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INTRODUCTION

        The ascendancy of modern nation states has brought about monumental transformations in the social, economic, political, and cultural structures of communities around the globe. Countless governments have attempted to leave a lasting impression behind by establishing new institutions and/or initiating various domestic and foreign policies, but never before in the course of human history did governments possess such pervasive influence on the daily lives of their citizens as they do today.

        Many consider the government involvement into the day to day lives of its citizens reached an apex among the industrialized nations with the rise and fall of totalitarian and/or authoritarian governments characteristic of Fascist and communist regimes. Statist tendencies of governments have conventionally been attributed to totalitarianism and dictatorships. However, the governments of current democracies today wield wide sweeping control over the lives of its citizens as well. The availability of welfare, issuing of key licenses necessary to conduct various businesses, the regulation of interstate and international trade, the regulation of the electronic broadcasting mass media are all controlled by bureaucratic institutions entrusted to carry out these tasks by the congress in the United States. The profile of government power of many democratic nations may not appear to be as overtly oppressive and threatening as those of totalitarian and authoritarian governments of the past, but it is extensive nevertheless. As libertarians of this nation is never afraid to point out, the scope of control the US Federal government and its bureaucracies hold over citizens have expanded considerably in the last one hundred years alone.

        Gregory J. Kasza's "THE STATE AND THE MASS MEDIA IN JAPAN 1918-1945" takes the reader down a journey starting back from Meiji Japan, when overall the state interference into the operation of the mass media was, overall, considerably subdued. The pace of the book picks up steam as we go through the turbulent times of Taisho Japan. Statist and liberal ideals clash inside and outside the government as the nation becomes hostage to the turmoil brought about by various poplar movements and upheavals of foreign diplomacy. Diet members extend universal male suffrage, but at the same time removed the remaining constraints against government crackdown on leftist, communists, and radical anarchists. Censorship of the mass media was another means by which the government attempted to stamp out leftists movements. The journey leaves us with Wartime Japan, as the renovationist bureaucracy with strong statist ideals close ranks with the politically active military to bring about the total mobilization of all resources of the nation, including the mass media, all justified by the demands of total war.

        It is a frightful and disquieting journey. Not in the sense that we must witness brutal suppression and cohesion (not that there was not enough of that) but in the sense that we are left with the irksome knowledge of how a constitutional monarchy fashioned after the "civilized west" could transform into a harsh authoritarian government. The authoritarian and militaristic government that emerged from the 1930's was still within the (ridiculously stretched) confines of the constitutional framework specifically designed to curtail such excesses of non-elected officials. It is horrifying to witness members of the Japanese Diet, who were so blindly committed to the aspirations of imperialism, willing to empower the executive branch with tremendous control over the mass media in an attempt to make the nation stronger. It is unnerving to notice that through out the process by which the bureaucracy gained ever more control, the main stream sections of the mass media was willing to put up with "annoying" regulation that was putting their smaller and fringe counterparts out of business. Saddening as it may be, shortsighted greed and selfishness on the part of the major mass media corporations helped bring about their own demise in the end.

        Readers of Kasza's book are not going to be overwhelmed by an orgy of naked brutality and rampant book burnings. Instead the reader will be treated to a horror and dread of another sort. The factors and elements, the characters and organizations, the justifications and the logic for these actions, and the situations that brought about the subservience of the mass media to state interests will have an uncanny resemblance to the some aspects in the world in which we live in today. For myself, I was left in the shadow of fear with the knowledge that the dangers discussed in the book was by no means limited to some far off banana republic nor to the distant past.

        The book itself is divided into two parts with the period when the party governments prevailed (1918-1932) as one and the period in which the military-bureaucratic rule made the rules (1937-1945) as the other. The first part devotes considerable space to the background behind mass media regulation with descriptions on the policies of the previous Meiji government. The brief, but nevertheless thorough, section enables the reader to appreciate the backdrop behind Taisho legislation and regulations of the mass media.

        Even though Japan had quite high degree of literacy in the 1700s and 1800s, the Tokugawa Bakufu did not aggressively regulate mass media publications previously. Most of the regulatory measures were ad hoc, employed for particularly bothersome or "corruptible" material that came up on the political agenda from time to time. There were little newspaper journalism to speak of back then in Japan, save the extra news leaflets that were distributed to inform a city of a special breaking news (known as Kawaraban). The authority and power of the Tokugawa Bakufu was not established by the rule of law but instead rested upon the balance of power maintained by that government through real politick and forced cohesion. This lack in legal tradition in domestic policy would leave a dangerous precedent behind.

        The Meiji Government's initial fundamental policy regarding the mass media was quite liberal. The aim of the leaders of the Meiji Restoration and the following statesmen was to emulate the West in their industrial and technological advancement and strengthen Japan in the process. The capacity of the mass media in disseminating information and educating the general public was recognized early on, and consequently the Meiji Government was quite tolerant of criticisms being launched from the presses. There was censorship and regulation to be sure, but for the most part these were ad hoc measures employed to curtail any direct challenges to their authority. Overall, the statesmen of Meiji was quite accommodating in the development of an autonomous privately owned press industry.

        Press policy was rather fluid in the early Meiji period when there was no constitution. Most newspaper regulations of that era were designed to uphold the manners and morals of society, maintain state secrets, and prevent overt disruptions of public order. Be that as it may be that the government's real motivation behind mass media regulation was primarily political, the independence and private ownership of the press was respected. This would have a lasting influence on the government policies regarding the mass media, especially regarding newspapers, to the very end.

        Another important precedent was established in this era. Wide discretion was given to the bureaucracy in formulating and implementing mass media regulation. While the constitution created in 1889 established that only the Diet had the authority to curtail the rights of its citizens, the laws and legislation regarding the media was written quite vaguely, leaving the bureaucracy with lots of room to maneuver. Judiciary was given little oversight powers against the executive branch, and in fact the bans and censorship by the Home Ministry were upheld by the courts as being constitutional. Ministries were considered to have inherit powers granted to them to carry out their duties. Therefore, any challengers of the Home Ministry's decisions was given the choice of either appealing the decision in ministerial tribunals (a dead end) or hope that the Diet would step in and curtail the bureaucracy over-zealousness. It must be noted that the constitution did not grant the mass media any rights that would be protected against the Diet itself.

        While the Home Ministry indeed wielded wide powers in carrying out mass media regulation, much of their effort was devoted to "negative censorship" and the issuing of censorship standards. Said differently, as long as the material complied with the censorship standards, publishers were free to publish and distribute what ever type of material it wished to. There was no "guidelines" for what should be printed, no cohesion on the part of the government to have certain types of material published more then others. The active endorsement and sponsoring of particular types of material did not come about until the press was mobilized into service for the state later on.

        Censorship of the printed medium was especially brutal against the leftists and other communist publications. This maybe one of the reasons why the mainstream press was rather complacent of the censorship measures being employed. Much of the time the Home Ministry was going after radicalists publications and not their own. They may get a slap on the wrist for printing something too prematurely and such but this was hardly a matter of survival.

        Negative censorship consisted of penalizing publishers for material they already had began to release. The Home Ministry did not screen the material actively before it was published. This was not the case for film and radio.

        Film censorship was considerably more pervasive then either newspapers or other printed publications. All films intended for public viewing needed to be screened by the Home Ministry. While the party governments did have the chance to pass legislation regarding film, it left the regulation of the field entirely in the hands of the bureaucracy at the time. Kasza goes to lengths to indicate that the bureaucracy went far beyond the narrow scope of keeping obscene material and politically explosive issues out of the movie frame. The ministry men seemed motivated with "a highly paternalistic attitude, an underlying belief that officials were not merely a political elite but a moral elite qualified to oversee to every aspect of social life."

        Radio was the most heavily regulated and statist form of the mass media. Radio broadcasting to the public was allowed only as a state/private enterprise. One monolithic public interest enterprise (Nihon Housou Kyoukai or the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) was allowed to operate though out Japan. Much of the programming was dictated by the central broadcasting station in Tokyo, which was in turn, was manned by former officials of the Communication Ministry (the ministry that managed to assert jurisdiction over the medium successfully). The content was rigorously screened before broadcasting, which resulted in the state's views primarily being aired over the radio waves.

        Clearly the mass media prior to the ascendancy of the military/bureaucracy regime was quite oppressive, but be as that may be, "bureaucratic policy making was often un-democratic in that the involvement of the elected officials was slight, but not generally anti-democratic in the sense of contravening the preference of the party government leaders." In fact there were various opportunities where which the party governments could have extended far more liberal regulation of the mass media, but in reality they reinforced the strangle hold of the bureaucracy even more. The Communication Ministry originally envisioned radio broadcasting as a quasi-public enterprise run by private corporations as a for profit business, but the party politicians struck down that proposal. The only note worthy mass media legislation to be passed by the Diet strengthen the penalties for breaching the censorship guidelines maintained by the Home Ministry.

        Japanese media policy was not extraordinarily harsh when compared against the standards that were being employed by various contemporary democracies. The US Comstock Law was considerably more specific and oppressive. However, it must be noted that the standards for illegality in a publication regarding content was more specific in US and Britain as compared to the Japan at the time.

        It would be too easy to say that the imperialism dogma and paranoia of socialism that captivated most industrial nations of that era was largely responsible for the thoughtlessness displayed by the Japanese Diet. Tradition and political culture, combined with the big business interests of the mass media also played an important part in the consolidation of the bureaucracy's power. At the same time, the timidity of the Diet certainly did not help in forestalling the rise of the military/bureaucracy regime.

        The transition to military-bureaucratic rule did not occur overnight. It was a slow transition where the power of the political parties declined as the military and the various bureaucracies ascended into power with the backing of elder statesmen. Depression, popular unrest regarding domestic policies, farmer revolts, disappointments in foreign diplomacy, the surge in radical right violence, and the resentment exhibited by the lower ranking military officers all contributed to the destabilization of the Japanese government of the late 1920's and early 1930's. In order to break the gridlock between the Diet and the cabinet and attempt to introduce an element of stability and continuity to the government, the elder states men (who were in charge of selecting a cabinet) put together "national unity cabinets" that placed "neutral" government bureaucrats into position of power.

        The party politicians could not agree to a common counter strategy, and instead backed these governments as a method to bolster their popularity as being the "pro-stability/pro-imperialist" ideology party. In this power vacuum a new generation of bureaucrats and military officers expanded their powers as they formulated and implemented statist policies that they envisioned as being beneficial to the well being of the nation. The time of freedom and liberalism was now over, and instead the preoccupation was on the bolstering the nation's strength and vitality through statist intervention and leadership.

        Simply put, the new policy was that anything and everything that could bolster Japan's domestic well being or help her war efforts were considered legitimate object of state invention. This policy shift was clearly evident in the new direction taken in mass media regulation. In addition to the oppressively tightening censorship standards, certain types of material that promoted the interests of the state was actively encouraged to be produced.

        Imperialism played an important part in the overall political climate in the late Taisho period of Japan. This facilitated the rightward shift of the entire Japanese political spectrum, as previously state approved (uncensored) political views started to go under fire. The range of acceptable criticism sharply narrowed.

        The State Total Mobilization Law, enacted in 1938 in response to the anticipated demands of total war, enabled bureaucracies to wield unprecedented degrees of control over economic, political, and cultural aspects of Japanese society now uninhibited by the constraints of the Diet. Some of the new mechanisms employed where the establishment of inter-ministerial control committees, encouragement of self-regulatory bodies that represented and presided over all the members of any given industry or organization, the consolidation of industries, and finally the rationing of natural materials.

        Inter-ministerial control committees where instrumental in formulating and implementing advanced statist policies. Here bureaucrats and military officers alike were free from the organizational hierarchy that favored conservatism and seniority. Organizations such as the Cabinet Information Division (later becoming a bureau) revolutionized the method through which the mass media was regulated. With the members of various branches of government and the military in attendance, it was now possible to coordinate their needs and actively encourage the mass media to meet these needs. Negative censorship never subsided out of view but now "consultations" were conducted regularly. Consultations involved the government actively encouraging particular approaches and specific styles of describing subjects to be presented by the mass media. News paper had to go beyond just informing people but needed to boost the moral of the nation. Film needed to inspire more dedication to the state from its audiences.

        Self regulating bodies of the industries played a major role in streamlining this administrative process. Certain self regulating bodies were granted pseudo-bureaucratic status as they were assisting the government with allocation planning of rationed resources and granting of licenses and permits. Many self-regulating bodies were eagerly put together by various industries including the mass media. Industry self regulating bodies could become powerful lobbying organizations against government. At the same time, self-regulating was considered a preferred methodology as opposed to direct government intervention. While self-regulating bodies tended to side with the industry heavy weights and encouraged uncompetitive practices, they were extremely useful for the government.

        Consolidation was another major factor in the transformation of the Japanese mass media. The state and its bureaucracies actively (and illegally) encouraged the merger and consolidation of lesser companies into larger organizations. For example, the distribution of printed material was previously conducted by dozens of smaller companies before the wave of war time consolidations set in. Afterwards a monolithic mega distributor was left in the place. Only large corporations had good chances of surviving. In fact, outright nationalization of the Press never came about and the large companies stood to gain considerably from the disappearance of smaller competitors.

        The government policies regarding rationing of natural resources that came about as Japan slid deeper and deeper into war in China was another method with which the bureaucracy exercised tremendous control over the mass media. Virtually all steps of production and service, from purchasing of paper and film negatives to the distribution and the public release of individual products, was in some form or another regulated either through direct licensing or indirect rationing.

        Film was especially hard hit by the waves of consolidation and rationing, Furthermore, one of the last substantial pieces of mass media regulation the Diet passed in the pre1945 Japan was the Film Law of 1939. Considered to be Japan's first "culture law", the law was enthusiastically supported by the film industry. This was considered to be the recognition of film as a legitimate cultural industry. Pre-production censorship and state-approval brought about a higher degree of control over the content of the film by the state. Foreign films, previously quite popular in Japan, were virtually eradicated. In many ways the film law was an embodiment of the statist, imperialistic, right-wing, and war-driven mentality of that period.

        Radio had become the most direct line of communication available to the state in order to reach out to the general masses. While the state may have had tremendous impact on the structure and the opinions of the press and film, in the end they were still private corporations operating separately from the state. Radio, on the other hand, was established from the beginning as a pseudo-national enterprise. The views expressed on the radio was that of the state, save that the radio was much more bland and impersonal than how a government spokesman would be.

        In the end radio was so sterile and statist, polls indicated that many in the popular public felt it had become "boring." This is not to say that the influence radio had on the lives of Japanese citizens diminished. Radio was the most direct source of information regarding the war most people had. Nearly a majority of the Japanese public listened to both the announcement of the war with the US by Prime Minster Hideki Tojo and the recorded message of the Emperor Hirohito proclaiming the end of the war through the radio.

        Kasza draws some very disquieting analysis in the last sections of his book. He notices that the mass media industries that best successfully kept the state at bay with their statist goals were the industries where large corporations dominate. Undemocratic as this might be, large corporations are best equip with countering overzealous statist intervention thanks its size, wealth, expertise, and power. It may be ideal from democratic stand point to have the industry composed of small and middle size companies but these are the businesses most susceptible to state cohesion. All to often any united strategy to counter state intervention unravels as the competitive aspects of the business hampers efforts to consolidate a unified front. After all, a publisher shut down by the government is one less competitor you have to worry about.

        Kasza also draws some thought provoking comparative analysis regarding the relationship between government structure and its statist tendencies. All though many have compared the cultural mobilization of Japan to that of Nazi Germany, caution is warranted in comparing the two. Both governments where extremely authoritative and statist during World War II but Japan was not a totalitarian government as Nazi Germany was. There was no single political party that dominated the government such as in the case of Russia and Nazi Germany, and because of this, the policy formulation process was quite different. As Kasza points out, pre1945 Japan was probably more similar to Egypt under Nasser with regarding to political structure of the state institution. It goes without saying how these comparisons can be useful in analyzing various governments around the globe today.

        Kasza presents his arguments and analysis with powerfully clear logic, masterfully articulated descriptions supported by detailed documentation. In as much that this book is a triumph in dogged historical investigating, the historical relevance of the material presented cannot be fully appreciated by reading this book alone. The reader of the book should possess the capability to cross reference the steady political progression of pre-1945 Japan and the developments in the international arena in this period to fully appreciate the references in this book.

        Kasza makes bold assertions regarding the role of bureaucracies, but the back drop to these arguments are rather sketchy. Of course, the author, I assume, did not prepare this book for the enjoyment of freshmen political science students nor laymen readers mildly interested in the history of Japan. This book is not for popular consumption, but rather, a treatise designed to stimulate and entertain the critical minds of hard core scholars and engaged students. In that respect Kasza's abstraction and simplification helps to specialize the book and keep it focused on the subject at hand.

        Those involved in the field of study of the structure of various mass media institutions of Japan will find this book tremendously useful. While the book does not go into depth regarding the post war structure of these institutions, insights by the author abound regarding the impact pre1945 structure had on the profile of the post1945 structures of the industries in Japan. This is particular striking to be made aware of when many of us have the impression that the American occupation of Japan removed many of these features imposed on the Japanese industry demanded by the needs of total war. But the reality is that many of the institutions established and structural changes instigated in that era are still very much a apart of Japanese life to this day. One appreciates the power the bureaucracy still yields over Japan at large today through reading this book.

        Another welcome aspect of Kasza's material was the determined objectivity in his thesis. While some might consider the book to be politically "dry and bland" with respect to ideological tendencies, this reader was grateful he was able to navigate through the book without having to steer clear of colorful but distracting ideological whirlpools featured in so many other books pertaining to the relationship between state and media.

        Japanese Particularism was evident in only a few locations, making this book even more entertaining and recommendable for those that might not be familiar with the cultural traditions.

        Kasza's book is a thorough and concise documentation of what could go terribly wrong when bureaucracies are unchecked, when elected officials lose sight of the constitutional framework they function under, when policies regarding key regulatory mechanisms are administrated without proper checks and balances, and how the most intelligent and well-versed members of the mass media can succumb to the temptations of complacency, greed, and denial. The knowledge that can be gained through reading this book will undoubtedly contribute to the readers capability to comprehend and disassemble the rhetoric of censorship prominent today in this country as well as other countries.

        In some respects modern day China, with no strong leader capable of tightening the reins of a bureaucracy and military that seems to have a mind of its own, closely parallels with the state Japan was in the 1930s. Russia also appears uncannily similar to this outlook. The fight over the jurisdiction of the Internet among the US Government is another issue that comes to mind relate to this topic. The research of Kasza undoubtedly can be applied to the analysis of the world today.

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