This series reviews the textbooks of NHK radio lessons published before World War II and examines the history of educational and cultural programs through them. Following the previous installment in the January-February issue, which presented the overview of the pre-war textbooks, this second part focuses on language lessons, lectures, school broadcasts, and children’s programs, along with their textbooks.

In terms of language programs, English language lessons were broadcast most frequently in the pre-war period, and a wide variety of textbooks were published to meet the needs of the audience, such as English for entrance examination and English conversation. German and French lessons were aired from the early days of radio broadcasts, and Chinese and Manchurian lessons started in the 1930s. The languages covered are presumed to have been selected to reflect the international situation at the time.

Lectures were also one of the principal pre-war programs and aired almost every day from the early days of broadcasting. In response to listeners’ keen requests for reviewing the content after the broadcast, the transcriptions or summaries of the lectures were published not only in Tokyo but also by local stations. These materials tell that diverse themes were covered in the lectures, but the proportion of the government and military propaganda gradually increased from the late 1930s and onward, along with the advancement of the wartime regime.

School broadcasts and children’s programs also contributed to the spread of diverse knowledge in the pre-war period, with the monthly publication of teaching aids and “Kodomo-no Tekisuto” (textbooks for children). Nevertheless, as happened with other genres, the content gradually changed to reflect the situation under the wartime regime, and many textbooks disappeared as the paper control was implemented. Thus, radio textbooks show not only the changes in programing but also the changes in society as Japan was heading for war.

March 22, 2025 will mark the 100th anniversary of broadcasting. The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute works on the digitalization of pre-war radio textbooks and, on the occasion of the centennial of broadcasting, plans to make some of the textbooks presented in this paper viewable on the internet.

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Does media represent the diversity of our society, in step with the recognition in our society of the significance of diversity, equity, and inclusion? Following the 2021-22 and 2022 surveys, the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute conducted its third survey on on-screen representation in Japanese television programs in 2023.

Focusing on NHK and five major commercial broadcasters, our team conducted the following two surveys. 1) Meta data analysis of gender balance and representation of those who appeared on all television programs during a week in June, 2023. 2) Coding analysis of those who spoke or were quoted in weekday-evening national news & current affairs programs, during a week in June and a week in November, 2023. For the news analysis, we also looked at the representations of people with disabilities, the diversity of racial and ethnic backgrounds, and the geographical spread of locations at which the individuals spoke or were interviewed.

The representation of women and men in both surveys showed a similar trend to the previous　2021-22 and 2022 survey results. The ratios of women and men were roughly 4:6 in all programs and 3:7 in evening news programs. The imbalance stood out further—as in the previous surveys —when they were separated into age groups. The largest representations among women were in younger age groups: 20s for all programs and 19-39 for news programs. Men were predominantly middle-aged—the largest age group was 40s in all programs and 40-64 in news programs. The results confirmed again that television programs are centered on middle-aged to older men and younger women. This is, as previously noted, in distortion to Japan’s general population where women are greater in their total numbers compared to men, especially in older age brackets.

Furthermore, as in previous surveys, women in news were more likely to appear as an anonymous citizen while men appeared as the main subject of news as figures of authority. Men were represented more than 16 times than women as “politicians” and around 30 more times as “corporate executives.” The only categories in which women were represented more than men were “school students and pupils” and “parents and families.”

We saw similar results to the 2022 survey in other areas of representation in news: regarding the representation of people with disabilities—individuals we were able to identify as “people with disabilities” were a mere 0.3%, and “people who might have disabilities” were 1.1%—the numbers, even added together, were far below the national figure, which is approximately 9% of the total population.

In terms of racial/ethnic diversity, we opted, as in the previous survey, to code individuals with any audiovisual or narrative information that indicated they had non-Japanese, multi-racial, or indigenous backgrounds as not “Japanese,” irrespective of their citizenship. Still, “Japanese” made up over 75% out of all those counted, and “people with European backgrounds” were represented better than other groups, including “people with Asian backgrounds,” compared to their share of general population, both within and outside Japan.

We note that this analysis is made on a sample survey of limited number of days and that the coding analysis of news programs based on audiovisual and narrative cues may have overlooked or misinterpreted gender identities, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and/or disabilities of some individuals. However, the representations shown in our latest study are consistent with our previous surveys, which suggests that what we capture is roughly representative of the broader picture of what is broadcast, and close to what the audience actually see. That picture—the world of television—continues to be quite distant from our real world.

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NHK Morning Drama serials, also known as “Asadora,” which are set in various regions and have a long six-month broadcast period, impact the local community in various ways. Focusing on an Asadora program Okaeri Mone (Welcome Home, Monet), this paper explores how people in the featured area, Kesennuma City and Tome City of Miyagi Prefecture, perceived the program. The paper also examines and discusses the psychological effects of Asadora on the community.

Okaeri Mone was broadcast ten years after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Set in Kesennuma and Tome and covering the period between three years after the quake to the present, the program vividly portrayed the region and the local people. While Kesennuma was heavily affected by the tsunami, Tome did not suffer tsunami damage. This paper analyzes interview surveys of local residents on the depiction of the region and the earthquake/tsunami disaster.

The analysis shows that the drama served as a vehicle for locals to reaffirm the area’s attractiveness and rebuild its identity. In terms of the disaster, the drama’s depiction of the difference between those who experienced the tsunami and those who did not (parties and non-parties) resonated with many people. It is also revealed that the difference in disaster experience have created a divide or a line between the residents in Kesennuma and that people in Tome have a strong sense of non-party.

For the people in the affected area, the actual disaster experience was much harder than the drama, and watching the drama did not change their views on the disaster much. As ten years have passed since the disaster, many people have calmed down and can look back on what they went through after the disaster by watching the drama. Meanwhile, the survey also reveals that some could not watch the drama even after 10 years due to the trauma caused by the disaster.

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Following the previous installment (Shioda, 2025), this paper presents the findings from the 2024 Nationwide Survey on Changes in the Japanese Language, an annual survey series conducted for understanding the current state of Japanese language. The results of the survey find the following trends

[Changes in the words of Korean or Chinese origin]

- At present, while “kimpa” (gimbap) and “takkarubi” (dak-galbi) have a relatively strong pronunciation fluctuation, “makkori” (makgeolli), “kakuteki” (kkakdugi), “toppogi” (teokbokki), “chinjaorōsu” (stir-fried pork with green peppers) and “yūrinchii” (fried chicken with sweet and sour sauce) show a weaker fluctuation.

- By generation, in general, fluctuation is weaker for those in their 30s and 40s than other age groups.

- By academic background, in general, fluctuation is weaker for those with university diploma than those without university diploma. This tendency is common to the trend identified in a past survey.

[Changes in the interpretation of 1/2/3-day “okini”]

- For “ichi-nichi (1-day) okini” fune ga kuru, the mainstream is to interpret it as the boat comes “every other day,” such as “If the ship comes on March 9, then it will come on March 11, 13, and 15,” using the “formula of inserting days” between the events.

- Meanwhile, for “futsuka (2-day) okini” and “mikka (3-day) okini,” the proportion of those using the “formula of inserting days” (inserting 2 days or 3 days between the events, meaning every third day and every fourth day in English) was relatively smaller, and those using the “simple additive formula” (adding the numbers including the day of event, meaning every two days and every three days) increased.

- For “ichi-nichi (1-day) okini” and “futsuka (2-day) okini,” as many as 20% of the respondents interpret both as “If the ship comes on March 9, then it will come on March 11, 13, and 15,” (i.e., consequently synonymous).

[Changes in the interpretation of “-yori”]

- A strong fluctuation was confirmed with “sangai-yori ue.” A little more than 40% of the respondents interpret it as “the third floor and above” (including the third floor), and a little more than 50% as “above the third floor” (not including the third floor). The same trend was observed in “hyōgo-ken-yori nishi” (areas west of Hyogo Prefecture/Hyogo Prefecture and west of it) “meiji jidai-yori mae” (earlier than the Meiji era/the Meiji era and earlier).

[Changes in the interpretation of “-izen”]

- For “meiji jidai-izen,” as a whole, many respondents interpret it as “not including the Meiji era (earlier than the Meiji era),” but many people in their 20s through 40s as “including the Meiji era,” which suggests the interpretation of “meiji jidai-izen” has started to shift to “including the Meiji era.”

[Attitude towards kanji in TV captions]

- Approximately 30% of the respondents feel that TV captions use difficult kanji characters. At the same time, for compound words including difficult kanji characters, many think it should be better to use kanji with furigana (reading aids) than to write part of them in hiragana.

- Nearly 80% of respondents “sometimes do not know” how to read people’s names.

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The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute carries a series of articles “Research Report: The Current State of Journalists—the Quest for Trusted Media” on its website to explore what journalists and media organizations should change and maintain amidst a dramatically changing media landscape. The series looks at the frontline of news reporting and program productions of the Japanese mass media, not limited to NHK, and presents the current status of journalism and the quest for its future. This paper is a republication of the seventh installment with partial additions and corrections.

This month, the author focuses on Megumu Okino, video editor of the NHK Kanazawa Broadcasting Station, and his endeavor for the reuse of the footage archived at a local station. Mr. Okino digitalizes old films and utilizes them for an information program’s short segment that presents the history of the area. He also maintains and develops the video archives to make them easier to reuse in the future, by interviewing people involved for the better understanding of each content, recording the data, and compiling a database. In the process, he has found the potential of archives to benefit the community more directly. The Okunoto area was severely damaged by the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake that occurred on January 1 and by the heavy rain disaster in September of the same year. The broadcast archives that capture the town as it used to be have become more valuable. Mr. Okino’s efforts show that the broadcasters need to further recognize the value of their own archives and promote their use in local communities, and, to achieve this, they definitely need to invest in the human resource development for the archives within each broadcaster.

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