Other important characteristics of shukanshi
Some 93.8 percent of mainstream Japanese newspapers are purchased through subscriptions, while more than 90 percent of Japanese weekly newsmagazines are purchased at newsstands. (The few actual subscriptions to weeklies are generally bought by businesses that place them in waiting rooms and lounges.) Of the vast majority that sell at the newsstand, a substantial portion go to commuters who read them on the subway or train. According to one source, 30 to 40 percent of all shukanshi sales occur at the approximately 4,000 kiosks located within train stations across the country. The bulk of the rest of the magazines are sold at bookstores and convenience stores (many of which are located near train stations).
This reliance on commuters means that the average weekly magazine reader is urban and of working age. Indeed, the shukanshi industry would suffer gravely were it not for the country's army of train and subway riders. This commuting readership often defines the editorial stance of newsmagazines, just as massive subscription bases drive newspaper content. Whereas Japanese newspapers strive to present broad-based, inoffensive material to massive numbers of committed readers, each week the shukanshi must entice what amounts to a brand-new readership to stop in their tracks and make a special purchase from a newsstand or similar outlet. Therefore, unlike Japanese newspaper editors, who have almost no motivation to produce enticing headlines, the newsmagazine editors and writers are required to formulate new, attention-grabbing headlines every week, to be reproduced in advertisements in the national daily papers and on posters in trains and on subways. Given the huge popularity of cellular phones that include game and imaging capacity, which many young Japanese are using on trains, one can only speculate about how shukanshi sales may suffer once the phones start featuring television (as is now possible in South Korea) and other more sophisticated entertainment features.
Many shukanshi also brandish their publishers' names on their front covers as part of their names. This serves to bolster the credibility of the magazines, which also sometimes serve as de facto emissaries for their parent companies. For example, Shinchosha Ltd. and Bungeishunju Ltd., publishers of Shukan Shincho and Shukan Bunshun, respectively, are prodigious book publishers, each releasing several hundred new titles each year. Shinchosha Ltd. has published such Western classics as "Jane Eyre" and "War and Peace," and Bungeishunju Ltd. has published "The Bridges of Madison County" and the Japanese-language edition of "The Diary of Anne Frank." Obviously, the names of these publishers add a veneer of credibility to their magazines. Dave Spector, a well-known "Western" television personality and pundit in Japan, known for his eloquence in Japanese, has contributed to such weekly newsmagazines as Shukan Bunshun. He participated in a panel discussion on Japanese newsmagazines and tabloid newspapers held at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in 2002, where he observed that "there is a tremendous vitality to the weeklies here. And the reason for that is because newspapers are so boring ... incredibly boring. There are no columnists to speak of. You don't curl up in bed with the Sunday edition like you would with The New York Times or the Financial Times ... so I think the magazines make up for the tremendous dullness of the normal newspapers." Spector's point is fundamental. The shukanshi present the kind of material they do, in the way that they do, because of the bland nature of the establishment Japanese news media. Japanese newspaper coverage tends to be so noninterpretive, boring, and supportive of the establishment that readers are often left feeling as though they just aren't getting the full story on what is happening. As a result, many turn to the weeklies, which loudly proclaim to have all the details. The tatemae and honne of the news The dichotomy of tatemae and honne is such an important concept in the Japanese culture that most books on Japanese culture for non-Japanese include at least some discussion of it. Tatemae refers to the official, outwardly acknowledged aspect of things; honne, to what is really going on. In other words, tatemae characterizes formal communication that often deals with issues on superficial and cosmetic levels, while honne is more intimate, substantial, and truthful. In the earlier example of someone mispronouncing a word, the tatemae response might be to ignore the error, but the honne response would be to acknowledge it openly. In another simple example, someone gives a gift that the recipient dislikes. In a tatemae response, the recipient might express thanks and praise the gift as wonderful -- a superficial but socially appropriate response. In a honne response, however, the recipient might avoid all pretenses and come right out and say that he or she dislikes the gift. Such a response might or might not also include expressing thanks for the thought that was behind the gift. Either way, honne would express the recipient's genuine feelings. These examples are benign enough, but as Alex Kerr, author of "Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan," has pointed out, the practice of tatemae and honne becomes a truly profound problem when applied to broader social issues: "Tatemae is a charming attitude when it means that everyone should look the other way at a guest's faux pas in the tearoom; it has dangerous and unpredictable results when applied to corporate balance sheets, drug testing, and nuclear power safety reports." Frighteningly enough, and to the great detriment of the Japanese citizenry, the tatemae/honne dichotomy is indeed regularly applied by journalists and publishers whose job is supposed to be to disseminate genuine information but who too often choose instead to offer only superficial, formal, tatemae news.
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