History of Television Broadcasting Development in Japan (From Experimental Broadcasting to Nationwide Broadcasting in the 1960s)

Abstract

The article views and analyzes the early period of the nationwide television broadcasting in Japan (from the mid 1920s to the end of the 1960s). Previously, this problem has not been a subject of research in Russian oriental studies, and taking into account the operation of established television broadcasting system in modern Japan, it seems necessary to identify the features of the genesis and evolution of the nationwide television broadcasting in Japan at its earliest stage, using both historical-genetic and problem-chronological methods. Based mainly on the media history research of Japanese media historians, which are introduced into the Russian scientific community for the first time, the stages of the genesis and nationwide spread of television broadcasting in Japan are consistently identified: the pre-war period of experimental broadcasting, the reform of the media sphere during and after the occupation of Japan by the GHQ, the origins of the integrated system of Japanese public and commercial television broadcasting nigen taisei. In addition, the author concludes that television played an important role in the process of spreading Western values of democracy, as well as the renewed values of the nuclear family institution in Japan, which were declared by the GHQ, US occupation authorities. Based on the results of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the fundamental foundations of the modern multifaceted and original culture of Japanese television, as well as the model of broadcasting companies’ interaction: competition and coexistence of public and commercial television broadcasting, were laid precisely in the key period for the history of Japanese television ‒ the 1950‒1960s. The findings of this research can serve as a basis for studying the next stages in the evolution of television broadcasting in Japan up to the present period. This paper is aimed at orientalists, students of similar specialties, as well as a wide range of people interested in the history of Japanese media. Keywords: Japan, media history, television history, television in Japan, nationwide broadcasting