著者

松下 峻也

出版者

法政大学社会学部学会

雑誌

社会志林 = Hosei journal of sociology and social sciences (ISSN:13445952)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.66, no.3, pp.89-103, 2019-12

著者

松下 峻也

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

vol.92, pp.145-163, 2018

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<p> In March 1954, when the United States tested a hydrogen bomb over the</p><p>Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, a Japanese fishing</p><p>boat, was exposed to the radiation. The crews of the boat suffered from</p><p>'acute illness', such as burns or loss of hair, within a short period of time, and</p><p>one of them died from leukaemia in September same year. This tragedy was</p><p>widely reported by the radio, the newspapers, the newsreels and the photo </p><p>journalism magazines, and ever since has been known as 'the Daigo Fukuryu</p><p>Maru Incident' in Japanese society. Yet, other Japanese fishing boats, the residents</p><p>of the Marshall Islands and the US soldiers who participated in the 1953</p><p>tests were also exposed to 'nuclear fallout' at that time. In such cases, the physical</p><p>effect of the radiation started to emerge much later, in the form of diseases</p><p>such as cancer. These effects, unlike the 'acute illness' of the Daigo Fukuryu</p><p>Maru crews, had been overlooked for decades by most of the media, with the</p><p>exception of very few TV programmes which documented their suffering. However,</p><p>these cases came to receive public interest after the Fukushima Daiichi</p><p>Nuclear Power Station Accident in 2011 and the following radioactive contamination</p><p>of large areas. It is in this context that the handful of past TV programmes</p><p>on the subject became important; in hindsight, by confronting the</p><p>'delayed effect', they were already describing the wider context of the radiation</p><p>exposure of the 'the Incident'. In that sense, these TV programmes, stored</p><p>and now open to the public as part of the archive of television; are important</p><p>resources not only for the re-examination of the incident; they also provide</p><p>significant implications for post-2011 Japanese society.</p>