Television news exposure and cognitive processing in political learning

New study “How You Watch Television News Matters: A Panel Analysis of Second Screening and Political Learning from the News” by Masahiro Yamamoto and Weina Ran from Washington State University, and Shan Xu from Ohio State University studied how different forms of television news affect political knowledge. Past studies have highlighted the importance of television … Continued


Use of conservative summary sites linked to hostile media perception

New study “Anti-media expression by citizens: conservative summary sites, hostile media perceptions, and media trust in Japan” by Masahiro Yamamoto and Hyerim Jo of University at Albany, State University of New York, and Weina Ran of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute examines the links between anti-media messages, hostile media perceptions, and media trust.  The authors hypothesize that … Continued


Picture: SH-60B helicopter flies over Sendai by United States Navy, public domain

ARTICLE: Western newspapers used a cultural framework when reporting the Great East Japan Disaster

The Great East Japan Disaster of 2011 provides an important case study through which to evaluate how the western media cover Japan. Besides the nuclear crisis, limited attention has been paid to news reporting across the multiple overlapping disaster. Jamie Matthews of Bournemouth University did a critical discourse analysis of coverage of the disaster in … Continued


Picture: Walk walk walk by Ryoji Iwata, license CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: News audiences are not fragmented in the Japanese Twittersphere

Existing studies on ideological selective exposure have several limitations, state Tetsuro Kobayashi of City University Hong Kong, Yuki Ogawa of Ritsumeikan University, Takahisa Suzuki of Tsuda University, and Hitoshi Yamamoto of Rissho University. The authors examined selective exposure and news audience fragmentation in the Japanese Twittersphere. Researchers tested the generalizability of US findings in the … Continued


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ARTICLE: What’s keeping newspapers from fully engaging social media?

Mainstream newspapers in Finland, Japan and Korea have one thing in common: they all seem to under-utilize social media in their operation. The reasons, however, are different for each country, write Joo-Young Jung, of International Christian University, and Mikko Villi, of University of Jyväskylä. The authors interviewed 18 senior journalists working for 14 different mainstream … Continued


Newspapers in Japan and the role of personal contact - Kaori Hayashi interview

VIDEO: Newspapers in Japan and the role of personal contact

Kaori Hayashi, Professor of Media and Journalism Studies at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, the University of Tokyo, talked to us about Japanese newspapers. Due to the ageing society and changing media use of younger generations, the readership of newspapers is on the decline. Still, newspapers have a lot of influence in the … Continued



Shin Mizukoshi Interview

VIDEO: Media landscape in Japan and creating alternative ecosystems

We interviewed Shin Mizukoshi, a Professor of Media Studies at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at the University of Tokyo. He talks to us about the current media landscape in Japan, digital journalism, future directions for media and his research projects. Mizukoshi’s research interests include workshops on imagining and creating alternative media ecosystems. He … Continued