JapanSessions: Media Coverage in Crisis

Public lecture by Jens Sejrup, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Compared to news organizations in other liberal democracies, major Japanese news media seem remarkably content to disseminate government-sanctioned information on national policies and developments without notable critical angles or investigative approaches. Why is that? What about the role of the press as the fourth estate or a watchdog of democracy? The media coverage of the Fukushima disaster exposed large credibility deficits in the Japanese system. Was Fukushima a breakthrough for digital and social media as alternatives to the established press in Japan?

Photo: Thierry Ehrmann

Bio

Jens Sejrup is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dept. of Anthropology. His primary fields of research include: Modern societies of Japan, Taiwan, and East Asia; Interactions between Asian societies; Postcolonialism in Asia; Japanese mass media, news narratives, and public and political rhetoric.

Jens has authored a number of research publications on the role of the news media for postcolonial controversies and uses of colonial history in contemporary Japan-Taiwan relations, including articles in Pacific Affairs, Public Relations Inquiry, and Berliner ChinaHefte/Chinese History and Society, and a book chapter in Japanese Taiwan: Colonial Rule and its Contested Legacy (ed. Andrew Morris, Bloomsbury, 2015).

Jens is a part of the multidisciplinary research project Global Europe: Constituting Europe from the Outside In through Artefacts. 

The lecture is part of JapanSessions, a lecture series funded by the Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation.