005). Rather than demystifying or democratizing Japanese politics, softer programs may simply be perpetuating extant gaps between elites and the public.