著者

新倉 貴仁

出版者

日本マス・コミュニケーション学会

雑誌

マス・コミュニケーション研究 (ISSN:13411306)

巻号頁・発行日

no.86, pp.143-160, 2015-01-31

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In 1952, the Treaty of San Francisco ended the Allied occupation of Japan, and it was during the same year that the Japan Society for Journalistic Studies-predecessor of The Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication-first published the Japanese Journalism Review. As the subtitle of this journal, "Devoted to Research Studies in the Field of Mass Communication" showed, postwar Japanese society began with the formation of mass communication studies and a mass society. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the introduction of automation technology into postwar Japanese society through a historical analysis of discourses collected from publications from that period. As new technological innovations were made during World War II, automation was an industrial and technological condition for forming a mass society in postwar Japan. Furthermore, automation technology accompanied the concept of business administration, and it promoted the dissemination of the notion of management among not only business leaders but also academic intellectuals. First, the formation of a consumer society is reconsidered regarding management through business computing, one of the essential aspects of automation technology. Second, the historical process of the spread of automation technologies among postwar Japanese society is described. This includes the establishment of the Japan Productivity Center, the installation of IBM's circulators, and the outset of the research and development of nuclear energy. Finally, the ideological significance of automation technology among academic intellectuals such as Maruyama Masao is revealed by tracing how the issues of organization and productivity are accepted and focused upon. Automation technology in postwar Japanese society has been discussed less than its real effects on society. In other words, this article may contribute by adding a new facet to the previous discourse on postwar Japanese society.