Author Archives: japansociology

Social Movements by the Government

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by Naoko Yoshida

As we learned in the class, social movements are the effective methods to change the society. And almost always, those social movements are started by people in lower position against the authority such as the government. For example, people in Fukushima have been taking action in order to stop the use of nuclear power plants in Japan against Japanese government, and in the US, many labor movements are launched by workers against people in high positions. However, there are another kind of social movements which are intended by the government to make people start. I have two examples here. One of them is China, and the other is Korea. Chinese government and Korean government intended to have social movements inside their country for the same reason. That reason is to distract their citizens’ attention from the problems inside the country.

Firstly, Chinese people had a huge social movement against Japan. And that movement is still remaining a little bit. This social movement is started by Chinese people in order to be against the Japanese possession of Senkaku-islets. But this movement is not simply because Japan claimed their ownership of those islets but because of many complex causes. One of those causes is Chinese government’s anxiety of antigovernment movement. We can say there are many problems inside China such as a huge gap between social classes, and slowdown economy. In addition, they were facing a once-a-decade transition of political leader on that time. Therefore, Chinese government made people act against foreign enemy by using mass media in order that Chinese people do not notice the problems inside China, and enhance nationalism for upcoming election. In short, Chinese government made people start social movement against foreign enemy in order to discard people’s attention from problems inside the country and to enhance the nationalization.

Secondly, in Korea, there has been a movement about Take-shima/Dokdo against Japan. Korean government also made people act against Japan in order to enhance nationalism, and distract their presidents corruption because they also have an election.

In conclusion, although many social movements are started by people in lower class against people in higher class or authority in order to make their living better, there are also social movements which are planned by the government in order to discard their citizens’ attention from the problems inside the country and to enhance the nationalism. We should not be deceived by that movement by the government.

References

Beech, H.(2012/10).The madding crowd: Beijing inflames popular sentiment against Japan, but it could get burned.Time, 50.

Yokota, T. (2012/9). You say Dokdo, I say Takeshima… let’s call the whole thing off. Newsweek, 16-17.

To be familiar country with women

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by Sungryoung Yoon

Women’s social progress has been wider since the government decided the Equal Employment opportunity law in 1980. Until then, I guess there was a stereotyped against women that work in society as same as the men. After the Equal Employment opportunity law, the society is getting familiar with the women because some laws were introduced like the law for child-care leave. I can say 1980’s was a big factor of starting the new society for the women. From the reference that I write below page, the number of the household that is made by only men’s employee has been clearly decreased since 1980. I can guess there was effect of the Equal employment opportunity law as I stated upward. The number of the household that is made by only men’s employee decreased around half number from 1980 to 2006 but the number of the household that is made by both men and women’s employee has been increasing since 1980’s. We can see the situation from the reference that the number of the household that is made by both men and women’s employee is more than he household that is made by only men’s employee.

The number of women’s social progress has been increased and the system of society is getting g familiar with women than before. However can we say is the Japanese society really familiar with the women? After the globalization, depression, women would go out of house to work in the society but if they do, who care their children? I think that child care is the biggest problem in women’s social progress because lack of the child care makes declining birth rate and actually the declining birth rate is deeply getting decreased today. Today preschool is one of the big factors for the women’s social progress. A lot of family/ household need preschool to leave their children to work in the society however lack of the preschool is getting serious. Today, the reference says that number of the children who have to wait for entrance to preschool is around twenty thousand every year. If parents cannot leave their children to the preschool, how do they care their children doing work?

One solution to care children is expansion of the preschool but it is not easy because of the lack of nurse also. I think that our society have to start to do new project for women and their children. Second solution I guess is focus on the elders who retires from their work. As I stated below, Japanese society has a problem of the declining birth rate, and we are having increasing elders. I guess there are so many elder people who want to work after their retirement of their work. If we can do this project, it would be good for the women who want to work and the elders who want to work more. However I guess that this project still has problem. Actually preschool needs a license to take care of the children but if we focus on the elders, how should we care them? We cannot let elders do full-dress style of preschool. Also we have to find the elders who have enough strength to take care of children. We still have a lot of problems to care the children and that connects to the women’s social progress. To be more familiar country with everyone, I think we have to try to find the solution.

References

“男女雇用機会均等法”http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S47/S47HO113.html  (accessed 2nd on December )

“平成20年度版　厚生労働白書”

http://wwwhakusyo.mhlw.go.jp/wpdocs/hpax200801/b0055.html (accessed 2nd on December)

“平成21年　人口動態統計月報年計（概数）の概況　厚生労働省”

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/jinkou/geppo/nengai09/kekka2.html (accessed 2nd on December)

“「保育園不足」を見て見ぬふりの文科省” http://facta.co.jp/article/201003008.html (accessed 2nd on December)

Social Movement and Power in Media

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by Chika Yamamoto

The video we watched in the class shows that a woman confessed the frustration towards authority and media. I watched the demonstration for the nuclear power plants in Japan on media several times on TV; however, it was not as detailed as the video we watched. Media just shows what the demonstration was like and tells the fact that there was a demonstration in media’s point of view. I think what makes it really difficult to deliver the purpose of the demonstration and feeling of people joining is the power of authority and media. Historically social movements experienced those difficulties. But, I guess we in 21st century have to change this and beat the power inequality to make social movements more meaningful and powerful. So, how should media be and other people who rely on the news be?

One of the historical examples of social movements is civil right movement in United States of America. This movement caught huge attention both in United States and foreign countries. Around late 1950, some of the people in the north part of America, who watched news about the civil right movement and noticed what was happening in the south part of America, realized they have to do something to solve this problem. So, people in the north part of America especially students came to the south and took part in the sit in movements and so on. Also, during that time America concerns a lot about how other countries look at America because of cold war. If this cruel reality of racism were spread all over the world by media, it would have strong influence on the situation of cold war. So, the federal government was really afraid of spreading terrible image of America having racism and tried to solve the problem as soon as possible by protecting activists and participants of demonstration from the violent oppression form states government in the south. I think foreign media and other media telling about the situation played really important role in this case. It increases the awareness about the racism in America and brought people to solve this problem. But, the framing of that situation in the south was really different. They felt that the federal government was occupying their places and robbed the right of their self-government. The way media in the south explained about this situation would have been really different from the way other media did.

From this example, I think media plays really different role about social movements depend on the framings. And I believe the media always tell news in how the media wants to deliver considering the benefits. In the case of nuclear power plants, media may have huge pressure from the government and electric power companies. If that tie is really strong, the media cannot say positively about the demonstration. Of course I think media should fairly tell the truth without being based on their benefits, but it has its own framing either negative or positive. So, I think we should not rely on news delivered by one particular media. It sometimes is better to look at the issues in Japan from foreign media that probably has different framing. Probably there are some organizations trying to tell the truth based on the real voice like the video we watched. Framing from authority which has power still has huge influence on media, so we should change the way we look at the information and develop our critical view and analyzing skill of framing.

Effects of framing

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by Sayaka Umei

The information of posters, advertisements, commercials, TVs, election promises, or even newspapers deliver a certain and limited information. These tools highlight what the providers want to say briefly to tell the most important information. However, I would like to ask “Is this just for viewer”? NO. The providers deliver and emphasize the information, thus it causes social movement, which means it makes the problem public. In my opinion, people have to choose and inquire into the information given not to act too emotionally.

“Framing is a thought organizer, highlighting certain events and facts as important ad rendering others invisible” according to Ryan and Gamson. It is “necessary but not sufficient.” It is “valuable for focusing a dialogue with targeted constituencies” because “it involves a strategic dialogue intended to shape a particular group into a coherent movement.” According to Ryan and Gamson as well, the faming has both good points and bad points.

For the strong points, there are 4 points; first the information is explicit for viewers. So they can get the information what the providers want to say. Second, people can have many frames in their heads because there are many kinds of people all over the world, which means there are many kinds of framing as well. Third, people can get the worldview of their adversaries through successful reframing. Forth, all frames implicit or explicit apply to moral principles. I think this forth one easily can cause the social movements.

For the bad points, there are 3 points; first there is too much emphasis on the message. Second, there is too narrow a focus on the message with lack of the framing strategy. Third, political conservatives did not build political power by the broader cultural values but by the infrastructure ad relationship with journalists

Based on these strong and bad points, what we have to do to the framing is that we have to pick up the information which is given to us and not to be flourished by the information. Of course, I do not say the social movement is bad, but I think that is too directly. When people are given the information and they feel something bad for them, they promote the social movement. If the provider expects people doing so like George Bush about al-Qaeda, they are in the intent of the provider.

In conclusion, nowadays there is much information around us and the technology, sociology, or even psychology has been developing. Framing has very good strategy which we cannot notice. We have to pick up the information; especially we have to pay attention to the information which is too emphasized or too effective to people’s minds.

Why are social movements influential for society?

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 by Mayu Uehara

Social movements have been worked to change the structure and environment of society. The famous one is the American Civil Rights Movement in1950s to 1960s and ‘ I have a dream’ speech which Martin Luther King spoke have been passed its story down from generation to generation. Social movements are occurred many times in Japan as well; such as demo for stop working nuclear power plant, problem of U.S military staying in Okinawa and so on. A little while ago, huge demo, which were occurred in China and provided economical impacts to Japan, were also huge social movement. From these social movements, I found there are two features of it and they are about activists and situation. These features make social movements having huge power to change society.

First, activists are not wealthy but socially weak. They often don’t have much power to against social structure. For example, demo in China were incredibly intense and violent and most of them were younger who work at factories with low payment. From my point of view, the reason why they exploded their emotion that much were because they haven’t had enough chances to speak out their complaint and also they have lived under stresses. As other example, the activists of the American Civil Rights Movements were mostly black people who had discriminated by society itself. We can observe that people who try to change structures of society are mostly in powerless position.

Secondly, I think that social movements seldom occur suddenly but they are occurred when people’s stress reached the top and they think they can’t stand any more. We can see this from the social movements in Fukushima. When nuclear power plants were working peacefully, there were not any complaints in Fukushima from its citizens. After they exploded and people who lived close to it were prohibited, they showed anger to government and leaders of corporate. At that point, they were not social movement there. Fukushima citizens got together for social movements when government tried to use nuclear power plant again. They claimed, ‘ We can’t stand being quiet any more. We can’t just look on government’s movement without doing anything.’ Their efforts influence political policy and now most of Japanese party state about finish depending on nuclear power plant in the future. I think this is because government truly felt their angers and also pressure from society.

Above all, for rich people, they can have choices to avoid unpleasant situation by using money, but in contrary, the weak people have to remain under the situation without any choices, therefore, they tend to live under stress and hardly with satisfaction. The more local people have stresses, the more social movements are bigger. Also, many times they are certain leads which stimulate them to explode their complaints. Social movement’s features are these two which I mentioned and that’s why they have great impacts to reshape political policy.

How media gives effect on social movement over Diaoyu-dao issue

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by Rina Terasaki

Variety of social movements happen in worldwide, and also in Japan. As we learned in the class, social movements can bring people’s attention into issues and moreover can influence the public policy. To bring public attentions more and more, social and industrial media act a big role in the movements. One characteristic of media is bias. It only leans to one side or one specific position, and keeps insisting that they are the only right. Sometimes, ironically, media even announce things over and worse than its actual, so that it makes people confused and blindness to other ‘reasonable’ information. So the part taken by media in social movements can be said as very huge.

In this summer of 2012, there happened many movements in Japan and China over the issue of ownership of islands which is called ‘Senkaku (Diaoyu-dao) issues.’ I was on an exchange program to Beijing, China at the time of the beginning of the series of these issues. Many movement were actually happened and also media in not only Japan, China and worldwide also showed them for not a short time. Then, I felt there is happening one thing, but since the difference of information, (and also nationalism and other reason on the background), the recognition among people in these different countries also turns to be scattered. In this essay, I would like to explain the facts of ‘Senkaku (Diaoyu-dao) issues’ from each side and analyze how our recognition of this issue were made.

After Japanese governments’ announce of purchase of the island, in China, not only through the central TV news and newspapers, but also through many forms of medium, it was informed to nations. Sina Weibo, which is Chinese twitter, informed registrants the newest things at any time. This way, the issue was spread to be understood by even people who do not have television and computer. The 19th of August 2012, huge people took part in a demonstration in Shenzhen. People who participated destroyed Japanese things such as cars and shops, and Japanese TV companies kept airing repeatedly this scene on news. As I felt, hearing voices around me, abuseful scene gave people impression of savage, especially to elder people. Also at the governmental phase, the central government of China wrote propaganda on foreign masmedia. Although it seems just like propaganda that has no justifiable data as people say in Japan, through they keep insisting strongly, it can be said that ordinal people’s recognition over the world has been lean toward to Chinese side. This seems similar to what Joseph Caldwell Wylie says the “Cumulative strategy.” I felt media how much effect public opinion. This way, social movements including demonstration and a part of riot would be justified

As I wrote above, Senkaku (Diaoyu-dao) issue consists of ‘image-making’ factor. Although the fact should be one, through media with different position, and their partial strong insists, image that receiving end get would be decided differently.

Resources:

-Beijing news portal. “Shenzhen Diaoyudao Demonstration hurts Japanese Cars” 25.Aug.2012 written by David Cao http://beijingimpact.com/society/2325-shenzhen-diaoyudao-demostration-hurts-japanese-cars.html

-Kaikoku Bouei Journal 29.Sep.2012 http://blog.livedoor.jp/nonreal-pompandcircumstance/archives/50680819.html

Environmental issue

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by Siân Taylor

In this essay I will explain my view of the situation regarding environmental issues, and in order to do so, I will initially analyse an episode of environmental issue in Italy, that sadly became famous  all over the world.

Moreover I will give my own opinion about why things go this way, and about why, no matter how much people speak about these issues, no one really does anything in order to change  them, or even if they do, no major things really get accomplished.

Starting from about four years ago, in some cities of the southern part of Italy, the waste people produced stopped being taken to the disposal facilities and started accumulating in the middle of the streets. As time went by things kept getting worse and worse, until citizens started to get poorly from the bacteria coming from the decomposing rubbish.

Eventually the garbage was gotten rid of by shipping it, after having paid large amounts of money to the local government, to some third world Country were people “won” Italy’s waste for being poor.

Now, let us examine why this episode happened in the first place. The Italian Mafia, due to a number of corrupted interests, stopped the dustbin men from collecting the rubbish.

Due to this many people suffered for years and years living in unhealthy dangerous environments.

All of this is to state that personally I think that it’s not that environmental issues are too complex to resolve, or that common people do not care about the environment, it’s that the people who have the most power to change things have got many interests not to do so.

It is all about gaining money from it. Governments use waste disposal as a profitable business; Companies create double or more the amount of waste by overly wrapped and deceptive products, we live in a consumerist society where consumers are taught to throw away their “unfashionable” items to buy a brand new model of the same thing. And why? To make the economy go round.

To make the rich people get richer and the poor people get poorer, society is destroying the world they live in.

I am certain that if this were to be a world where money did not exist, people would live in a much healthier environment both for the body and the spirit, because it is for money that marketers create the sense of dissatisfaction in consumers, so they can buy this new item which may resolve their “problem” and make them happier for a short while, and this is, as stated before, the start of a long chain of interests that brings society to destroy the environment they and their children are living in.

Until this chain will not be broken, I think that nothing will be able to change, no matter how most people want it to.

 

(Re)framing and Problem Solving

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by Ryo Tanaka

How can we solve social problems? Various ways are possible. But the most basic one is to share how the problem is understood. In other words, it is necessary to frame or reframe the problem by “highlighting certain events or facts as important and rendering others visible” (Ryan & Gamson, 2006, p. 13). In is then important to note that people often frame an issue not actually seeing the fact in their eyes. For example, the former US president George Bush insisted “a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda when no facts support[ed] it” (Ryan & Gamson, 2006, p. 14). Frames often take implicit forms. Thus, it is risky to rely on only one person’s frame in making a decision or solving a problem.

Different people have different frames in their head. In solving a problem, it is essential to combine or integrate each other’s frame effectively to reflect the process of problem solving. “Successful reframing involves ability to enter worldview of our adversaries” (Ryan & Gamson, 2006, p. 14). Problem solving therefore requires combining or integrating opposing sides.

For example, domestic violence has two opposing ways of framing. One is to understand it as a private problem that results from the inside of the family. This includes the relationship between the husband and wife. The other is to regard it as a public issue. This view suggests that socioeconomic forces push people to commit violence to others including family members. Or at least, some social factors are related to their action of violence. To combine or integrate these two opposing sides, it is necessary to consider the two things: how much those who are abused are responsible for their fate; and how much society is responsible for domestic violence. Typically, those who are abused are not responsible for much of their fate because they cannot control their situation by themselves. This difficulty of the abused sometimes comes from the traditional value system. When the traditional patriarchic idea that the husband has more power than the wife is applied, the husband side can justify violence against the wife. In this sense, domestic violence is the society’s fault. Society has maintained the value system that has justified and concealed domestic violence. Also, extreme stresses can lead people to commit violence against others to release the stresses. People typically stressed out in their workplace. Various environmental factors such as the relationship with colleagues or bosses, the amount of work, and working hours influence their level of stress. People have no choice but to get such physically and mentally demanding jobs simply because most of today’s jobs have a certain degree of such demands. It is almost impossible for them to choose a job that is not stressful.

In conclusion, domestic violence can be seen as a social problem to a large degree. Motivation of violence essentially comes from cultural norms or stresses got outside the family. Still, this does not prove that abused people have no responsibility for their fate. They should at least make an effort not to be abused. It is hard to examine how much abused people are responsible. But discussion above shows that it seems easier to consider how much society is responsible. Thus, before examining responsibility of the abused, social systems should be improved to reduce domestic violence. In doing so, the process by which systems push people to commit violence should be revealed.

Reference

Ryan, C. and Gamson, W. A. (2006). the art of reframing political debates. Contexts (5)1, pp. 13-18.

Approaching gender equality

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by Mihoko Sumitani

When I studied gender issues in the class, I was thinking about the situation of gender in Japan. Generally speaking, it is said that developed countries tend to approach gender equality better than developing countries. Of course, Japan is one of developed countries. Then, is Japan really approaching gender equality as well as other developed countries?

There is an interesting ranking in The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report. This report ranks countries according to the magnitude of their gender gap in four keys which are economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival. In the report published this year 2012, japan ranked 101st out of 135 countries in terms of the progress it has made towards achieving equality in these four areas. I was quite surprised to see this ranking because there are many developing countries ahead.

However, when we see Japanese society, we will witness the fact that how many men are in administrative positions in both public sectors and private sectors in comparison with the population of women. Indeed, there are some difficulties for women to keep working after they marry and have a baby. The main two reasons are that many companies are not flexible about maternity leave and that there is a gender discrimination of women staying at home and doing housework as well as taking care of their children. Furthermore, Japanese parents still have a strong tendency to make their sons getting higher education than their daughters.

I think we have to change this situation now as we are facing a declining birthrate problem. Reducing the gender gap will have a good effect on companies’ bottom lines and helps to address serious demographic challenges. Actually Japan already put the big step to close Japan’s economic gender gap. New Task Force was launched in cooperation with the Japanese government, business and civil society to close Japan’s gender gap by 10% by 2015 as the initiative of a World Economic World. I hope this attempt will work well and we all people can have diverse choices of their lives and have an equal chance to display their abilities no matter what gender they are.

Reference

http://www.weforum.org/news/world-economic-forum-launches-japan-gender-parity-task-force

Global Gender Gap Report 2012

Cleaning and care product companies need to step up to the plate for commercials featuring men

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by Sherry Stanczyk

The year is 2012, and it’s fair to believe that there has been social progress in regards to the equality of women since the past. Women have made strides in participating in the working world that was once dominated by men. In In this day and age it is not uncommon for the wife of the family to bring in just as much money as her husband, or in some cases even more. But behind all this progress, the fact remains that little has changed in regards to the gendered nature of ‘unpaid’ labour, such as childcare and house cleaning. Even though it is normal to now consider women family breadwinners, this gender inclusion does not extend to inside the home, where housekeeping and childcare are still primarily considered the jobs of women. The idea that women are still the primary home caretakers creates inequality; firstly as Erhenreich and Hochschild have illustrated in their article “Global Woman”, in the majority of middle and upper class Western households where the wife is unable to do the housework, instead of a division of labour between husband and wife, the house and child care duties are passed onto other women, typically paid maids from poorer countries. This creates situations where these migrant women, hidden away in households, are vulnerable and lack worker’s rights. Gendered housework also feeds into and sustains the existence of the glass ceiling; women are still not paid as highly as men because society still believes a women’s priorities are family, thus higher salaries, promotions, and job positions are usually given out to men. The gender divide of housework also creates an unfair situation for women who end up having to sacrifice either their career or family ambitions.

However, although not the majority, many men do participate in household and child care tasks. But the fact remains that society in many ways stigmatizes men who participate in cleaning and caretaking roles, as well as discourages men from taking part in the house and family. And nothing is upholding these norms more than the advertisements for cleaning and other household products. Advertising- as much as one would like to believe they are able to filter out- remains a powerful and strongly influential factor in dictating how we as a society believe and view what is both normal and desirable. And advertising for cleaning and household products almost never show men in their ads. These ads create the illusion and normalize the idea that cleaning and childcare are only and should only be done by women, while ‘real’ men take no part in housework. When ads for household products do feature men in their ads they typically showcase them as the housework-clueless and useless husband who need his wife to come to the rescue, or as the emasculated house-husband. (And although there is nothing wrong with a man who wants to play the traditional homemaker role while his wife wears the pants, showing it advertising still feeds into the idea that housework is ‘feminine’ and a woman’s job.)

There has been some change in advertiser’s thinking. For example, this year when Huggies created a series of diapers tv advertisements which featured incompetent fathers ignoring their baby’s dirty diapers in favor of ‘guy things’, such as a sports game on television, many real life fathers protested on Facebook, resulting in an official apology from Huggies and a new set of ads showing far more competent fathers. However, more companies need to step up to plate, and bring in some freshness and creativity to their advertising. I think we need to see more cleaning ads featuring normal, everyday fathers and men using their products. Although having more house care ads feature men isn’t going to magically fix the problem of gendered housework, it would be a step in the right direction. If we’ve come so far in social progress and ideas regarding gender roles, why are we still afraid to show that men can participate in household tasks too?