Indigenous peoples in public media: A critical discourse analysis of the human zoo case

Abstract

This study analyses the legal action taken for defamation in the case of the ‘human zoo’, an alleged defamatory portrayal of the Paiwan people, a Taiwanese indigenous group, by Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK. The analysis of this case is presented in two stages, the first of which employs a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine the covert racist discourse regarding the Paiwan people in a four-episode NHK documentary series on the history of the modernization of Japan. Second, the study evaluates the discursive patterns of the legal documents resulting from the subsequent lawsuits. The analysis incorporates the findings of interviews with key stakeholders in the human zoo case in its investigation of the presence of insidious racial prejudice against the Paiwan people, combined with a lack of sensitivity towards indigenous peoples in general, both in the documentary and in the responses from NHK in the subsequent lawsuits.