Das Bild der Familie in den japanischen Medien (The Image of the Family in the Japanese Media)

In 1995, following the “UN Year of the Family” of 1994, the German Institute for Japanese Studies held a symposium analyzing the image of the family in the Japanese media. The central question addressed was how the mass media and popular culture depict the increasingly diverse lifestyles of contemporary Japanese.

The media does not merely “portray” social reality, but also has a significant influence in shaping the concept of family in a society. It was therefore essential to examine the construction of images in different genres of media.

The symposium focused on fictional genres such as television dramas, because surveys have shown that viewers watch such programs not just to relax but to get ideas on how to lead their own lives. The sessions included “An Introduction to the Topic of the Family” and examined “Television Dramas and Animated Cartoons,” “Television Commercials,” “The Print Media,” and “Literature.”

This richly illustrated volume contains a compilation of all conference papers, comments and discussions in German. Researchers with backgrounds in family sociology, media and literature studies, and members of citizens’ groups with interest in “media and gender”  presented papers. In addition, scriptwriter Fuse Hiroichi and author Saegusa Kazuko provided insights into the production of media scripts and texts.

This book goes beyond discussing family issues as it also shows various approaches to analyzing media content in Japan which, so far, has been hardly examined outside of Japan.