Media and Politics in Japan

10. Media in Electoral Campaigning in Japan and the United States

313 10 Media in Electoral Campaigning in Japan and the United States HIROSHI AKUTO Th e growing importance of mass media in American political culture in the 1990s has thrown into question a vast body of descriptive and theoretical work in the areas of voting and mass communications dating back to the 1950s. Much of that work maintained that the key determinants of voting behavior were political party loyalty and the candidate’s image. Issues were thought to be secondary, and the mass media were viewed as far less important to decision making than was personal communication.1 Since the 1960s the supposed universality of those theories has been discredited; they were found to be rooted in a particular setting (America) at a particular time. Voters came to be seen as voting less for their party and more on issues. Furthermore, television essentially invalidated the “two-step flow model” emphasizing personal communications about the candidates and politics transmitted through opinion leaders. Some, but not all, of these changes in American political culture have parallels or analogues in developments in Japan and other advanced industrial democracies. This chapter seeks to determine parallels and differences, particularly with regard to the impact of mass media on voter behavior in Japan and the United States. It is my view that despite various similarities, the differences are quite pronounced . They are rooted in both the regulatory frameworks and the political cultures of the two countries, and manifest themselves in profoundly different styles and methods of election campaigning. Three key differences stand out: 1. In election campaigns, mass media play a far more significant role in the United States than in Japan; personal connections and organizations are more important in Japan. 2. In characterizing the role of the mass media in the electoral pro- 314 Hiroshi Akuto cess, the hypothesis of “strong effect” appears to best match the U.S. situation, while the “limited effect” theory best matches the Japanese case. 3. Among the media, television plays the more important role in affecting voter attitudes in the United States, while newspapers continue to be more important in Japan. A case study that forms the second part of this chapter investigates media bias and its effect on voters’ attitudes. The study is limited to a 1986 mayoral election in Machida City, a suburb of Tokyo, and to newspaper coverage of the election (which was ignored by television ). Among the questions investigated are the following: Did newspaper articles emphasize the “game” or, conversely, the “substance” aspects of the campaign? Did the newspapers exhibit systematic bias by devoting more coverage to the front-runner? Did they show any ideological bias? Japanese political news is found to focus more on substance than on the “contest” aspects of political races, to be more evenhanded in its coverage of the various candidates than the U.S. media, and—contrary to what many Japanese and foreign observers have said about Japanese newspapers—to exhibit remarkably little ideological or structural bias. The Media and Political Culture in the United States The U.S. electoral process underwent tremendous change in the 1970s, particularly the presidential contest. Primaries came to have unprecedented importance, and party conventions assumed new roles and grew in influence. It is a legacy of the “New Politics” of this era that Americans in the 1980s and 1990s are more interested in politics and wish to participate more directly in the political process . In the “old” days, state party leaders chose delegates to the national conventions behind closed doors. Before 1968 only onethird of the delegates were elected by primaries, but in 1980 threequarters were so elected.2 Other significant reforms were introduced through adoption of the “proportional allocation system” and the “winner-take-all system.”3 In short, the delegate election process was made more visible and less arbitrary. Because of the increased importance of the primaries, the nomination game is often over long before the national convention opens. Conventions no longer function to select presidential candidates; rather, they are media events designed to introduce the party and its Media in Electoral Campaigning in Japan and the United States 315 preselected candidates to the voters through live television. This could be seen, for example, in the convention extravaganzas produced in New York and Houston in the summer of 1992. Some 32 million voters participate in the primaries, whose season stretches from the New Hampshire primary in February to the party...