Sport, broadcasting and cultural citizenship in Japan

Japan is one of the world's formidable economic forces, not least in terms of its sport and media industry, yet English-language sports studies carried out on Japan have yet to match its international sports presence. Despite Guttmann and Thompson's (2001) call for attention a decade ago, Japanese sport and its leisure cultures are still under-researched at present. Consistent with the ambition of this anthology as a whole, this chapter will explore debates about sport, broadcasting, and cultural citizenship specifically in Japan. At the end of the 20th century, television, and broadcasting more generally, operated in many Asian societies within a climate of economic growth and neoliberal-influenced economic strategies, while there were some attempts to retain national distinctiveness through state regulation (French and Richards, 2000). Building on and updating Horne (2005), we provide a sketch of recent developments in sport and mass media in Japan, especially through consideration of the dialectic in broadcasting between audiences and other agents and institutional and organizational structures. Additional attention is paid to the impact of the new, and competing media, as well as the impact of the 2011 digital switchover on the mediation and cultural consumption of sport in Japan. The chapter first provides an outline of Japan's contemporary sportscape against the backdrop of globalization and sports talent migration. It then illustrates the development of new transmission technologies and identifies the new players in the sport broadcasting industry in Japan. With the recent convergence of broadcasting and communication, this chapter proceeds to outline the major issues in the development of 'mediasport' in Japan and, finally, considers the implications of the emergence of new 'means' of sport television on the viewing rights of citizens.