Japanese Online Media

While Japan is known for its well-established offline news media (it is home to the Kisha Club system as well as to six of the world’s top-circulating newspapers), the same does not hold true for its online media. Similar to the case of their U.S. counterparts, traditional Japanese media have been unsure of how to adopt the Web as a medium, where a profit model is yet to be defined. Dissimilar to American and British media, Japanese have been slow to experiment with the media in relation to content creation and readership.

However, latest reports by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications indicate that there were 19.5 million broadband Internet subscribers as of March 2005, or nearly two in five households. It should be mentioned that Internet usage in Japan is tabulated by access method: at home, school or work; by way of mobile or computer terminal; via fiber optics, DSL, cable modem, ISDN or dial-up. When all of these access points are taken into account, the Internet Association Japan 2004 Internet White Paper estimates there are 62.8 million Internet users in Japan. Such proliferation of the Web and a growth in Web offerings and initiatives are rapidly changing the Japanese online media landscape.

Newspapers Online

As of 2005, Japan’s major print dailies each maintain their own Japanese-language news sites: Asahi Newspaper’s Asahi.com; YOMIURI ONLINE of the Yomiuri Shimbun; MSN-Mainichi Interactive of the Mainichi Newspaper; NIKKEI NET and Nikkei 4946 of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun; and Sankei Shimbun’s Sankei Web. In addition to The Japan Times online, the Japanese newspapers also operate English-language news sites: Asahi.com; DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE; MSN-Mainichi Daily News; NIKKEI net Interactive; and Sankei Web, which consists only of the Sankei’s Op-Ed column. Some companies offer streaming news clips, such as theNikkei Broadband News and YOMIURI ONLINE. The Nikkei follows a similar business model to the American Wall Street Journal or British Financial Times by charging subscription fees to access archives and in-depth content. The Mainichi Shimbun has partnered with Microsoft’s MSN to share the burden of online publishing.

As Daniel Scuka, Chiaki Katada and Kyoko Fujimoto report in Freeing of the Press in the April 2001 issue of J@panInc Magazine, Old Media have been reluctant to go online, and criticize online content as “stale reprints” of previously run stories. One hindrance to the development of an online profit model has been Japan’s unique distribution system, which relies heavily on independent distributors, many of them small businesses that solely focus on newspaper distribution. For instance, The Asahi Shimbun alone carries a distribution channel of 3,400 agents totaling 84,000 employees who would balk at the thought of newspaper companies bypassing them to directly reach its readers. In a system that has prevailed since 1903, traditional media behemoths are struggling to make a transition that could result in the displacement of thousands of individuals.

Meanwhile, the Kanagawa Shimbun, the Kanagawa Prefecture local daily, launched Kanaloco (Kanagawa + “loco,” the Hawaiian term for “local”) in February 2005 as a news and community blog site. Kanaloco incorporates news; news blogs for crime, sports and local news; and community blogs, includingMM blog, for residents of the Minato Mirai train line vicinity, and Kanaloco Editorial blog, a forum for the blog staff to communicate to readers. Kusanone Blog: Will the Net Kill the Newspaper? blogger and journalist Tsuruaki Yukawa hailed the Kanagawa Shimbun as the first traditional media company to recognize the difference between online and offline media, and a positive step towards the growth of participatory journalism in Japan.

Television Broadcasters Online

Major Japanese broadcasters offer replays of news broadcasts on their sites, including NHK ONLINE, Fuji News Network of Fuji TV, NNN24 of NTV and TBS’s NewsI. And on July 20, 2005, TV Asahi made news when it launched a fee-based RSS news service for the TV Asahi Entertainment News.

An increase in broadband Internet users could mean higher demand for streaming news content online. Still, Yukawa poses a valid question in his blog: do audiences care more about what they are watching, or how they are watching it? According to Yukawa, the answer is video-on-demand, though not necessarily by way of the Web. If audiences wish to attain content when they want, how they want it, they may turn to their mobile phones, laptops or televisions, depending on their situation at any given time. Closely tracking user news consumption habits along with Internet access points will no doubt affect how programming and content is developed by media companies.

Magazines Online

Weekly magazine Gendai> is one publication that can be found online as Web Gendai, but does not publish its offline content on the Web. Instead, the magazine develops unique online content. Monthly magazine Cyzo offers back articles as PDF files for purchase, and select articles for free in the tachiyomi (stand-reading) section. Both are general interest magazines that publish recent news, one-on-one interviews with public figures, book and film reviews, idol profiles and other content commonly found in Japanese magazines. The Nikkei Newspaper’s Nikkei BP division also offers some of its numerous magazines online, such as IT Pro, Tech-On! China and NE Asia Online. Japan’s national English magazine Japanzine offers a wry, provocative and well-informed view of the ever-changing country fo Japan. All articles published in the monthly print edition also appear on SeekJapan.jp.

Web Publications

Several of Japan’s news publications on the Web center on the topic of business and information technology: Impress’s J@pan Inc. Magazine and iNTERNET magazine and sister newsletters Wireless Watch, Gadget Watch, Music Media Watch, Money Watch and Frugal Watch; CNET Japan, the Japanese language division of media and technology magazine CNET news; Business Computer News; Mobile Media Japan; IT Media News; and Japan Corporate News Network (JCN). SeekJapan.jp is an ever-expanding online portal incorporating everything from jobs and classifieds to entertainment and lifestyle tips.

Citizen Journalists Online

In Japan, Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures, or JanJan, and Livedoor PJ (PJ for Public Journalism) are the two leading sources of news for the people, by the people and of the people. In the public journalism arena, no other sites have matched the financial success of South Korea’s OhmyNews International, (after which both sites are modeled) which claims to have earned $400,000 in profit in 2004.

Still, JanJan founder Ken Takeuchi has high hopes for the future of the site, which he addressed at the OhmyNews International Citizen Reporters’ Forum in June 2005. One problem, he stated, is that Japanese by nature prefer to avoid dissonance in a culture that values harmony. While missing bylines and ambiguous statements are oft-criticized aspects of traditional Japanese journalism, Takeuchi acknowledges the need to take such cultural characteristics into account for the success of the site. A second problem factor Takeuchi refers to is the problem of people’s distrust of the Internet, thanks to the online bulletin 2Channel. On the other hand, the sensational site has been known to uncover corporate secrets and political scandals, at times being a news source for journalists seeking to dig up interesting stories. In the May 2001 issue of Cyzo magazine, veteran journalist Soichiro Tawara interviewed 2Channel founders Hiroyuki Nishimura and Ichiro Yamamoto, who spoke of instances where information on their site was picked up by a tabloid journalist and made it into the mainstream news. It seems it is precisely the anonymity that 2Channel provides that allows users to post revealing – and sometimes valuable – information.

More Reading

Available reading on Japanese media and the Internet:
Zine Clip features clips from several, if not all, of Japan’s online magazines.

Freeing of the Press -- New Media Journalism in Japan The Net is changing the way Japanese reporters approach their craft -- and the way Japanese readers approach reporters. By Daniel Scuka

Kusanone Blog: Will the Net Kill the Newspaper? By Tsuruaki Yukawa

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