著者

井川 充雄

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.84, pp.53-64, 2014-01-31 (Released:2017-10-06)

参考文献数

25

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During the 1950s and 1960s, major Japanese newspapers mostly took positions in favor of the peaceful use of nuclear power without raising any questions about such use. Therefore, issues regarding the peaceful use of nuclear power were rarely mentioned in public opinion polls. In the meantime, however, the United States Information Agency (USIA) was conducting public opinion polls in Japan at the time. These public opinion polls reveal that compared to Europeans, a higher percentage of Japanese people tended to regard nuclear power as something that brings "curse" rather than "boon" to humanity. Even in those days, the Japanese were reluctant to adopt a clear-cut attitude that favored the peaceful use of nuclear power over its use for military purposes. What is also important is the fact that even during the 1970s and beyond, when non-academic researchers belonging to electric power companies and affiliated think tanks began to study topics related to nuclear power and public opinion or mass media, such topics were rarely discussed in academia and a few academic studies conducted on such topics had almost nothing in common with non-academic studies. In the future, it will be necessary to enhance research in these fields instead of making it an ephemeral phenomenon after the Great East Japan Earthquake.