Futures of Learning

The growth of mobile media and Internet use and the spread of digital media production tools has led to a variety of new media production practices in Japan. Here we focus on new media production that has grown out of the distinctive mobile media and communication practices of Japan - digital photography and keitai novels. We also touch on digital video production and media literacy programs that have received attention from the research community. 

Digital Photography

As digital photography, mobile communications, and social media have become pervasive in Japanese culture, new media production and sharing has become integral part of everyday self-expression and communication. In the past decade, Japan has seen a phenomenal growth in digital media creation that grows out of casual, social forms of media creation and sharing.

Photo by Joko and Norifumi

For example, when camera phones started to become popular in Japan in the early 2000s, we saw a growth in new forms of amateur photography. As Daisuke Okabe and Mizuko Ito (2006) note, keitai photos are taken of more everyday, low-key scenes and events in contrast to the special events and commemorations that characterized traditional amateur photography. They categorize keitai photos into the genres of personal archiving, visual sharing, and news sharing. The latter two categories are particularly distinctive in that they are embedded in keitai social communication, visual media that are captured in order to share in immediate and lightweight ways with friends and family. Norifumi Arimoto and Daisuke Okabe (2008) argue that keitai cameras have changed certain structures of desire for their users. In the past, when encountering something visually interesting in the environment, people didn’t have a desire to share this visual information with others. They argue that this new kind of desire is something that grew out of the intersection between a new technology and emerging social practices, leading to the growth of a new kind of amateur photo journalistic tendency.

Another form of portable, digital photography that has received some research attention are “print club” (purikura) sticker photos that are taken in photo booths when teens get together. These photos are generally taken as couples or in groups, and then mod them with “graffiti” and print them out on sticker sheets that are shared among friends. The photos can also be sent to mobile phones. They first became popular in the late nineties, and now are a taken-for-granted element of the social landscape for teenage girls. Laura Miller (2005) has studied purikura as a unique expressive and linguistic form that pushes back on dominant notions of Japanese femininity and cuteness. She describes how girls will take and annotate photos to be deliberately grotesque and crass, performing a kind of gender parody. Other researchers have examined how purikura function as a communication tool, making visible social networks of friendships (Kurita 1999; Okabe 2008; Okabe et al. 2009). By exchanging purikura photos and displaying them in elaborately designed purikura albums, teenage girls display their identity, social status, friendships, and taste in ways that are visible to their peers (Okabe 2008; Okabe et al. 2009).

Purikura Album
Photo by Kunikazu

Keitai Novels

In addition to photography, mobile media has also supported new forms of writing and literature. As described in the earlier post on Internet practices, young people began developing “mail magazine” (merumaga), email lists that functioned as personal zines shared over mobile email. This practice of sharing news, musings, and other kinds of information in short bursts over keitai email has evolved over the years into a new genre of literature, the keitai novel. The keitai novel, like merumaga are stories written in installments on a mobile phone and generally ready on a mobile phone, though they can be accessed via PC as well. The past few years has seen this genre become wildly popular in Japan, and the most popular of these novels have been published as print publications as well. In 2007, the three bestselling novels in Japan were keitai novels.

Most writers of keitai novels are teenage girls, mostly from the provinces, with no professional writing experience. They are written in an informal style as if they are writing mobile email. Yumiko Sugiura (2008) has suggested that keitai content sites, like those hosting keitai novels, represent a kind of “writing as consumption” that is different from the traditional mode of “reading as consumption.” Keitai users are writing novels in an informal, amateur mode, as if they are updating an online journal or blog. Rather than simply consuming the writings of professionals, these amateurs have the sense that their own writing could also have value to others.

Keitai novels often have sudden plot twists, are often difficult to follow, and usually include a predictable pattern of dramatic incidents of rape, pregnancy and suicide attempts. Can these works really be considered novels and literature? Chiaki Ishihara (2008) argues that this debate over whether these novels are literature or not is meaningless. She notes that those who don’t recognize these amateur works are and who only recognize traditional literature as true novels are just basing their opinion on their personal tastes. She feels that these keitai works represent a new genre of novel. Satoshi Hamano (2008) expresses a similar view. His view is that those who look down on keitai novels as unoriginal and formulaic are themselves unoriginal, failing to recognize the unique contexts and conventions of the new genre. Viewed from the point of view of keitai literacy, these new novels have a reality and value that is embedded in shared culture of keitai-connected youth.

DIY Video

19 year-old anime fan dancing to the Suzumiya Haruhi theme song

Sites such as YouTube and Nico Video have become popular in Japan as places to share and access commercial video as well as amateur works of various kinds. Much of this video mirrors the kind of sharing and DIY video that we have seen in the US, but there are also some video genres that are unique. For example, the Japanese scene has a genre of videos known as “MADs,” which are similar to the anime music videos that are popular in the overseas fandom of anime. MADs are a broader genre of video making, however, and can include parodies of live action, as well as videos such as that featured above, of a fan dancing to an anime theme song. One particularly popular source for fan made videos has been the character Hatsune Miku, a character that was designed for a software package to create J-pop songs. Videos featuring Miku became hugely popular on Nico Video, becoming a focal point for online communities of video and music creators. Kaoru Endo (2004) has described the creative communities of online video makers as “creative mobs.” As described in an earlier post, these communities will occasionally organize “flash meetings” in real life.

One example of a flash meeting is the gathering of anime fans in Akihabara and other locations, where they got together to dance the Haruhi theme song, uploading these videos onto YouTube. Kaname Tanimura (2008) has studied the cultural significance of these fans of Suzumiya Haruhi. Rather than being a momentary and transitory social connection, however, these fans have continued to stay in communication, centered on their common interest (Suzuki 2002).

Media Literacy Programs

In addition to the culture of digital media production that has been flourishing on the mobile and PC-based Internet, Japan has been home to a several important media literacy programs that seek to support digital media production in educational settings.

From 2001 to 2006, The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies has been the home to the MELL (Media Expression, Learning, and Literacy) ProjectThis project is one of the largest projects in Japan dealing with media literacy, and has functioned as an umbrella for a wide range of media literacy efforts. The early participants in the MELL project included Sociologist Shin Mizukoshi, educational researcher Yuhei Yamauchi, public television producer Katsumi Ichikawa, journalist Akiko Sugaya, and high school educator Naoya Hayashi. The project was led by these five, bur also included 80 members comprised of researchers, graduate students, media professionals, teachers, NPOs and community organizations across the country, as well as 4-500 supporters who subscribed to the MELL email list.

With the adoption of digital media, there was the potential for citizens to actively participate in media rather than simply consuming mass media. The MELL project was developed based on the idea of having people make their own media while simultaneously building new networks and organizations for media making. Mizukoshi used the ecological term “media biotope” (link to Japanese page) to describe his effort to support participatory community media. A biotope is sphere optimized for certain organisms to inhabit. His idea was to create a fertile ground for a variety of different trees to grow, and to challenge the media environment that had become blanketed exclusively by cypress. Mizukoshi writes, “Just as it is critical for humans as organisms to have access to diverse ecologies, it is critical for humans as social beings to have access to diverse media ecologies.”

For example, one project under the MELL umbrella is the Civic Media Sapporo project, which supports local civic journalism. The project has supported citizens of Sapporo to develop community FM radio that was broadcast over the Internet, and has sponsored mdia workshops for elementary students to experience journalism. Another example is the Hacker’s Café, a weekly gathering where people can come by with their laptops to create and share technology hacks with one another.

References

Endo, Kaoru (遠藤薫) Ed. 2004.『インターネットと「世論」形成』東京電機大学出版局.

Hamano, Satoshi (濱野智史). 2008.『アーキテクチャの生態系』NTT出版.

Miller, Laura. 2005. “Bad Girl Photography.” In Bardsley, Miller, Ed. Bad Girls of Japan. Palgrave Macmillan.

Mizukoshi, Shin. http://mellnomoto.com/text/essay/2001/11/post_2.html >メディア・ビオトープのすすめ：マスメディア中心から新しいメディアの生態系へ構造改革 .

Okabe, Daisuke, Mizuko Ito, Aico Shimizu and Jan Chipchase. 2009.. “Purikura as a Social Management Tool.” In Gerard Goggin and Larissa Hjorth Eds., Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media. New York: Routledge.

Sugiura, Yumiko (杉浦由美子). 2007.『ケータイ小説のリアル』中公新書.

Suzuki, Kensuke (鈴木謙介). 2002.『暴走するインターネット』イーストプレス.

Tanimura, Kaname (谷村要). 2008.「インターネットを媒介とした集合行為によるメディア表現活動のメカニズム：「ハレ晴レユカイ」ダンス「祭り」の事例から」No.85, pp69-81.