Historical Background

Formal media and entertainment industry in Japan dates back to early 17th century through the inception of a prototype newspaper known as kawabaran. Newspapers are the oldest form of media in Japan. These newspapers were written on one side of a roofing tile slide. These newspapers contained scandalous information such as love drama, murder, suicide and disasters among other breathtaking events. These newspapers appeared irregularly from time to time. The first formal newspaper in Japan was incepted in 1861 and was published in English. The newspaper appeared two times in a week. Daily newspaper in Japan dates back in 1871. Conversely, the entertainment industry has been vibrant for many years dating back to 8th century. By then, the entertainment scene was characterized by songs and dance. Much later in the 17th century, performing arts theatres were introduced in Japan’s entertainment landscape (Stevens, 2011).

The media and entertainment landscape in Japan experienced numerous transformations in the 19th century with global technological advancements. This was through introduction of televised media in mid 19th century as well as revolutionized film industry in early 19th century. In late 18thcentury, Japanese theatres started to show motion pictures and partly desisted from showing traditional dramas. Technological growth during early 19th century also brought about radio networks with the establishment of government radio station in 1923. Radio and TVs served as sources of information, news, and entertainment. The newspapers also revolutionized with content diversification and production of scripts that specialized in different maters, such as politics, business, sports and entertainment. Japan’s media sector has been experiencing constant development due to technological advancement as well as diversification of wants by the target audience (Chadha & Kavoori, 2015).

Description of the Local Media or Entertainment Landscape

            The current Japanese set up of the entertainment is industry is much more developed in terms of fields and focuses on almost every aspect of the society. The disciplines range from print in newspapers and magazines to the current categories that incorporate the social media. In a study by Park (2014), about six major disciplines guide the Japanese media industry. These are newspapers, radio, Television, and magazines. These four form the component of the traditional media. The second category, which involves the new stream, is the online media, which mostly relies on the internet, and the new media. This largely involves the social and the multimedia industry. Japanese culture has more or less adopted many features of media from the outside world to allow them to be competitive internationally. However, they still value their cultural norms and they use their official language in all of these media platforms. The media content is developed in such a way it shows the roles that different individuals play in the society with men for example being shown as the heads of the house.

Japanese media industry often develops in line with the market trends, and any other form of revolutions that is being experienced in the world since Japan tends to lead in terms of technological innovation and advancement. Additionally, the Japanese setup is able to integrate trends adopted from globalization, which they allow the country to display its products in the international scene. Interestingly, the major challenges that are experienced in the Japanese media platforms such as competition, government control and Sensationalism could be attributed to the current level of development in the adoption of new trends such as the social platforms for the sake of marketing their products.

Television Landscape in Japan

            The media life in Japan revolves around TV which receives an average audience attention of three and a half hours per day (radio receives an audience of 21 minutes, newspapers 20 minutes and books 10 minutes). Television network broadcasting was launched in Japan in 1950 although TV technology was discovered 24 years earlier. Television received a lot of competition from other form of media such as newspapers, magazines and radio. The main reason was the high cost involved in acquiring a television set. With more recent technological growth and improvement of television broadcasting, television has become the key industry player in Japanese media and entertainment industry. A recent survey on Japanese media and entertainment revealed that 78% of Japanese….”