著者
飽戸 弘 アクト ヒロシ Hiroshi AKUTO
雑誌
東洋英和大学院紀要
巻号頁・発行日
vol.6, pp.1-14, 2010-03-15

In 1980's books and articles on the impacts and influence of TV reporting about politics on politicalattitudes and voting behavior were published in the U.S. By contrast, there were very few articles onMedia and Politics in Japan. Although there will be many reasons for this difference, one of the mostimportant would be the severe restrictions on TV use in the field of political reporting in Japan in comparisonwith that in the U.S. As a result, it was thought that the impact and influences of TV reportingon the political attitudes and voting behavior were huge in the U.S., in contrast to Japan.As the quantity and quality of TV reporting on politics increased and improved, the influences ofTV reporting on politics were discussed in comparison with reporting by other media, such as newspaperand magazine. TV reporting with sound and images is usually more interesting and easy to understandin comparison to print media. Thus, TV reporting is supposed to have more educational functionthan print media. At the same time, TV reporting on politics often deals with the private life and scandalsof politicians and gossip in the political world. It seems to make people more skeptical and cynicalabout politicians and politics as a whole.Another important change is observed in the field of variety programs on TV. Recently, variety TVprograms, basically programs for entertainment, often pick up political topics and invite politicians asguests and commentators. Such a trend seems to reinforce the merits and demerits of TV reporting inthe field of politics as discussed above.We selected 15 representative info-variety programs and conducted public opinion polls all overJapan on the impact and influences of these TV programs on the political consciousness of the people.The reasons are not yet clear but there are many different impacts and influences of these various infovarietyTV programs, which suggest many interesting research topics in the future.