Compensated Dating (enjo kōsai) - Moral panic vs. critical discourse? （援助交際 -スキャンダル vs. 問題意識)この社会現象を日本の雑誌や現代文学はどう扱っているのだろうか？

Enjo kōsai, one keyword of the nineties, is oftenassociated with loose socks, short skirts, dyed hair, pocketbells and prostitution quote;in shortquote; with a scandalous social problem that desperately needs diagnosesand solutions.

In my paper, however, I argue that this quote;scandalous social problemquote;  has been created by the media, which in the process of  quote;manufacturing newsquote; provides us with a lens through which reality is seen. It focuses on certainevents, it obscures or obfuscates others, it leads to certain questionsbeing asked and others being ignored giving us a quote;frame of referencequote; inwhich events are interpreted.

After a short introductory passage on the phenomenon itself, I willanalyze the representation of enjo kōsai in Japanese magazines, arguingthat the discourse unfolds in a three step process, scandalizing the phenomenoninstead of critically dealing with it.

Whether or not critical discussion is realized in a different form ofdiscourse, namely literary discourse, will be the central question of thefinal part of my presentation where I examine Murakami Ryū’s novelLove & Pop (1996).