Agenda-Cutting – News Media, Journalism, and Democracy in Japan

News media and journalism are essential for the workings of democracy. They provide information enabling citizens to make educated political decisions. Moreover, they serve as a public forum where arguments are exchanged and opinions are shaped, eventually supporting the formation of society-wide consensus. Thus, high standards for media and journalism in terms of editorial independence, fact-based communications, and news diversity are a prerequisite for fulfilling their democratic role.

While there exists a lot of literature on how news media influence politics and shape the public’s perception, so-called agenda-setting, little attention has been given to the question of what happens when media do not fulfill their role, but deliberately omit relevant news topics—a phenomenon called agenda-cutting in communication studies. Despite the theoretical significance and past anecdotal evidence of this phenomenon, a systematic study of agenda-cutting has not been conducted so far. This project sets out to provide an in-depth inquiry into this neglected media phenomenon, taking the case of Japan’s media system to demonstrate how agenda-cutting works, why it happens and what consequences it has for public discourse and, eventually, for democracy.

In times of an increasingly disrupted public sphere due to the fragmentation caused by an advancing digitalization, the consensus-building role of the media is needed more than ever. Agenda-cutting, however, seriously hampers this role and, therefore, the development of an intact, balanced public discourse. Moreover, it leads to a further deterioration of trust in journalism and ultimately aggravates the erosion of our democratic foundations.

Principal Researcher: Yosuke Buchmeier

Grant: German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ Tokyo): PhD Scholarship (2020)

Publications:

Journal papers and book chapters:

• Buchmeier, Yosuke (2023): “Schweigekultur, Tabus und der öffentliche Diskurs: Agenda Cutting in Japan” in: Hektor Haarkötter and Jörg-Uwe Nieland (eds.): Agenda Cutting. Wenn Themen von der Tagesordnung verschwinden. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• Buchmeier, Yosuke (2022) “Protecting the people, or the Olympics? Agenda-cutting of the COVID-19 risk in the news coverage of Japan’s public broadcaster” in: Media, Culture & Society 44 (6), 1132-1148, https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437211060236 (open access).
• Buchmeier, Yosuke (2020) “Towards a Conceptualization and Operationalization of Agenda-Cutting: A Research Agenda for a Neglected Media Phenomenon” in: Journalism Studies 21 (14), 2007-2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1809493
• Buchmeier, Yosuke (2019) „Politik, Mediendiskurs und öffentliche Finanzen: Was Japans Staatsverschuldung über die Verfassung seiner Demokratie verrät“ in: David Chiavacci and Iris Wieczorek (eds.): Japan 2019: Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, München: Iudicium, 41-77.

Journal papers and book chapters:

• (2022) Interview with European Journalism Observatory (Bjarne Overkott) for “The enduring press freedom challenge: how Japan’s exclusive press clubs are ‘holding media hostage’” in EJO Online, 2022/09/26, https://en.ejo.ch/media-politics/press-freedom/the-enduring-press-freedom-challenge-how-japans-exclusive-press-clubs-are-holding-media-hostage
• (2022) Interview with European Journalism Observatory (Bjarne Overkott) for “Kisha Clubs: Japans Medien in Geiselhaft?” in EJO Online, 2022/08/09, https://de.ejo-online.eu/pressefreiheit/kisha-clubs-japans-medien-in-geiselhaft
• (2022) Interview with ARD Tokyo (Kathrin Erdmann) for “Immer alles super: Wie der öffentliche Rundfunk Japans Olympia 2020 coverte“ in Deutschlandfunk, 2022/07/25, https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/wie-der-oeffentliche-rundfunk-japans-olympia-2020-coverte-dlf-acc2b2fd-100.html
• (2022) Work quoted in David McElhinney: “Japan’s Uneasy Relationship With Press Freedom” in Tokyo Weekender, 2022/07/21, https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2022/07/japan-press-freedom-index/
• (2020) Interview with Wired (Laurie Clarke) for “How anime hit Weathering with You nails Japan's climate crisis apathy” in Wired, 2020/01/28, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/weathering-with-you-climate-apathy
• (2019) Quoted in Sakari Mesimäki: “Where are Japan’s climate strikers?” in Tokyo Review, 2019/12/18, https://www.tokyoreview.net/2019/12/japan-climate-strike/

Events:

International symposia and conference panels:

• (2022) Panel participation on the topic “Between agenda cutting and wilful omission – Is journalism threatened by its own limits?” at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, 2022/06/21, Bonn/Germany, https://gmf-event.com/program-details/182/
• (2021) Panel Convenor with Anna Wiemann: Competing for the Frame: How Mainstream Media, Political Players and Social Movements Contend for Interpretative Hegemony in Post-Fukushima Japan. At: 16th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS), 2021/08/25, digital conference.
• (2021) Cutting the agenda does not cut the risk: How NHK is containing the Post-Fukushima discourse. At: 16th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS), 2021/08/25, digital conference.

Presentations:

• (2020) Politics, Media Discourse and Public Finance: What Japan’s National Debt Reveals about the State of its Democracy. At: VSJF Section Group Meeting, Section Politics, 2020/11/21, digital conference.
• (2020) Agenda-Cutting in Media News Coverage of Covid-19: A Case Study from Japan. At: German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Social Science Study Group, 2020/10/20, Tokyo/Japan.
• (2020) Shaping Public Discourse in Japan - The Construction of Reality on NHK Television News. At: Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo, Shaken PhD Workshop, 2020/07/03, Tokyo/Japan.