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Media portrayal of the cultural relationship between Australia and Japan

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 60; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10357710601007042

1465-332X

Ian McArthur,

Asian Culture and Media Studies

Abstract This article traces Japanese and Australian media portrayals of the cultural aspects to the bilateral relationship. The article examines popular discourse about Japan and Australia in the media of each country, demonstrating how this has reflected the evolution of the cultural relationship. In Australia, the press has swung from portraying Japan as a problematic source of income from the resources trade, through to the home of ‘cool’ technology and fashion. In Japan, discourse about Australia has ranged from images of a country populated with cute animals, to a regional partner sharing the same democratic ideals. The article draws from the personal experiences of the author who was a correspondent and journalist for Australian and Japanese news corporations during the 1980s and 1990s. The author covered the ‘koala wars’ and the frill-necked lizard boom prompted by the Mitsubishi Mirage television commercial, as well as monitoring the growth in Japanese tourism to Australia. The author also draws on data from tracking surveys conducted by the Embassy of Japanese in Australia. Notes 1. The other four modes which facilitate the transfer of cultures are technoscapes, financescapes, ideoscapes and ethnoscapes. 2. For details about the impact of reporters’ clubs, see Freeman (Citation2000). 3. Historians consider the Meiji era (1868–1912) as a time when Japan used North America and western European countries as a template for its own rapid modernisation. 4. Mr Akashi was a keynote speaker at the Japan–Australia Forum (Session One) organised by Macquarie University and the Japan Foundation. It was an event associated with the Australia–Japan Year of Exchange. 5. According to a Japanese website, the camera team which shot the commercial used a snake to frighten the lizard into flaring its frill and running. The site claimed that the animal died soon afterwards, possibly due to the strain which the instinctive, but prolonged, flaring of the frill placed on its neck. See (accessed 1 October 2003). 6. Email correspondence, Gilbert George to Ian McArthur, 11 August 2006. George was director of the Australia–Japan Foundation Japanese office from 1983 to 1988. 7. For example in May and June 2005, reports about China and its economy in the major broadsheet papers available in Sydney, including the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Australian Financial Review, clearly outnumber those about Japan. Many stories which mentioned Japan were not exclusively about Japan, but were on the theme of how Japan was coping diplomatically and economically with the ‘Chinese challenge’. 8. Tokita estimated that 80 per cent of students of Japanese language and Japanese Studies at Monash University are of Asian background. 9. See for example Sydney Morning Herald (Citation2005), which quoted Japan's Ambassador Hideaki Ueda as saying Japanese eat more Australian beef than whale meat. 10. Japanese news interests in Australia are Nihon Keizai shimbun, Yomiuri shimbun, NHK, Kyodo, and Jiji Press. Nichigo Press is the publisher of a local Japanese language newspaper in Australia. Australia is represented in Japan by the Sydney Morning Herald/Age, the Australian Financial Review, the ABC, and News Limited (Australian). 11. Email correspondence, Paul Molloy to Ian McArthur, 10 August 2006.