Karlstads universitet 651 88 Karlstad Tfn 054-700 10 00 Fax 054-700 14 60

Information@kau.se www.kau.se

Faculty for economy, communication and IT

Johan Lindell

Japanization?

Japanese Popular Culture among Swedish Youth

Media and Communication Studies III C-Thesis

Date/Term: 11/6 VT08 Supervisor: Miyase Christensen Examiner: Christian Christensen

Abstract

Japanese presence on the global cultural market has steadily been increasing throughout the

last decades. Fan-communities all over the world are celebrating the Japanese culture and

cultural identity no longer seems bound to the local. This thesis is an empirical study which

aims to examine the transnational flow of Japanese popular culture into Sweden. The author

addresses the issue with three research questions; what unique dimensions could be ascribed

to Swedish anime-fandom, what is appealing about Japanese popular culture and how is it

influencing fan-audiences? To enable deeper understanding of the phenomenon, a qualitative

research consisting of semi-structured telephone-interviews and questionnaires, was

conducted with Swedish fans of Japanese popular culture. The results presented in this thesis

indicate that the anime-community in Sweden possesses several unique dimensions, both in

activities surrounding Japanese popular culture and consumption and habits. Japanese popular

culture fills a void that seems to exist in domestic culture. It is different, and that is what is

appealing to most fans. Anime and manga have inspired fans to learn about the Japanese

culture, in some cases, Japanese popular culture has in a way “japanized” fans – making them

wish they were born in Japan.

Key words: Japanization, Japanese transnationalism, popular culture, fan-communities,

anime, manga, globalization

INDEX 1. INTRODUCTION 3

1.1 BACKGROUND .............................................................................................................................................. 3 1.2 PURPOSE ...................................................................................................................................................... 4

1.2.1 Research questions .............................................................................................................................. 4 1.3 TERMINOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................ 5

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7 2.1 GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURE ................................................................................................................. 7

2.1.1 Cultural Imperialism Questioned........................................................................................................ 9 2.1.2 The Concept of Cultural Proximity................................................................................................... 11 2.1.3 Japanese Transnationalism............................................................................................................... 13

2.2 GLOBALIZATION, MEDIA AND IDENTITY.................................................................................................. 18 2.2.1 Question of Cultural Identity ............................................................................................................ 19 2.2.2 Media Fandom................................................................................................................................... 21

2.3 THE ACTIVE AUDIENCE – PREVIOUS RESEARCH ...................................................................................... 24 2.3.1 The Nationwide study ........................................................................................................................ 25 2.3.2 The Export of Meaning ..................................................................................................................... 25 2.3.3 The Anime Fan .................................................................................................................................. 26

3. METHODOLOGY 28 3.1 QUALITATIVE METHOD ............................................................................................................................. 28

3.1.1 Reception Analysis............................................................................................................................. 28 3.1.2 Semi-structured interviews ................................................................................................................ 29 3.1.3 Survey – Questionnaire ..................................................................................................................... 30

3.2 RESEARCH CREDIBILITY........................................................................................................................... 31 3.2.1 Validity ............................................................................................................................................... 31 3.2.2 Reliability ........................................................................................................................................... 32

4. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 33 4.1 THE UNIQUE DIMENSIONS OF JAPANESE TRANSNATIONALISM............................................................... 33

4.1.1 Anime Fandom .................................................................................................................................. 33 4.1.2 Culturally Distant? - What is appealing about Japanese Popular Culture? ................................... 41

4.2 QUESTIONS OF JAPANIZATION .................................................................................................................. 45 4.2.1 Culturally Odorless? .......................................................................................................................... 45 4.2.2 Evoking a Japanese way of life? ....................................................................................................... 48

5. CONCLUSION 52 6. REFERENCES 55 7. APPENDIX 58

7.1 APPENDIX 1 ................................................................................................................................................ 58 7.1.1 Interview manual ............................................................................................................................... 58 7.1.2 Transcriptions .................................................................................................................................... 59

7.2 APPENDIX 2 ................................................................................................................................................ 81 7.2.1 Questionnaire..................................................................................................................................... 81

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“The line outside the youth-centre in Vallentuna is long and filled with teenagers

dressed up in Japanese-inspired clothes. They’re waiting to get into Domokon 02, an

event aimed at those who like Japanese popular culture. At the front of the line stand

Lchigo and Retasu from the movie Mew Mew. In real life their names are Ida and

Angelica and they’re wearing colourful dresses with matching wigs. They’re from

Karlstad and are here to cosplay.”

- Zappaaa’s weblog. September 23, 2007

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1. Introduction

1.1 Background

The excerpt from Zappa’s weblog works excellently in introducing the topic for this thesis. It

tells us about a contemporary phenomenon that has been occurring in many western countries

during the last years. It tells us about teenagers dressing up and standing in line for an event

celebrating a complete foreign culture. It tells us about the international impact of Japanese

popular culture.

Over the last decades Japanese popular culture such as anime, manga and videogames have

been flowing out of Japan into an international market with increasing success. Now

perceived by a world-audience, Japanese popular culture is widely celebrated across the

globe. Today “the global market in Japanese youth products has skyrocketed, these exports

now exceed what had been the leading industries in Japans post-war economy, automobiles

and steel”1 and “everything Japanese is in- and oh, so ‘cute’!”.2 Today one could argue that

Japanese cultural commodities, not only media technologies such as mp3-players, gaming-

consoles, digital cameras and cell-phones but also media content such as Super Mario and

Pokémon are increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives. The recent openings of

“Sweden’s first J-store” Tokyo Stop where customers can visit and “breathe, read, smell, taste

and live Japanese popular culture”, Japanese music-store New Nippon, Japanese dance-club

Klubb Shibuya illustrates the increasing popularity and presence of Japan in Sweden.3

According to Publishers Weekly Japanese comic books, Manga, was the best selling comic

books alongside with Mickey Mouse in Sweden in 2005. And similar trends seem to take

place in Finland:

Manga and anime are now household names for the Finnish young people, and the love of comics and

animated films also lead to a deeper interest in the Japanese language, country and people. This is not a

Finnish phenomenon only; the same can be seen in the other Nordic countries and more widely in Europe,

too.4

1 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 12. 2 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 1. 3 http://tokyostop.typepad.com/ 4 Saarela, A. Current Issues Between Japan and Finland. Embassy of Finland, Tokyo. 2007 http://www.finland.or.jp/netcomm/news/ShowArticle.asp?intNWSAID=61355&intToPrint=1&LAN=EN

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The quote above refers to Finnish Minister-Counsellor Anu Saarela´s speech at Fukuyama

Finland Society in Tokyo last year. Even though not referring to any scientific facts, Saarela

has, like many of us, noticed that the inflow, and increasing exposure of Japanese culture, has

had a great impact on our everyday lives, and as argued by Saarela, in fact come to promote a

“deeper interest in the Japanese language, country and people”.5

1.2 Purpose

The main purpose of this thesis is to try to grasp- and get a deeper understanding for the

discourse of Japanization. By conducting empirical research and looking back on previous

studies in the field, I aim to examine what the impact of the transnational flow of Japanese

popular culture into Sweden is, and in what way it is influential within certain Swedish

audiences. Anime fandom is one of the results of Japanese transnationalism and this thesis

tries to examine the uniqueness of anime fandom. Also, a standpoint in this thesis is that the

cultural proximities (further discussed in 2.1.2 The concept of Cultural Proximity) between

Sweden and Japan are few, making the question of “what is appealing about Japanese popular

culture” an interesting and interlinked issue that needs to be addressed in order to further

examine the impact of Japanese popular culture in Sweden.

1.2.1 Research questions

What unique dimensions could be ascribed to Swedish anime fandom?

What is considered to be appealing about Japanese popular culture within fan-

audiences?

In what ways is Japanese popular culture influential within Swedish fan-communities?

5 Saarela, A. Current Issues Between Japan and Finland. Embassy of Finland, Tokyo. 2007 http://www.finland.or.jp/netcomm/news/ShowArticle.asp?intNWSAID=61355&intToPrint=1&LAN=EN

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1.3 Terminology

There are, within the community I have conducted my empirical study on, many different

words and expressions that might not be comprehensible for any non-anime-fan trying to take

part of this thesis. In this chapter I will briefly explain the meanings of some fundamental

terms which may assist when taking part of the text.

Anime – The word “anime” simply means “animation”, anime is Japanese cartoons, often

based upon Japanese comic books, manga.6 Anime, unlike most western cartoons, is aimed

towards consumers in all ages. Patrick Drazen argues that the Japanese do not see cartoons as

entertainment aimed at children only: on the contrary, anime also explores more serious

themes such as love, death, and war.7 Anime TV-series and movies are often subtitled by fans

and available to download from the Internet, called fan-subs. Anime in its original, non-

subtitled form are referred to as “raws”.8

Cosplay – “The term cosplay combines the words costume and play (or role-play)”.9 The

meaning of cosplaying is to dress up as a fictional character from an anime or manga and join

masquerades, posing for photos etc. Cosplaying is heavily associated with fans of Japanese

popular culture but also occurs in other areas such as the gaming-communities.10

IRC/Forum – IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat and is a communication-software for

computers. With IRC, people can start discussion-channels and participate in private or public

chats, file-sharing etc.11 Internet-forums are web-based platforms for communication, were

members can create a profile with personal information, answer existing topics created by

other members or create new “threads” (new topics).

Manga – Manga are Japanese comic books that, according to Fredrik Schodt, emerged from

old Japanese traditions of art and the imported physical form of the western comic book. The

6 Schodt. F. Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. 1996. p 14 7 Drazen, P. Anime explosion!: The what? Why? & Wow! of Japanese animation. 2003. p 8 8 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 182 9 Ibid. p 65 10 Ibid. p 65 11 http://www.mirc.com/mirc.html

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content as well as the audience of manga is, just like anime, very diverse. Because of the

Japanese way of writing, manga is read “backwards” by westerns standards.12

Mecha – Mecha is short for mechanicals and in the context of Japanese popular culture, it is

often referred to as “giant robots often piloted and operated by humans”. Mecha is a subgenre

in anime and manga (e.g. Gundam Wing and Neon Genesis Evangelion). Models of mechas

from anime and manga are sold as modelling-kits, “garage-kits” or “gun-pla”, in Japan.13

Otaku – Otaku is roughly translated into nerd or geek (mostly within the context of anime

and manga).14

Shōnen/Shōjo – Japanese popular culture such as anime and manga are marketed towards

audiences groups with specific age and sex: shōnen-manga, .e.g. being aimed at teenage boys

and shōjo towards teenage girls. Other examples of consumer-groups/manga-genres are yōnen

(anime and manga for children), josei (for women) and seinen (for men).15

Studio Ghibli – Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio created by Isao Takahita and

Hayao Miyazaki famous for world-hit anime movies such as Spirited Away, Princess

Mononoke and My Neighbour Totoro.16

Uppcon/Fricon/Närcon/Domokon/Ichiban – Uppcon, Fricon, Närcon etc are all

conventions in different parts of Sweden dedicated to Japanese popular culture. Uppcon,

being the biggest Japanese popular culture convention in Scandinavia is situated in Uppsala

and is an annual event organized by the non-profit organization Uppsalakai. Over 2,000 anime

and manga fans attended Uppcon 08, held in September 2007.17

12 Schodt. F. Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga. 1996. p 21-22 13 Lunning. F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 69-70. 14 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 52 15 Ibid. p 28 16 McCarthy, H. Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. 1999. p. 9 - 10 17 http://08.uppcon.se/site/start http://www.uppsalakai.org/

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2. Theoretical Framework

In this chapter, I will overview the theoretical context of Japanese transnationalism, since the

issue of “Japanization” evolves around theories on globalization, media, fan-cultures and

identity, this chapter will be a diverse one, reflecting upon a variety of theories from different

fields of research. However, knowing about earlier research is fundamental when trying to

grasp a relatively new phenomenon such as the transnationalism of Japanese popular culture;

what makes it possible for a cultural product to be successful on an international market, what

is the history of Japanese transnationalism and globalizaton, what is a fan? These are all

important questions which this chapter seeks to address and understand.

2.1 Globalization and Culture

For business purposes /…/ the boundaries that separate one nation from the other are no more real than

the equator. They are merely convenient demarcations of ethnic, linguistic and cultural entities. They do

not define business requirements or consumer trends. - IBM18

If we were to explain the contemporary condition of our world with one single phenomenon,

one could argue that “Globalization” would be a suitable one, especially when looking at the

world from a communication theory perspective. The issue of globalization, though, is argued

in Joseph D. Straubhaar’s World Television – From Global to Local to be the dominant

paradigm in many different fields of research of in our time.19

Globalization is, according to Chris Barker, a multidimensional phenomenon, concerning the

world military order, the world-capitalist economy, the nation-system and global information

systems, hence, globalization characterizes our complete existence.20 The increasing

transnational flow of economy, culture, humans etcetera is the result of major technological

land-winnings in modern times and has come to promote an era of globalization in large parts

of the world. With the help of new technologies of communication, mankind has enabled

18 Morely, D & Robbins, K. Spaces of Identity – Global Media, Electronic landscapes and cultural boundaries. 1995. Routledge. P. 10 19 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 19 20 Barker, C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 34

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herself to be connected with remote places, people and cultures21, thus, contributing to a

“worldwide spread, over both time and space, of a number of new ideas, institutions, and

culturally defined ways of doing things and technologies”.22 According to Marjorie Fergusson

the meaning of globalization differs within proponents, critics and research fields. However,

as Fergusson argues, there is a consensus that globalization refers to “both a journey and a

destination; it signifies an historical process of becoming, as well as an economic and cultural

result; that is, arrival at the global state”.23

According to John Tomlinson globalization is disturbing “the way we conceptualize culture.

For culture has long had connotations tying to the idea of a fixed locality”.24 Although, as

argued by André Jansson, we will always be localized entities since we cannot perceive the

world from another perspective than our own, but in the era of globalization the senses of the

individual are extended and connected to remote places and people, enabling the uprooting of

culture.25

Marshall McLuhan was early to understand the significance of the electronic technology and

the impact it would have on transnational communications. With his Gutenberg’s Galaxy: The

Making of Typographic Man and Understanding the Media: The Extensions of Man, the

former written in 1962 and the latter in 1964, McLuhan coined the term “Global Village”.26 It

is important, though, to realize that the state of globalization, paradoxically, does not address

the entire globe and that global power structures are asymmetrical: there are cultures which

has no access to the modern communication technologies which, in a way, excludes them

from the globalized world. And as a contrast, there are cultures which are more or less

dominant on the global market, such as the United States.27 As discussed in the next chapter,

theorist Herbert Schiller was early to recognize the asymmetrical divide of power in the era of

Global relations.28

21 Jansson. A. Globalisering – Kommunikation och Modernitet. 2004. p 12,18 22 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 79 23 McQuail, D. Communication – Theory & Research. 2005. p 23 24 Tomlinson, J. Globalization and Culture. 1999. p 27 25 Jansson. A. Globalisering – Kommunikation och Modernitet. 2004. p 12 26 McLuhan, M. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 1964. p 14 27 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p. 21 28 Scannell, P. Media and Communication. 2007. p 125

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2.1.1 Cultural Imperialism Questioned

Written in the mid 1970’s, Herbert Schiller’s thesis on cultural imperialism, came to pioneer

and alter existing media and communication research. In his Mass Communication and

American Empire Schiller argues that the world has entered a new era of colonization and

imperialism, this time with the United States as the centre of global communication. An

American hegemony is disseminated across the world through cultural commodities: “the new

era is defined by a massive shift in global power structures: The increasing strength of the

American industry is replacing the weakening authorities in Europe”.29

Canada is connected with the USA through a long and undefended boarder. Through osmosis America is

destroying not only our Television but also our values and our culture…American Television has almost

precluded the development of a Canadian cultural identity…through its own incorrect development the

American television has had a negative influence on domestic television in Canada. American TV has

destroyed the television as an art form. It is often said that Russia and China are the potential enemies of

Canada. It is my opinion that the United States constitutes a much more dangerous enemy /…/30

Henry Connor, here quoted in Mass Communication and American Empire, states a clear

example on Schiller’s thesis. By the time that Schiller developed the “cultural imperialism”

thesis he estimated that 75% percent of the Canadian citizens were in reach for the

broadcasting of American TV-stations. And throughout the world, Schiller points out, a

broadcasting network consisting of 38 TV-stations and over 200 radio stations is owned and

operated by the American ministry of defence.31

The results, and the very essence of Schiller’s thesis, is that the enormous extension of

American culture, mainly Television broadcasting, has set up a standardized commercialized

format for broadcasting, printing, radio and other media production forms. Also, it is argued

that the dissemination of cultural commodities constitute a “soft-power” which forces

consumer ideologies and other American values upon receiving countries, “getting others to

29 Schiller, H. Konsten att sälja Ideologi. 1977. p 12-14 [My translation] 30 Ibid. p 28 31 Ibid. p 28-29

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want what you want”.32 Hence, it is argued that the cultural extension from America will

ultimately be homogenous world-culture under an American hegemony.33

Schiller’s thesis on cultural imperialism is certainly not uncalled for, the US is still the great

distributor of popular culture it was thirty years ago:

Rarely before in human history has there been so massive an intervention of the force and ideas from one

culture to another as there is today from American to the rest of the world.34

More recent research has shown that the US clearly has maintained its leading role on the

global Television market. According to Tim O’Sullivan, the import-percentage of US

Television-shows are still very high around the world. In 2003, 40% of the programs on

Canadian Television were imported from the US, the same numbers apply on western Europe.

In Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America the amount went up to 60%.35

However, modern theorists and researchers have brought more complexity to the issue- and

effects of globalization over the years. Although one could agree that the US-dominated TV-

market brought standardized prototypes for production and distribution of popular culture

across the globe: as argued by Straubhaar, globalization tends to standardize commercial

media models. Tomlinson argues that the issue of cultural imperialism is in fact, the

globalization and decentring of capitalism, hence, the spread of modernity.36 However the

issue of a homogenized world under a dominant American hegemony is a more complex one.

Along with many others, author Koichi Iwabuchi argues that Schiller’s thesis is a discursive

construction rather than an actual empirical fact based upon people’s experiences. Schiller

simply assumes that every TV-consuming individual is interpreting media texts in the same

way, creating ideology from the stimulus of the transnational flows of American culture, and

absorbs the values it carries and in a way becoming Americanized.37 A simple stimulus –

response approach to the complex issue of cultural identity is, of course, a problematic one.

As Iwabuchi argues: “’Americanization’ seems to have reached another level of signification.

32 Branston, G & Stafford, R. The Media Student’s Book. 2006. p 488 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 32 33 Schiller, H. Konsten att sälja Ideologi. 1977. p 62 34 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 32 35 Dutton, B, O’Sullivan, T, Rayner, P. Studying the Media. 2003. p 236 36 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 83 37 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 39

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It operates at the level of form rather than content”38 supporting Straubhaars and Tomlinsons

earlier statements. Also, when studying cultural globalization one cannot simply ignore other

contenders on the global market. As for one example of what Chris Barker refers to as

“reverse flow” (when the flow of non-western cultural commodities impacts on the western

culture): reggae music, which origins from Central-America, has had a tremendous impact on

the west according to Barker.39 And as I will argue later, Japan has emerged and constantly

grown in its role as a great distributor of transnational culture and thus challenging the

claimed global American hegemony.

One can talk about a paradigm-shift in the studies of culture and globalization, from Cultural

Imperialism - perspective to the Globalization. The increasing flow of culture brings, instead

of homogenization, cultural diversity: “Globalization brings about an organization of diversity

rather than a replication of uniformity”.40 Instead of “homogenization”, contemporary

researchers use the term “hybridization” and “multi-layered identities”. This issue however

will be addressed in 2.2.1 Questions of Cultural Identity.

2.1.2 The Concept of Cultural Proximity

How can a cultural product become a transnational hit – how can a foreign TV-show become

more popular than its domestic counterparts? Joseph D. Straubhaar and Antonio C. La Pastina

argue that the concept of “cultural proximity” is a determining factor when explaining

transnational media-flows.41 The theory of “cultural proximity” addresses the issue of a

cultural similarity or bond between the receiving/transmitting cultures and argues that

“audiences will tend to choose to watch television programs that are closest, most proximate

or most directly relevant to them in cultural and linguistic terms”.42 Although most of the data

collected in their extensive research showed that audiences mostly preferred locally produced

TV-shows, there were cases when imported TV-shows were more popular than the locally

produced. One example from their study is the success of Marimar, a Mexican telenovela43,

in a rural community in Northeast Brazil. In this community religion was very present and, as 38 Ibid. p 153 39 Barker, C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 42 40 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p. 43 41 La Pastina, C & Straubhaar, J. Multiple Proximities between Television Audiences and Genres. 2005. p 1 42 Ibid. p 3 43 Term used for Latin-American-produced television soap-operas

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one woman in the study put it “this telenovela doesn’t have all of that grabbing and nonsense

you see in most of the others”.44 Also, according to Straubhaar, women in Macambira were

fond of the narrative structure found in Mexican telenovelas. The audience in Macambira felt

a more ideologically proximate towards a foreign text than towards urban Brazilian

productions. Hence, ideological and religious proximities might enable the success of a

foreign text.45 The success of Japanese popular culture, particularly TV-dramas, in Taiwan is

partly explained by the cultural bond, or proximity, between the countries. Iwabuchi puts it:

“Taiwanese share a modern temporality with Japan”46 that is argued to enable Japanese

success in the Taiwanese cultural market. These proximities however, are not shared with the

west, making it hard for the similar Japanese products (TV-dramas) to hit outside the Eastern-

Asian region.47

The success of a foreign cultural product might, according to Iwabuchi, also be explained

through desired proximity with modernity. For example: the United States has long been

reflecting modernity, and the consumption of American culture in for example Taiwan could

be explained through a craving for the American way of life.48 Although, the linguistic aspect

is argued to be the most important proximity, but as added by Straubhaar and La Pastina,

there are other elements such as geography and history that are important factors as well,

further more “dress, ethnic types, gestures, body languages, definition of humour, ideas about

story pacing, music, tradition, religious elements etc” make out important proximities.49 The

regional flow of culture in Latin-America and Eastern-Asia is best explained by the idea of an

existing cultural proximity in these regions. In both regions, proximities in both language and

geography benefits and enables the extensive regional flow of cultural commodities.50 As I

will explain later, the export of Japanese cultural commodities in the cultural proximate

region (Eastern Asia) differs from the export to the west because of the lack of cultural

proximities between Japan and the west.

44 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 214 45 Ibid. p 217 46 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 122 47 Ibid. p 121-122 48 Ibid. p 152 49 La Pastina, C & Straubhaar, J. Multiple Proximities between Television Audiences and Genres. 2005. p 4 50 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 133 La Pastina, C & Straubhaar, J. Multiple Proximities between Television Audiences and Genres. 2005. p 3

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Though, one should, as Koichi Iwabuchi argues, “be cautious not to mechanically /…/

employing ‘cultural discount’ or ‘cultural proximity’ in an essentialist manner”51 and as

Straubhaar puts it “genres and subgenres can exert all attractions to specific audiences that

cross and even contradict the overall logic of cultural proximity”.52 As Annie Allison’s

studies shows: an American audience of Japanese popular culture where attracted by the

“utter sense of difference” Japanese cultural commodities conveyed. Japanese popular culture

constitutes an attractive alternative to domestic culture.53 Hence, the very essence of not being

cultural proximate is what is appreciated here.

2.1.3 Japanese Transnationalism

In his Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism, Koichi

Iwabuchi argues that the discourse of “Japanization” has it’s origin in an industrial and

economical context. In the 1970’s, western economists witnessed the efficiency within

Japanese organizational structures and industries, and it was suggested that the west should

adapt the Japanese methods, hence “Japanize” the industries of the west. In the 1980´s, the

discourse of “Japanization” began to change is meaning as media and academics opened their

eyes for Japans role on the global culture market With the increasing outflow of Japanese

cultural commodities and technologies the term “Japanization” has come to shift its meaning

towards the one of “Americanization”, in the context of globalization and culture.54 However,

as Iwabuchi and Annie Allison argues, the success of Japanese cultural commodities on

international markets can be tracked back even further, to post-World War II with the launch

of Transformers toys, the premiere of world-hit movie Godzilla in the 1950’s, the regional

broadcasting of Astro Boy and Speed Racer in the 1960’s and Doraemon, the animated robot-

cat in the 1970’s.55 But it was, though, during the 1980’s when Japan’s global presence truly

started to shine. In 1986 Hollywood production company MCA-Universal was bought by

Japanese media conglomerate Matsushita, in 1988 Sony bought CBS Records- and in 1989

Columbia Pictures Entertainment and has since become examples of the expanding Japanese

51 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 27 52 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 196 53 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 16-17 54 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnaitonalism. 2002. p 23 55 Ibid. p 1 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 13

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economy and increasing global presence.56 It was the decade when the anime Akira became a

hit in the US, the launch of Super Mario, the Sony Walkman, the Nintendo Entertainment

System on global markets and the broadcasting of the Japanese soap-opera Oshin in over fifty

countries.57

Today, as Anu Saarela puts it: “anime and manga are now household names for the finish

young people”.58 In 1995 Ghost in the Shell reached nr. 1 on American video charts and in

1996 the export values of Japanese manga and anime topped at the amount 75 billion dollars.

From the late 1980’s up until today Japanese game console distributors Nintendo, Sega and

Sony has dominated the global videogame market, and Super Mario is more famous than

Mickey Mouse among American children. The multi-platformed phenomenon Pokémon which

hit the global market 1998 became a tremendous hit – and according to Iwabuchi, by the year

2000, Pokémon commodities like game software, trading cars and other merchandise reached

sales of over 70 billion dollars. Also the Pokémon anime and the first feature film made great

hits on the international market, the first broadcast in over fifty countries, the latter shown in

over thirty making an over-seas box-office record of 176 billion dollars.59 The exports of

cultural commodities from Japan, especially anime, manga and videogames (referred to as the

three big C:s of Japanese cultural export by Iwabuchi: cartoons, comics and computer

games60), had by the year 2002 financially exceeded the former two leading export industries;

steel and automobiles. The interest of Japanese youth products has skyrocketed across the

globe in the last decade, according to Annie Allison.61

These striking numbers show an increasing Japanese presence on the global market and bring

with it the question on what impact Japanese cultural commodities have on its world

audience: “does this really represent a shift, however, from the global (cultural) power of

Americanization?”.62

The global cultural impact of Japan is a complex and contentious issue according to Koichi

Iwabuchi. On one hand we see “the emergence of obsessively devoted fans of Japanese 56 Branston, G & Stafford, R. The Media Student’s Book. 2007. p 246 57 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism.2002. p 1, 29-30 58 Saarela, A. Current Issues Between Japan and Finland. Embassy of Finland, Tokyo. 2007 http://www.finland.or.jp/netcomm/news/ShowArticle.asp?intNWSAID=61355&intToPrint=1&LAN=EN 59 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism.2002. p 30 60 Ibid. 27 61 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 13 62 Ibid.

15

animation in both Europe and the United States whose craze for Japanese animation makes

them wish they had been born in Japan/…/”.63 On the other, as theorists argue, the discourse

of “Japanization” cannot simply be explained as another paradigm of “Americanization”,

where it is argued that the American cultural commodities carry with them ideas of

democracy and the American way of life whereas the Japanese are not. As Joseph Nye argues,

compared to the United States, Japan as a global nation is a one-dimensional economical

power and its global presence lacks the characteristics to disseminate a global hegemony

similar to the one spread by the United States. Hence, the Japanese impact on the world is

argued to be “culturally odorless”.64 Also, Mike Featherstone, quoted in Recentering

Globalization, argues that ”unlike American commodities, Japanese consumer goods to not

try to sell back on a Japanese way of life”.65

Hannerz, for example, argues that “the Japanese…find it a strange notion that anyone can ‘become

Japanese’, and they put Japanese culture on exhibit, in the framework of organized international contacts,

as a way of displaying irreducible distinctiveness rather than in order to make it spread.”66

Hence, as Iwabuchi argues, “’traditional Japanese culture’ is a culture to be displayed in order

to demarcate Japan’s unique, supposedly homogenous national identity”.67 Japan’s

representation of itself as a unique and exclusive culture, has had its influence on how modern

Japanese culture is distributed on the global market. In an interview with over twenty people

working in the Japanese Television industry, Iwabuchi finds that almost every Japanese TV-

producer possess the idea that Japanese products would not be well received in Asian

markets: “Japanese media industries seem to think that the suppression of Japanese cultural

odor is imperative if they are to make inroads to international markets”.68 The intraregional

exports from Japan to Eastern-Asia, however, do not necessarily possess the similar “cultural

odorlessness” as the exports to the west. Cultural commodities like fashion magazines,

popular music and TV-dramas which possess a visible “Japaneseness” are popular within the

region, this could be explained by the cultural proximity in language, history, geography etc

that is shared in the region.69 Although, concerning cultural commodities aiming at a world-

audience, the development of a new market-strategy seemed logical. For Japanese success on 63 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism.2002. p 31 64 Ibid. p 32-33, 35 65 Ibid. p 28 66 Ibid. p 6 67 Ibid. p 6-7 68 Ibid. p 94 69 Ibid. p 34, 133

16

a global market, Japanese TV-industry needed to be part of the local production rather than

exporting cultural commodities that would supposedly not be well received by the foreign

audience. Japanese media conglomerate Sony and Matsushita are examples of when Japanese

media-producers glocalize their production by buying out local producers (MCA-Universal,

CBS Records, Columbia Pictures Entertainment).70 Also, when producing media texts with

the purpose of reaching international audiences, it is argued, Japanese producers intentionally

make the content less Japanese. As Iwabuchi argues: “the cultural impact of a particular

commodity is not necessarily experienced in the terms of the cultural image of the exporting

nation”71. The cultural presence of Japan in Japanese cultural commodities is consciously

toned downed as a result of the idea that the exclusiveness of Japanese culture would be a

restraining factor on the global impact of these products.72 The content in the three big C:s of

Japanese cultural exports; cartoons, computer-games and comics are, what the Japanese calls

mukokuseki: meaning “something or someone lacking nationality”.73 With a great tradition of

being exported to international audiences (one of the first international hits being Astro Boy

which aired on international markets in the early 1960’s), Japanese animation also has a great

tradition of “hiding” its Japaneseness. The characters in Japanese animation for example,

lacks Japanese- features, making them either mukokuseki (no obvious nationality) or in some

cases even Caucasian.74 Another example is found in the popular videogame Super Mario

which, in its visual design, completely lacks anything Japanese, for example, the main

characters Mario and his brother Luigi are of Italian nationality.75 In Joseph D. Straubhaars

World Television: From Global to Local this phenomenon is referred to as “de-localization”:

“the uprooting of activities and relationships from local origins and cultures”.76 However, as

Straubhaar argues, even though the marketing-strategy might have its origin in Japan, it is

hardly exclusively applied in Japanese media-production today. According to Straubhaar,

producers of Brazilian and Mexican telenovelas also apply the idea of de-localization since

they intend to reach an international market, it is also applied by American producers.77

However, as argued by Iwabuchi “the influence of a cultural product on everyday life, as we

70 Ibid. p 93-94 71 Ibid. p 24 72 Ibid. p 25 73 Ibid. p 28 74 Ibid. p 28 75 Ibid. p 94 76 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 169 77 Ibid. p 169-170

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have seen, cannot be culturally neutral. Any product has the cultural imprint of the producing

country /…/”.78

Another factor which brings more complexity to the issue is the one of “Americanization of

Japanization”. As it is argued by Iwabuchi, Japanese media producers are in many cases

dependent upon American channels of distribution. Not only was Pokémon first de-localized

and Americanized for the US audience, it was also distributed to the rest of the world in its

American shape. The same applies to hit animated movies Ghost in the Shell and Princess

Mononoke which distribution and marketing to the west was handled by western companies

Manga Entertainment and Disney.79 However, the de-localization of Pokémon was handled by

Nintendo of America, owned by- and originating from Nintendo in Japan which further

illustrates the complexity of modern globalization and the dynamic integration of global

media industries. As for the de-localisation of Pokémon, Iwabuchi only mentions the re-

naming of the 151 different Pokémon-characters in the game which hardly takes away its

original essence.80

The contradiction surrounding the transnationalism of Japanese culture reaches its peak when,

in spite of theories on de-localized and maybe even Americanized Japanese products, fans

across the globe are consuming, adoring and cosplaying anime and manga characters, wishing

they were born in Japan.81 Among American anime fans studied by Susan Napier, it turned

out that their favourite movies from Studio Ghibli was in fact the most “Japanese” ones (My

Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away).82 It is argued by Annie Allison

that the yearning for Japanese culture can be explained to “the utter sense of difference”. For

the American audience, Japan is on the borderline between fantasy and reality, the exotic

settings, story lines and characters in Japanese cultural commodities what is appealing to

American youth. Knowing that Japan is a real place though, is inspiring American youth to

learn about Japanese culture, language and history. For a majority of the Americans

questioned by Allison Japanese popular culture offers alternate, complex and strange fantasy

world which seem to bring with it the interest of learning the Japanese language and culture.83

78 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism.2002. p 27 79 Ibid. p 38 80 Ibid. p 38, 94-95 81 Ibid. p 31 82 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 54 83 Ibid. p 16-17

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2.2 Globalization, Media and Identity

One could argue that media, as well as – and in symbiosis with- “globalization” characterize

our very existence. Today, media is a part of our everyday lives to the extent that we no

longer react to it as unusual or unnatural. Media does not merely provide us with information

and entertainment, media, as argued by Jostein Gripsrud, provides a rhythm to which we

structure our lives: “the programs gets us out of the bed, to work, home during rush-hour,

through dinner-preparations, into the entertainment and reflections of the evening, and finally

to bed again – Ether-media forms a normal schedule for a normal life”.84 Media help us define

the world around us, providing different dimension of reality through representations of

fiction or fact, telling us what is important and what is not. It is argued that media never

present the world in a direct manner, but rather re-present in a manufactured form.85 As

receivers of thousands of media messages every day, we are forced to reflect on our own

standpoint, who we are, who we would like to be and what we don’t want to be. Media help

us build an identity.86

“Media connects us with the world outside our home, neighbourhood, and work. Media reminds us that

we are part of a society and a world /…/”87

Benedict Anderson argues that media create “imagined communities” since: “the members of

even the smallest nation will never know their fellow-members, meet them or even hear of

them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”.88 Anderson emphasises

how the press in a large scale enabled the development of national identities. Today we see

imagined communities created by new media, such as the Internet. Gripsrud argues that these

“imagined communities” provides us with an impressingly strong connection to people we

have never met: “If we stumble upon a Swede on a street in Kuala Lumpur our nationality

however, are reason enough to start talking to each other and experience a bond”.89 As

further argued by Anderson: “/…/ written Arabic functioned like Chinese characters to build a

84 Gripsrud, J. Mediekultur, Mediesamhälle. 2002. p 15, 41 [My translation] 85 Branston, G & Stafford, R. The Media Student’s Book. 2006. p 141 86 Gripsrud, J. Mediekultur, Mediesamhälle. 2002. p 18, 25 87 Ibid. p 16 [My translation] 88 Anderson, B. Imagined Communities. 1991. p 6 89 Gripsrud, J. Mediekultur, Mediesamhälle. 2002. p 20 [My translation]

19

community out of signs, not sounds”, and thus, the role of the media (alongside with

language) in this particular context is to serve as builder of national identities.90

At the same time as media connects us with our own nation, creating imagined communities

and nationality, the transnationalism of media is, as emphasized in the other chapters, one of

the forces behind globalization, thus creating global imagined communities. As exemplified

by Abu-Lughod, quoted in Straubhaar: “in Egypt, public television was seen as an aggressive

attempt to assimilate the distinct communities into a nation-state”91 and as reflected by

Straubhaar: “one can also see the development of regions or markets, based both on

geography and cultural-linguistic identity groupings, which are less than global but more than

local”.92 Also, as culture, messages, goods and people circle the globe, theorists argue for a

“marginalization of the nation-state” since national identities might be supplemented with

“transnational sources of identity”93, however, national and local levels of identity is still the

strongest for most people according to Straubhaar.94

2.2.1 Question of Cultural Identity

In contemporary media and cultural studies it seems that there exists a somewhat united

standpoint on the discourse of identity. As Iwabuchi puts it: “it has become commonplace to

argue that national identity is never naturally given but rather discursively constructed,

invented and imagined”.95

“Self-Identity” is described, by Anthony Giddens, as the processes in which subjects build up

a continuation and consistency to one-self in order to answer ‘what to do?’, ‘how to act?’ and

‘who to be?’. Identity is not an entity possessed by the individual, but rather a way in which

the individual understand- and present herself. Hence, identity is a continuous process and

indeed something that might change in time and space. Stuart Hall adds the idea that identities

90 Anderson, B. Imagined Communities. 1991. p 13 91 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 61 92 Ibid. p 7 93 Spencer, P & Wollman, H. Nations and Nationalism – A Reader. p 280, 296 94 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 222 95 Iwabuchi, K. Recentering Globalization – Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. 2002. p 51

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can be described in different fragments, or layers, which can be contradictory.96 As

Straubhaar’s and La Pastina’s field study show:

For example, a man interviewed in Salvador, Bahia /…/ had a number of layers of identity corresponding

to media and information /…/ he was then working as a taxi-driver /…/ he knew enough about the war in

Iraq to want to make jokes about President Bush /…/ he was familiar with quite a bit of U.S. popular

culture /…/ he knew about the recent independence in East-Timor /…/ he knew songs from other Latin-

American countries, and sometimes watched Mexican soap-operas with his wife /…/ he enjoyed talking

to people he considered to be educated, but also got along very well and talked a lot with fellow drivers.97

Straubhaar and La Pastina argues that “people increasingly identify with multiple cultures at

various layers and levels”, for example: “people establish different identities at school and

work, with family and friends”98 As described in earlier chapters, theorists have long argued

that the transnationalism of culture would eventually lead to homogenized world-culture as a

consequence of the U.S. as the centre globalization. As further described, this idea has also

been argued against and in contemporary research, researchers addresses the issue with the

new dominating paradigm of “hybridization” or “multi-layered cultural identities”. Hence,

contemporary cultural and media studies does not struggle to prove an ongoing

homogenization of the world-culture, but rather takes on a more negotiating and careful

standpoint towards the issue of globalization:

In hybridization, global forces bring change, but that change is adapted into existing ways of doing things

via historical processes in which existing local forces mix with new global ones, producing neither global

homogenization nor authentic local culture, but a complex new hybrid with multiple layers of culture,

where older, traditional forms may persist alongside new ones.99

Straubhaar argues that the inflow of foreign culture, into a local culture brings, to a certain

extent, new cultural elements that are adapted over time and cross-fertilize with the local and

thus spawn a hybrid society.100 The question of hybridity refers to the effects of globalization

over a long period of time. Hence, the assumption that the transnational flows of American

culture would make the world American is, according to Straubhaar, not all that satisfying.

Adding to this, André Jansson acknowledge the US as a great distributor of popular culture

96 Barker. C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 15 97 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 231 98 Ibid. p 230-231 99 Ibid. p 5-6 100 Ibid. p 12

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and points out that world-audiences can be fascinated- as well as influenced by Americans

movies and TV-shows. However, that does not mean that our basic values are lost. Jansson

describes our meeting with a foreign media text as a negotiating progress, as viewers we

interpret media texts on the basis of our cultural identity.101 Straubhaar argues that interaction

with global mass-media rather should be seen as a factor that adds to an already multi-layered

cultural-identity.102

Being influenced by social-processes and language, our identities are depending upon the

issue of culture. As argued by Chris Barker: “indeed there can be no identity, experience or

social practice which is not discursively constructed since we cannot escape language”.103

Identities are “cultural” since they cannot exist outside culture itself.104 What is culture then?

What form does culture have when shaping our identities? Defining culture is never an easy

task, in the tradition of cultural studies it has been described by Raymond Williams as “a

whole way of life”. Hall argues that culture is the very nature of a specific society, from

language to customs. In the context of globalization however, where culture is no longer

bound to specific locations but rather flows between different spaces, culture must be

understood in the question of “which meanings are shared or contested by which persons in

which places under which conditions?”.105 Barker argues that media, in particular television

“…as it spreads across the globe is a major and proliferating resource for the construction of

cultural identity”.106

2.2.2 Media Fandom

There are many different types of fans; sports fans, rock fans and media fans. In Henry

Jenkins Textual Poachers – Television, Fans & Participatory Culture focus lies on “media

fandom”, fans of television and film.107 The word “fan” derives from the word “fanatic”

which origins from the Latin “fanaticus”, meaning “of or belonging to the temple, a temple

servant, or devotee”. Today however, the meaning of the word has shifted from a religious 101 Jansson, A. Globalisering – Kommunikation och Modernitet. 2004. p 110? 102 Straubhaar, J. World Television – From Global to Local. 2007. p 221 103 Barker. C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 23-24 104 Ibid. p 31 105 Barker. C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 11, 33 Tomlinson, J. Globalization and Culture. 1999. p 27-28 106 Barker. C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 7 107 Jenkins, H. Textual Poachers – Television, Fans & Participatory Culture . 1992. p 1

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context towards the more negatively connotation of “excessive and mistaken enthusiasm”.108

In modern research however, originating from the CCCS109, theorists have given much

attention to the issue of audience reception which have evoked a more sophisticated

understanding of fans and their relation to popular culture.110 This is also confirmed by Lisa

Lewis, according to her research: fans and fan-cultures has upon recently often been viewed

as a “response to the star system”, meaning that the existence of fans is dependent upon the

modern star system brought to us via mass-media. Lewis argues that the discourse of “fan-

pathology”: “fandom is seen as a psychological symptom of a presumed social

dysfunction”111 has been dominating both research and everyday-contexts since the 1950’s

with the rise of the rock ´n roll music. A more recent example is how heavy metal fans were

conceived has being “vulnerable youngsters who have become ‘twisted’ in response to the

brutal and Satanic influence of the music”.112

Lewis argues though, that the image of the fan as being in risk of “becoming obsessed

assassins or hysterical mobs” and that the idea of fandom as “pathology” needs to be

revised.113 In more recent fan-studies by Liesbeth van Zoonen, similarities are made between

fan-communities and political constituencies since both evolve around “knowledge,

discussion, participation, imagination of alternatives and implementation”.114 According to

van Zoonen, authors and researchers have often depicted television as a threat to citizenship,

arguing that it would alienate its audience from political processes. On the contrary, van

Zoonen suggests that TV-shows have a tendency to activate audiences into discussions, voting

and other political domains.115

Henry Jenkins seem to agree with Lewis in that fans are often depicted as brainless

consumers, too devoted in a particular cultural commodity, being social misfits etc.116 While

rejecting the media-fostered fan-stereotype, Jenkins, argues that fans are active producers and

manipulators of meaning, constructing their identity around mediated images. Fans are not

only an active audience since they actively read and respond to media texts: they are also co-

108 Ibid. p 12 109 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies 110 Jenkins, H. Textual Poachers – Television, Fans & Participatory Culture s. 1992. p 1 111 Lewis, L. The Adoring Audience. 1992. p 9 112 Ibid. p 12 113 Lewis, L. The Adoring Audience. 1992. p 9-11 114 Van Zoonen, L. Imagining the Fan Democracy. 2004. p 39 115 Ibid. p 42-43 116 Jenkins, H. Textual Poachers – Television, Fans & Participatory Culture. 1992. p 10

23

producers of meaning or – as Jenkins puts it: fans are textual poachers. Jenkins argues that the

fascination of a media-phenomenon combined with the frustration over the limitations of the

particular media inspires fans to produce his or her own meaning to “articulate to themselves

and others unrealized possibilities within the original works”:117

Four Quantum Leap fans gather every few weeks in a Madison, Wisconsin apartment to write. The

women spread out across the living room, each with their own typewriter or laptop, each working

diligently on their own stories about Al and Sam.118

Fans as co-producers of meaning is also emphasized by van Zoonen who argues that fans are

highly competent individuals often engage in dialog and deliberation surrounding media texts,

being the complete opposite of the classic image of the couch potato or vulnerable victim.

Since TV is becoming more and more of an interactive medium, allowing its audiences to

intervene with the course of the show, fans are active consumers, who communicate with

networks and producers, and thus, partly having effects on productions.119

Within in the anime-community, cultural production among fans has another shape. Other

than individual fans building models or creating their own manga; cosplay seem to be the

cultural producing activity among fans of Japanese popular culture (sometimes referred to as

otaku) that has drawn most attention. Cosplay is frequently occurring among fans of Japanese

popular culture, especially anime and manga. Fans, or otaku, gather at conventions dressing

up in costumes modelled after a character from Japanese videogames, anime or manga.

According to Theresa Winge, cosplayers spend a sensational amount of both money and hours

into making the costumes, adapting the personality and dialogue of the specific character to be

as true to the fiction as possible.120 Cosplaying evolves around activities such as photo-posing,

look-alike competitions, karaoke and such and thus, cosplay is very much a social activity

which “provides cosplayers with unique interactions, environments and experiences”.121

117 Ibid. p 23-24 118 Ibid. p 152 119 Jenkings, H. Textual Poachers – Television, Fans & Participatory Culture. 1992. p 287-289 Van Zoonen. Imagining the Fan Democracy. 2004. p 39, 45 120 Lunning. F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 65 121 Ibid. p 74-75

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2.3 The active audience – Previous research

In this section, three examples of previous studies in the field of global communication,

audience research and anime fandom will be discussed. Media-audience as being active and

rational as opposed to being passive and merely a part of the masses is the general standpoint

in the following studies as well as this in thesis.

Watching television is a set of socially and culturally informed activities, a significant aspect of which is

concerned with discursive meaning. Television audiences are active creators; they do not simply accept

uncritically textual meanings but bring previously acquired cultural competencies to bear on them. 122

Mid- 20th century researchers Paul Lazardsfeld and Elihu Katz are argued by Paddy Scannell

to be two of the main contributors to the paradigm-shift on audience research. Lazardsfeld and

Katz’s Two-step flow theory and Personal Influence meant the “end of the masses” and the

beginning of “the active audience”. The former examining and revealing the importance of so

called opinion-leaders in the American presidential election, hence challenging the previous

“effects-model”, the latter further discovering “the people” and power of the individual.123

Taking the concept of the active audience to the next level by further challenging the still

present effects-research, Stuart Hall introduced his encoding/decoding model in 1974.124 With

his essay on encoding/decoding, Hall suggested that media texts are polysemic, the meaning

of a specific text is given by the individual receiver. According to Hall, the meaning

transcribed into the text by the transmitter of the message is not necessarily interpreted as

intended. Hall’s encoding/decoding model suggests that a text can be interpreted in three

different ways: the dominant reading suggests that the audience shares the cultural framework

with the encoders, the audience will interpret the text as intended by its producers, and

audiences with different cultural frameworks might read the text in an oppositional or

negotiating way.125

122 Barker, C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 110 123 Scannell, P. Media and Communication. 2007. p 82-83, 86-87 124 Ibid. p 204 125 Barker, C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 111

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2.3.1 The Nationwide study

Based upon Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model, David Morley, in his Nationwide study,

aimed to examine whether or not the British news magazine programme Nationwide aimed to

reproduce a dominant ideology and how the text was interpreted by it’s audience. The study

was divided into two parts, to examine what ideological values was encoded into the actual

programme, a semiotic analysis on the text was conducted and the decoding processes was

observed within the meeting and interpretation of the audience by conducting focus group

interviews with audiences from different classes in society.126 Morley’s study indicated that

groups consisting of viewers with working-class background, in greater extent, made

oppositional decodings of the programme while dominant decodings, to a greater extent, were

made by audiences from the upper-class.127 While showing differences in decoding depending

on class, Morley’s study suffers from the lack of consideration of gender or race. As argued

by Barker: “Gender, for example, is equally significance and has been explored by a number

of writers in relation to television”.128

2.3.2 The Export of Meaning

Labelling something imperialistic is not the same thing as proving it is.129

During the 1980’s the TV-soap-opera Dallas became the symbol of the successful

transnational flow of American television. Media researchers saw the world-popularity of

Dallas as an opportunity to test the cultural imperialism – thesis. Among others, Ien Ang,

studied how Dallas was interpreted by international audiences. These studies show that the

interpretations of the soap-opera differed depending of cultural background of the audiences.

While a Dutch audience saw Dallas as a show which makes sense of- and transmits messages

of tragedy in life, a German audience used Dallas in an escapist way, fleeing reality into the

glamorous life of the Ewing family. For a Danish audience, Dallas helped the expression of

strong feelings like love and hate and for an Algerian audience; the American TV-show was a

reminder on what they were loosing.130

126 Ekström, M & Larsson, L. Metoder I Kommunikationsvetenskap. 2000. p 278-279 127 Barker, C. Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities. 1999. p 113 128 Ibid. p 113 129 Liebes, T & Katz, E. The Export of Meaning. 1993. p 4 130 Liebes, T & Katz, E. The Export of Meaning. 1993. p 15-17

26

In their classic audience reception study, The Export of Meaning, Tamar Liebes and Elihu

Katz examines whether or not the world-hit soap-opera Dallas disseminate values from the

encoding nation America and if international audiences decodes it in a way that responds with

the intentions of the encoders. Hence, Katz and Liebes try, with empirical methods, to clarify

whether or not the dissemination of American popular culture is actually “cultural

imperialism”.131 By conducting focus-group interviews with respondents from a wide range of

different cultural backgrounds, Liebes and Katz aimed to examine whether or not Dallas was

universally understood. The Export of Meaning does indeed show that there is no such thing

as a universal interpretation of Dallas and that audiences with different cultural backgrounds

will read it in different ways. This being most transparent within in Russian and Japanese

audiences. Russians tended to view Dallas as a product of American hegemonic control,

projecting a false image of reality while in Japan; Dallas did not simply match with the values

and tastes of the audience.132

2.3.3 The Anime Fan

The anime community, if one actually could address it as one united community, is argued by

Susan Napier to be one of the world’s fastest growing subcultures. Napier has in her study

tried to identify the anime-fan (or otaku). Napier studied American fans of Japanese animator

Miyazaki Hayao and his Studio Ghibli, producers of the American academy award winning

film Spirited Away and several other world-hits. Napier argues that the fans of Miyazaki

contradict the stereotypical image of the fan constructed by media and society according to

both Lewis and Jenkins. According to Napier’s study, intellectual philosophical and political

discussions surrounding the themes of Miyzaki’s works, often evolving around humanist and

environmental issues, were occurring frequently on online message-boards. This being

explained by the high level of education among the fans studied by Napier: forty-five percent

had received a BA, twenty percent a MA and five percent a PhD. Also, the respondents in

Napier’s study indicated a critical standpoint towards the US, one of the many negative

respondents stated the following about the US: “anti-intellectual bias, the problems of bigotry

and sexism, the loss of community, the loss of the value of the family, and tendency to think

131 Ibid. p 3-4 132 Ibid. p 81, 131-132

27

of those we disagree with as the enemy”.133 Another signifier for the anime community is that

the Internet serves as an important platform for interaction with other members, as put by

Napier:

While members may not be physically in a room interacting around a scratchy tenth-generation videotape,

as the original anime fans were forced to do back in the early 1980’s, the sense of immediacy, the

enthusiasm and depth of the discussion, and the palpable feeling of fellowship on the part of many of the

fans suggest that in some ways they still are gathered together.134

And Brooker argues that: “the internet enabled many fans to take a first step into a larger

world”.135 Napier’s study shows that the average age of the anime-fan is older that the average

fan. 75% of the respondents were male, but, as Napier argues “this has changed enormously

over the last several years. From observation at conventions plus exposure to other anime fan

groups, I would say that female fans are getting close to 50% of fandom”.136 Also, visiting

fictional sites, “pilgrimages”, to Studio Ghibli seem to occur and discussed among the fans.137

133 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 57 134 Ibid. p 52 135 Ibid. p 52 136 Ibid. p 55 137 Ibid. p 51

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3. Methodology

In the following chapter I will discuss the methods that has been used for collecting data to

support this thesis and why they are adequate for the purpose of the thesis. Also, I will discuss

upon the credibility of the study.

3.1 Qualitative method

The choice of method should depend on what the researcher is trying to find out.138 Since this

thesis tries to grasp the impact of Japanese popular culture in Sweden, a qualitative method

seemed appropriate. While quantitative research may produce reliable and generalizable facts,

it is limited when the researcher aims to understand complex social phenomena.139 In

qualitative studies however, the researcher aims to examine processes, relations and

qualitative aspects thoroughly.140 This is done, mainly with interviews, observations,

ethnographic fieldwork, textual analysis or discourse analysis.141

3.1.1 Reception Analysis

The reception analysis examines the relations between audience and text. This is done by

analysing both the text and audience interpretations.142 Even tough no content-analysis on

Japanese popular culture has been conducted and that the main focus of this thesis lies on how

and why a genre of texts has had an impact on a specific audience, and not the actual

interpretations of a single text. I still argue that this thesis is an audience reception analysis

since it tries to examine the relation between the audience (Swedish fans) and a genre of texts

(Japanese popular culture).

I have chosen to conduct qualitative research in the form of semi-structured telephone

interviews combined with a questionnaire. The purpose of the combination of these two

methods is to try to grasp a larger population with the questionnaires while still being able to

examine attitudes and values by conducting individual telephone-interviews.

138 Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2006. p 34 139 Ibid. p 43 140 Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2006. p 43 141 Ibid. p 18 142 Ekström, M & Larsson, L. Metoder i Kommunikationsvetenskap. 2000. p 273

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3.1.2 Semi-structured interviews

According to David Silverman, interviews can be divided into four main categories;

structured, semi-structured, open-ended and focus group interviews. In this study I have

conducted six semi-structured telephone interviews.143 Since this thesis aims to examine to

what extent – or if – Swedish fans of Japanese popular culture is being “japanized”, and what

they find appealing – and why – about Japanese popular culture, structured interviews would

not completely provide the depth needed to explain such a phenomenon. Nor would an open-

ended interview enable the possibility to compare different respondents to each other. The

semi-structured method is combining the structured interviewed and the open-ended interview

enabling the respondents to give complete answers and still holding on to a structure, or

theme, which enables comparison. I aim to create a dialog with the respondents with support

from an interview manual (Appendix 1).144

The respondents for the telephone interviews were selected through the snowballing method;

simply meaning that the researcher lets one respondent help to get in contact with other

respondents.145 With the snowballing method I did not have to get in contact with fans of

Japanese popular culture by scanning through pages on Internet forums and sending

impersonal mail-requests on whether they wanted to participate in telephone interviews.

Instead, one respondent I knew from other forums and that I knew was deeply involved in

Japanese popular culture helped me get in contact with the other respondents. Hence, the

respondents are somewhat socially linked to each other.

3.1.2.1 Transcriptions

Lars-Åke Larsson argues that transcribing is not a neutral activity and argues that two

different researchers would transcribe the same recording in different ways. Larsson argues

that the common rule for transcribing is to write in extensor, basically meaning that all words

spoken, pauses and repetitions should be transcribed. However, as Larsson argues, just as with

all research: the purpose decides the method. The transcription does not necessarily need to

contain every sound and pause, the completeness of the transcription should depend on what

143 Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2006. p 110 144 Ekström, M & Larsson, L. Metoder i Kommunikationsvetenskap. 2000. p 61-62 145 Ibid. p 56

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is studied.146 I emphasise that the important aspect of the telephone-interviews conducted in

this context is what the respondents have to say, not how they say it. Every word except a few

encouraging “ah:s” and “mm:s “ were transcribed. However, laughs, long pauses and such

were not transcribed or noted since they do not serve the purpose of the interviews. Each

interview was transcribed and translated into English immediately after they were done.

3.1.3 Survey – Questionnaire

The purpose of the survey-research is to be able to draw conclusions upon a population by

examining a selection of representatives.147 In this thesis the questionnaire is intended to

supplement the telephone interviews with answers from a larger group that could represent

one Swedish anime-community. Seventy questionnaires were sent out to members on the

Swedish Internet anime forum Anime.se, being one of the biggest anime forums in Sweden

with 4054 members.148 The participants were selected through the members list on anime.se.

The member on every second page with the biggest amount of posted comments (most active)

and with an available email address on the forum was selected to be part of the questionnaire,

summing up to a total of seventy. However, the response ratio only reached 19% percent (15

respondents), even though a follow-up email was sent out five days after the first mail was

sent. With only 15 out of a total of 70 respondents answering, the question of reliability arises.

The low response ratio could be explained by a numerous of reasons. Firstly, the survey-

method is highly impersonal and it is easy to just ignore the email.149 Secondly, the member

list on anime.se is structured by “registration date”, meaning that members who joined in

2004, when the forum premiered, are found on page 1 and those who joined recently are

found on the last pages. Since the survey covered members from all pages, there is a risk of

mailing members that are no longer active on the forum.

146 Ibid. p 64 147 Ibid. p 78 148 http://www.anime.se/forum/ 2008-05-27 149 Ekström, M & Larsson, L. Metoder i kommunikationsvetenskap. 2000. p 89

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3.2 Research Credibility

Scrutinizing, or examining, Japanization is a complex task. Since it is a discourse in the on-

going globalization debate, the purpose in this thesis has been to examine and reveal the face

of Japanization in relation with Swedish audiences. It is a dynamic discourse with many

different dimensions to it - it evolves around fans and their consumption of Japanese popular

culture and what the increasing exposure of Japanese culture in Sweden has led to.

When evaluating research one evaluates the validity and reliability of the study. The

reliability of research concerns whether or not the study is trustworthy – would similar

conclusions be drawn from another researcher addressing the same issue? Validity refers to

whether or not the study actually examines what it intended to – does the research serve the

purpose of the thesis?150

3.2.1 Validity

David Silverman argues that there are three main factors when evaluating the validity of a

study: the impact of the researcher, the values of the researcher and the truth-status of the

opinions and answers provided by the respondents. Also, Silverman suggests that by

combining methods, e.g. quantitative and qualitative, and allowing respondents to comment

upon the conclusions drawn from them (respondent validation) are two factor which brings

more validity to a study. 151

During telephone-interviews, I have tried to be as objective as possible not asking too leading

questions, however, there is always the issue that respondents feel that they should serve the

interviewer, answering in a specific way. As Ekström puts it “what people say they do is not

the same as what they actually do”152, Silverman adds “interviews does not tell us directly

about people’s ‘experiences’ but instead offer indirect representations of those

experiences”.153 To avoid this problem as much as possible, the method of respondent

validation was used; the respondents were contacted and asked to validate the conclusions

drawn from the telephone-interviews. None of the respondents had anything to add except for 150 Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2006. p 282, 289 151 Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2006. p 290-291 152 Ekström, M & Larsson, L. Metoder i kommunikationsvetenskap. 2000. p 22 [My translation] 153 Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2006. p 117

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respondent 1 who wanted clarify that he was involved with textual poaching activities that did

not arise during the interview.

The purpose of combining two different methods, survey and semi-structured interviews was

indeed to increase the reliability of this study. However, the low response rate of the

questionnaire (15/70) has come to weaken that particular aspect of this study.

3.2.2 Reliability

According to Moisander and Valtonen, quoted in Silverman: reliability in qualitative research

is given by two main criteria: by making the research process and data-analysis transparent

and making sure to link and interpret data from a theoretical framework.154 To support the

reliability of this thesis, a theoretical framework of previous research and theories in the field

was used and linked with the results drawn from the data collected. Excerpts and quotes from

the transcripts are frequently occurring in the analysis and results to ensure transparency and

the complete transcription is found in appendix 1. However, the transcription method used in

this thesis is, what Larsson refers to as “unorthodox” since pauses, laughs etc are left out of

the transcription.155 As mentioned earlier, the important aspect of the interviews in this thesis

has been what the respondents say, not how they say it. Also, the interviews were done in

Swedish and the choice was made to translate the interviews into English as I transcribed

them, since it is the language used throughout the thesis. This might indeed constitute a

problem for the reliability of the study as one might argue that meaning is lost in translation.

However, all interviews was recorded and thus, one can return to the source if needed.

The purpose of the questionnaires was to supplement the semi-structured interviews with data

representing members on the forum anime.se. The low response rate (15/70) is of course

problematic for the reliability of the study.

154 Silverman, D. Interpreting Qualitative Data. 2006. p 282 155 Ekström, M & Larsson, L. Metoder i Kommunikationsvetenskap. 2000. p 64

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4. Results and Analysis

In this chapter, I will analyse and draw conclusions from the data collected in the semi-

structured interviews (Appendix 1) and the questionnaires (Appendix 2). Comparing the

results that can be drawn from my data to theories presented in 2. Theoretical Framework will

be an essential part of this particular chapter. Throughout the following sections, excerpts

from the transcribed interviews will be used and discussed to represent the opinions of the

respondents. Also more statistically-oriented data from the questionnaires will be integrated

hence, supplementing the telephone-interviews.

4.1 The Unique Dimensions of Japanese Transnationalism

4.1.1 Anime Fandom

The uniqueness of Japanese popular culture and its audience is, as emphasized by both Napier

and Winge, striking. As Napier argues, as well as Jenkins and Lewis: the anime fan on the

whole does not fit the stereotype often depicted in the media. The fans studied in this thesis

are between seventeen and thirty-four years old and mostly male. Among the respondents of

the telephone-interviews, three were male (R1, R2, R3) and three were female (R4, R5, R6)

between seventeen and twenty-two years old. Among the fifteen respondents to the

questionnaire, twelve were male and only three were female, their age spanning between

sixteen and thirty-four. One out of fifteen asked in the questionnaire hade lived abroad for a

longer period of time and one out the six respondents in the telephone interviews.

4.1.1.1 Platforms for Interaction

In Napier’s study, the anime community is argued to be “one of the more computer networked

subcultures around”.156 The same goes for the fans studied in this thesis, the Internet is the

main platform on which one can meet with others that share similar interests: this is well

articulated by all the respondents, different forums and IRC chats are argued to be the most

common places. In fact, some respondents considered the Internet to be “the mother of the

156 Lunning, F. Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga. 2006. p 52

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whole activity”157 and that