Image-Makers and Victims: The Croissant Syndrome and Yellow Cabs

In The Enigma of Japanese Power (1990 [1989]), Karel van Wolferen outlines the Establishment's political control over the country. He shows how effectively "the System" keeps citizens in their place through the stifling educational system, the friendly neighborhood police, and the "housebroken" media (van Wolferen 1990, 93). He shows that Dentsū, the largest advertising agency in the world, censors television, newspapers, and magazines for the benefit of its clients, namely, the government and big businesses. Vis-a-vis women, he asserts that "Japanese officialdom is aware that emancipated female citizens are likely to disturb the domestic labor system" (van Wolferen 1990, 368). He then paints a very bleak picture of how those in power prevent women from creating such disturbances. According to van Wolferen, voluntary retirement for women at age 30 is still practiced, except for jobs at government offices, banks, insurance firms, and foreign companies. He claims that the government maintained a ban on the contraceptive pill to support the lucrative abortion industry of between 1 and 2 million abortions a year (van Wolferen 1990, 53 and 368), and that consumer movements initiated by housewives in the 1960s and 1970s have been systematically contained and undermined.

In the decade after van Wolferen wrote this book, Japan saw the forced early retirement of women disappear as lawsuits were brought by female workers (Iwao 1993, 204), while the ban on the pill was repealed in 1999. Women have been quite active in politics and consumer movements, and have even been successful candidates (see LeBlanc 1999, Sasakura 1995, and Sato 1995). Although van Wolferen, a veteran journalist who has long resided in Japan, has profound insight into the power of Japanese bureaucracy, the media and citizens of Japan may not be as completely controlled or Japanese society as rigid as he asserts. In a later book directed at a Japanese audience, Ningen o kōfuku ni shinai Nihon to iu shisutemu (The System Called Japan That Does Not Make Human Beings Happy, 1994), van Wolferen tries to convince his readers that changes can occur if citizens stand up and make the effort.

Even before the publication of Enigma, the immediate goal of the media, especially magazines and commercial television, often seems to have been not to tow the government line but to obtain favorable audience responses and thus financial success. The topics the media pursued and the tones its members employed indicate a disregard for government policies and the agenda of big business. For example, since the late 1970s, members of the media have made much of independent women, which may in turn have influenced women to shun marriage and childbearing.¹ This certainly was not what the government wanted. As of 2000, the government was concerned about low birthrate (1.34 children per woman in 1999, down from 2.13 in 1970) in the era of lengthening life expectancy, because it means that a large number of retirees must be supported by an ever-decreasing number of workers.

Van Wolferen's assertion that the masses are easily manipulated and influenced by the media is an issue I would like to explore in more detail. It is difficult to be completely above media bombardment; in pursuit of hot topics, the media tends to capitalize on new terms and phenomena in a sensational way, sometimes cheering them on and other times bashing them. But does the media influence public perception and behavior, or does it simply report on what is already taking place in society? Even when those in the media who control information try to be objective and neutral, the sheer necessity of deciding which pieces of information to send out leads them to wield enormous power in molding mass consciousness of what new trends are occurring in society.

In this article, I examine two books that raise objections to irresponsible journalism and its influential power in connection with prominent media phenomena of the late 1970s through early 1990s. These media events were, specifically, "the Croissant Syndrome" and the "Yellow Cabs" hysteria. I also discuss sociological changes in this period seen through new terms. I...