午夜剧场

Social science researchers are more or less influenced by real-world events as they conduct their research. For example, since 2016, populist politics has attracted attention in various fields. Case studies have accumulated there, driven by interests such as why the Trump phenomenon occurred. My translation of "Emotions, Media and Politics" (co-translated with Shuzo Yamakoshi, Keiso Shobo), published last year, attempts to answer such questions from the perspective of journalism studies. This translation project began when an editor approached me at the Mita Sociological Society in July the year before last. I ended up accepting the task, swayed by the powerful words: "If we release this by the 2020 presidential election, it will have a huge impact!" Later, I would find myself with a nervous stomach over the reckless schedule of publishing a translated book in just one year.

According to the original author, Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, the media influenced the Trump phenomenon by stirring up emotions such as anxiety, frustration, and anger in us, the audience. This is because the expression of those emotions in the media leads to them being widely shared in society. While working on the translation, I was thinking about Japanese cases where this theoretical framework could be applied. Although several phenomena considered "populism" can be found in Japan, they differ in scale and content from those in Western countries. Time passed without me being able to fully contemplate the question.

In the midst of this, our environment changed significantly due to the spread of COVID-19. Looking at the spread of feelings of fear and anxiety, the situation of the pandemic in Japan can be said to be an appropriate subject for analysis. When I actually analyzed the media, it was overflowing with feelings of anger toward people who did not practice self-restraint. It is thought that such emotions were widely shared through links with social media, leading to dissatisfaction with the government's infectious disease measures. Due to changes in reality, the theoretical framework became applicable.

Furthermore, the pandemic also affected research time. I had been worried that the translation would not be finished in time, but because the "stay-at-home" period increased my research time, the work progressed all at once. In this way, the reality of the pandemic influenced not only the content of the research but also the time spent on it. Now, as for whether the publication of the translation made it in time for the presidential election—let me just state clearly that it was released in the same month as the election.