Cool Japan Green Japan

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From Cool Japan to Green Japan: The Challenges of Nation Branding

Cool Japan

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Green Japan

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Nancy Snow, Ph.D

Professor of Communications California State University, Fullerton

From Cool Japan to Green Japan:

The Challenges of Nation Branding Japan, the world’s third largest economy after China and the United States, projects a soft power to the world that stems from attraction to its entertainment and popular culture. Collectively known as “Cool Japan” or Koru Japan (McCray, 2002; Christensen, 2011; Hayden, 2012), the industries involved include Japanese fashion (e.g. Harajuku, Lolita), J-Pop girl groups like AKB48, as well as manga (comic books), anime (animation), and cosplay (costume play based on animation characters). Targeted primarily at a younger demographic overseas, the last three industries identified are receiving the most focused press attention in the Cool Japan campaign of recent years (Christensen, p. 77). It is understood that Japan has both a traditional and modern culture that attracts global interest, but Cool Japan has a 21st century edge to its promotion with a dominant emphasis on global youth culture appeal through entertainment originating in Japan (Lam 2007). The Japanese government started to formally adopt a pop culture approach in its diplomacy to global publics when it first used the term “public diplomacy” in its Diplomatic Bluebook 2004 (Nakamura, 2013). To be sure, Japan’s culture power status began decades earlier. Post-World War II Japan could not exercise hard power options, so it relied on soft power agendas (e.g., foreign aid, cultural diplomacy, person-to-person exchanges), primarily to the United States and ASEAN member countries. The Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer (JOCV) program began in

1965 and was modeled on the U.S. Peace Corps. To date, well over 25,000 volunteers between the ages of 20 and 39 have worked in developing countries. Another cornerstone of Japan’s cultural diplomacy is the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program. The Japan Foundation was founded in 1972 to coordinate the country’s cultural diplomacy and exchange activities. In the mid-1970s, after anti-Japanese riots took place in Bangkok, Thailand and Jakarta, Indonesia against then Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei, Japan launched a national image campaign that resulted in the Fukuda Doctrine pledge to reestablish “heart to heart relations” with Southeast Asia. The Japan Foundation, with a budget of over US $150 million, has 19 offices in 18 countries (including Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila) and continues to pursue a strong cultural diplomacy agenda that began with the Fukuda Doctrine. By the mid-2000s, Japan relied on cultural products (Cool Japan) and cultural diplomacy (Japan Foundation) for the bulk of its public diplomacy. Despite a slowing of the domestic economy that began in the 1990s (known as “Lost Japan” or the “Lost Decades”), Japan’s popular culture still held a superpower status (Watanabe and McConnell, 2008) that was marked by an increase in demand for modern cultural products. A 2002 Foreign Affairs article by Douglas McCray (“Japan’s Gross National Cool”) helped to inspire the culture-first approach while Japan was reeling in its first decade of economic decline.

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Anime has become commercially profitable in Western countries. Since the 19th century, many Westerners have expressed a particular interest towards Japan and anime has dramatically exposed more Westerners to the culture of Japan.

The Japanese government was not the catalyst for the global youth market embrace of Japanese soft power products like manga, anime, J-Pop, or J-Fashion, but the state chose to tag government-led public diplomacy goals to them as a foil to the rise of China origin Confucius Institutes and regional economic competition. Hard power may have been a Japanese obsession from the Meiji era through the end of World War II, but Japan today seems comfortable with its soft power superpower status because “cultural diplomacy is agreeable to most Japanese across the political spectrum: to the left, a non-militaristic approach to international relations is desirable; to the right, it is great for the world to appreciate various aspects of the Japanese culture.” (Lam 2007, p. 355). As with every nation that emphasizes soft power, there are limits. In the view of some people, Japan may have appealing comic books, cartoons, pop groups and animation films, but there is no direct causal correlation between enjoyment of such products as a consumer and a change in one’s attitudes toward a nation as a whole. Not everyone is a fan of such products. Some global citizens would prefer a Japanese public diplomacy approach that emphasizes denouncing its imperial past, for instance, correcting rhetorical setbacks (e.g. “comfort women”) or forging ahead with better diplomatic relations in the region. In the case of manga and anime, story themes that are anti-Korean or anti-Chinese specifically, or utilize sexual and violent content in general, have a negative blowback effect on the country of origin’s image, particularly in a region where neighboring countries have deeply held religious values not exhibited in Japan. But there are other hurdles for Japan to overcome that include the criticism that

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Japan has no global or diverse “voices of Japan” present in its homogeneous society (e.g. media, culture) and is less attractive to students seeking institutions of higher learning in the global marketplace of ideas. As Lam noted in 2007 (p. 358): Other limits to Japan’s ‘soft power’ include the lack of a CNN or BBC-like institution to project is voice globally, the reluctance of some universities to hire foreign faculty members beyond language teachers, the relatively closed nature of its society to foreign immigrants to maintain ethnic homogeneity and social order, and the fact that Japanese is not a global language. The best students in Asia would head toward the American Ivy League and Britain’s Oxbridge but not necessarily the Universities of Tokyo, Waseda and Keio. Japan’s global soft power momentum has improved, but not at a pace that a leading economic and cultural power nation should. Consider that Japan maintains the worst public debt in the world, Abenomics-mania notwithstanding, with the government debt reaching Yen 1,000 trillion ($10.46 trillion) or about twice its annual gross domestic product in mid 2013 (Warnock and Nakamichi, 2013) and one can see how internationalization measures may have floundered. To address its legendary insular image and lack of globalization, in 2008 the Japanese government announced an ambitious plan to globalize thirty leading universities. With an initial budget of 3.2 billion yen (US $38 million), the originally named “Global 30” project was designed to increase the numbers of Japanese students going abroad and the number of global students entering Japan.

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A masked man takes part in an anti-nuclear power plant protest rally in Tokyo on Saturday, April 30, 2011. Anti-nuclear plant demonstrations have become more frequent after the Fukushima disaster. The placard in the background reads: “No nuclear plant.”

As with every nation that emphasizes soft power, there are limits. Japan’s stated national goal is to welcome 300,000 foreign students by 2020, more than doubling the current rate, while sending the same number of Japanese students overseas. The program has thus far had very mixed results. Instead of thirty universities, only thirteen are participating in the project. All are elite universities and mostly clustered in Greater Tokyo (e.g. University of Tokyo, Waseda, Keio, Sophia), while smaller or midsized higher education institutions were not even considered. It is highly doubtful that the additional seventeen university slots will ever be filled due to budget cuts (McNeill 2010). Japan’s percentage of foreign students remains at a stagnant four percent, or approximately 137,000 out of 3.5 million

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(JASSO, 2013), and just five percent of its university faculty is international. The majority of the foreign faculty is engaged in English language instruction.1 On top of these dismal figures, the percentage of Japanese students enrolled as undergraduates at American universities in the first decade of the 21st century dropped by one half. South Korea, with a population half that of Japan, sends more than double the number of students to universities in America. Japan’s flagship NHK TV has sponsored NHK Newsline, an English language version of its Japanese programming, since 2000 but only in 2009 was the format extended to a thirtyminute primetime news and information program that airs in some English-speaking countries, including on some public broadcasting outlets in the United States. Newsline is a toprated English language news program in the Asia Pacific region, but it is not considered a global English language news leader with the same name recognition of CNN International or BBC.

1 I was no exception when I taught as a Fulbright Professor at Sophia

University in 2012. Though my Ph.D. is in international relations and my fields of emphasis are global communications and political communication, I did not teach as an affiliate of the journalism or international relations departments. Rather, I was affiliated with the English Literature and English Language departments in order to instruct in the English language. My specialty fields did not seem to matter as much as my English ability.

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“I AM BACK, AND SO SHALL JAPAN BE.” Shinzo Abe

In the aftermath of the consecutive disasters of an earthquake, tsunami, and resultant meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, collectively known in Japan as 3/11, public diplomacy watchers are now scrutinizing the recovery and redemption phase initiatives. These include the early disaster relief assistance program by the U.S. Armed Forces program, Operation Tomodachi, and the recruitment of superstar Japanese girl group AKB48 in support of municipal bonds (Warnock 2012). But the less examined dynamic is the rise of public demonstrations and what London’s Economist magazine referred to in 2012 as “nuclearphobia,” which may signal a new era of public resistance democracy after 3/11. How this resistance against the nuclear village (government-industry) in Japan may impact the country’s global image is a story yet to be told. The year 2013 marked sixty-eight years since the United States military dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan’s national policy since then has been strongly against the use of nuclear weapons in conflict, but pro-nuclear power in energy resources. To many observers, Japan had no choice but to embrace nuclear power. As a nation that lacks natural energy resources, it chose nuclear power for almost 30% of its domestic energy source (World Nuclear Association). Japan must import 84% of all its energy sources

and has made nuclear power a national strategic priority since 1973. For sixty years, the Japanese government and industry partner Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) managed public opinion in support of an Atoms for Peace approach to the nuclear energy option that emphasized safe, clean, and cost-effective nuclear energy. Atoms for Peace was a program first popularized during the Eisenhower administration that overlapped the U.S. occupation of Japan (1945-1952). While nuclear weapons symbolized perpetual preparation for war and the Japanese public consistently supported the image of Japan as a peaceful, nuclear weapons-free nation, the public also accepted Japan’s nuclear power industry as a peaceful, safe, clean, and cheaper alternative to more expensive imported energy sources. At least that was the policy and opinion narrative before March 11, 2011. Within a few days, the most nuclear-philic soft power superpower in the world seemed to become a nation of nuclear-phobes. This shift in public opinion against nuclear power and doubtful of its ability to be sustained over time (Belogolova 2013) can be explained by using the theories and investigative methods of propaganda theorist Harold D. Lasswell and journalist Walter Lippmann. Both Lasswell and Lippmann are considered founding

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we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture. (Lippmann, 1922, pp. 54-55) In his lesser-known follow-up book, The Phantom Public, Lippmann argued against the conventional notion of democratic, representative government; namely, that public opinion can direct the course of popular government. Lippmann states that the public is a random collection of individuals that can impact government only through the support of or opposition to the true agents of change, whom he identifies as political leaders. It is Lippmann’s less than sanguine view of the public’s role in public policy that is under examination in what is taking place in Japan’s public diplomacy after 3/11. Lippmann argued that public opinion management is not the domain of the public but rather the responsibility of political leaders from the top down to the public, what might be called a quasi aristocracy of experts. Lippmann’s critique of participatory democracy helps to explain how the Japanese leadership can manage public opinion in an environment of growing political dissent and protest. Harold Lasswell remains, decades after his death, the most influential American political communication scholar in understanding propaganda, power, and leadership. Lasswell defined propaganda as “concerned with the management of opinions and attitudes by the direct manipulation of social suggestions rather than by altering other conditions in the environment or in the organism.” (Lasswell, 1927, p. 9) He viewed propaganda in a social context because he accepted that political leaders may use propaganda on the public at the same time that they have to manage the public interest propaganda used against them. In his book, Power and Personality, he explained this further: © hdwallpapers-desktop.com 2013

fathers of the realist critique of participatory democracy. Lippmann had initially supported muckraking journalists and even flirted with democratic socialism ideals (Luskin, 1972; Steel, 1981.) It was in his most famous work, Public Opinion (1922), still considered the “founding book of American media studies,” (Carey, 1989, p. 75), that Lippmann showed a marked pessimism with regard to democratic theory and praxis. He concluded that society was just too complex for the public to grasp. The public was particularly vulnerable to a knowledge barrier between the real world and a “pseudo-environment” that is not based on direct, experiential knowledge, but mediated knowledge (Lippmann, 1922, p. 16). As society advances and becomes larger and more complex, Lippmann predicted a wider gap between the real world, that only knowledgeable experts or political leaders can know or are trained to know, and a bewildered public driven by media stereotypes, emotional impulses, and irrational acts that lead to errors in social action. The public’s tendency to stereotype represents a serious obstacle to participatory democracy: For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that [which]

Power is an interpersonal situation; those who hold power are empowered. They depend upon and continue only so long as there is a continuing stream of empowering responses. Even a casual inspection of human relations will convince any competent observer that power is not a brick that can be lugged from place to place, but a process that vanishes when the supporting responses cease. (1948, p.10) Both Lippmann and Lasswell serve as bookend influences on a research project that is underway in Japan. As an Abe Fellow affiliated with Keio University’s Institute for Media and Communications (MediaCom), I will be studying Japan’s public diplomacy since 3/11. Specifically, my Abe project will ask two questions: First, how is the Japanese government political leadership managing its nuclear power policies vis-à-vis a growing disengagement and disconnection with the Japanese public? Second, how is the rise of peace propaganda and participatory democracy in turn affecting the Japanese government’s public affairs and public diplomacy goals? My scholarship examines the management of propaganda, including nation image management, in democratic societies. This proposed Abe research fellowship is a natural extension of my prior research in eight books and my own professional work experience. I was a U.S. government official during the first two years of the Clinton administration. As a cultural affairs officer and educational exchange specialist at the United States Information Agency (USIA), I became aware of how nations work to frame

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narratives. The independent foreign affairs agency agenda emblazoned on the façade of our federal building was “telling America’s story to the world.” Such a telling involved a postCold War commercial engagement model to enlarge market-led democracies in newly industrializing societies, especially those in the former Soviet Union. In this project, I am investigating the correlations among the realist critique of participatory democracy offered by Lippmann, the power relationship model proposed by Lasswell, and the public diplomacy and public affairs challenges associated with the rise of no-nuke and peace propagandists in post-3/11 Japan. The Japanese government seeks to reduce its dependency on nuclear power from a pre-11 March 26% to 15% by 2030. Out of 54 nuclear reactors in operation pre-3/11, Japan has restarted just two nuclear reactors in the town of Ohi on Japan’s western coast. Japanese citizens have continued to mount growing protests, including a permanent anti-nuclear group protest regularly outside the downtown Tokyo offices of TEPCO. Peace propagandists who seek immediate shutdown of all nuclear power plants are not supporting the government’s pragmatic narrative, and unless the Japanese government can successfully explain its policy position to the public’s satisfaction, the protests are likely to grow, perhaps leading to a public referendum on nuclear policy. From a Cool Japan public diplomacy perspective, this project has immediate policy implications for Japan’s national image, reputation and prestige, since it will be the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics. The vote in September 2013 hinged in part on a united front from the Japanese government and its people and public protests did not become the dominant media frame. Prime Minister Abe made a forceful speech to the IOC voters in Buenos Aires. He addressed the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Plant directly and promised that Japan had everything in order: “Some may have concerns about Fukushima. Let me assure you the situation is under control. It has never done and will never do any damage to Tokyo.” He added: “There are no health related problems until now, nor will there be in the future. I make the statement to you in the most emphatic and unequivocal way.”

A wind power plant at Izu. Japan is set to focus more on renewable energy such as wind and wave power.

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these first-timers may be motivated by a sense of an awakening consciousness, a turning point in their public lives that only a natural disaster and nuclear meltdown fallout like 3/11 could bring. Just as the U.S. population became more questioning of its government’s motives and credibility after 9/11, so are some Japanese citizens questioning their own government’s credibility, and much more openly and vocally than in the past. In the case of Japan, the questioning is not related to invading countries or a war on terror; instead it is related to an apocalyptic conception of life at its worst and a growing trust gap between citizen and government at best. Consider an email I received from an ex-patriot who has lived and worked in Japan for over twenty-five years. This was during the summer of discontent (July 2012) in which over 170,000 Japanese citizens demonstrated in Tokyo, a larger number than the 1960s protests that were against a new security treaty between the U.S. and Japan.

Abe’s forthright nature invites a spotlight of global attention that Abe’s forthright nature invites a spotlight of global attention that Japan has not had since it was in a mode of victimhood after 3/11. Now it is a country on the rebound, although the constant presence of the antinuclear power citizens creates a backdrop I have begun attending the anti-nuclear rallies with friends. of concern for both government and industry. What is compelling And it is amazing to see people of all generations from all about the Japan case is the composition of the no nukes activists. over the country gather in an orderly manner, hoping to get These are not professional persuaders with media training from the government to listen. As one of my friends said, “We major PR firms, nor are they the usual suspects who turn up have experienced the atomic bomb and now the nuclear regularly at protests. Many nuclear power protesters are firstdisaster in Fukushima. You’d think we would know better.” time citizen demonstrators (Northam 2012). They are mothers Lots of people have lost faith in the Japanese government with children, young people, and the elderly; in other words, (or perhaps they did not have it to begin with). Even the they represent a mainstream demographic that is far removed housewives in my neighborhood are full of distrust and from radical activists. This makes it much harder for pro-nuclear worried about the future for young Japanese. advocates from inside government or industry to demonize the opposition or mark them as extremists. “The opposition is us” If what this ex-patriot is describing is accurate, then both the is the democratic propaganda context here. Further, many of Japanese government and industry leaders like TEPCO will

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Morning Musume is one of the most successful Japanese pop idol girl groups, dubbed as part of “Cool Japan” brand to gain foreign influence and exploiting Japan’s commercial capital of cultural industry—a form of Soft Power.

have to work overtime to engage the public and win back some of that lost trust. A public affairs narrative that puts emphasis on sober explanation of scientific data or economic security is not likely to be effective at winning what is becoming a very public disagreement. Compare the ex-patriot’s observations to this quote from Yoshihito Iwama, a spokesman for Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation). “If Japan decides to stop all nuclear power, we will not have a stable and inexpensive source of electricity. The cost of everything will go up by at least 20 percent. Our economy will suffer” (NPR, 2012). So how will Japan reconcile pre-3/11 Cool Japan with the emerging No Nukes Green Japan? It is too soon to say for sure, but patterns are emerging. A new public diplomacy in Japan seems to be growing out of the immediate post-3/11 recovery and renewal phase to consider non-zero-sum (i.e., win-win) solutions. One such solution is to unite Cool Japan and Green Japan with a major emphasis on science and engineering in Japan to create alternative energy sources for a post-Fukushima era. With Tokyo 2020 seven years away, Japan could revive the Future City of Tomorrow, a city that has the world’s best in public transportation, the world’s safest and fastest intercontinental transportation (shinkansen); the best technology and science available for a sustainable environment; a model of how to respond to an aging and low fertility society; and a model for how to serve as an exemplary “bridge nation to Asia.” Such an approach would require more public participation and public oversight in Japan than is currently in place.

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notwithstanding. Japan won over many hearts and minds in 2011 when the world watched a nation deal with a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed by a deadly tsunami and a nuclear power plant meltdown that is still leaking radiation. In the two years since 3/11, Japan has continued its gratitudinous attitude in its relations toward the world, but troubling trends persist. Japan was once the world’s leading donor of official developmental assistance (ODA), but is now in 18th place worldwide for gross national income assistance, based on United Nations’ recommended standards (Kakuchi 2013). Now instead of reading how generously Japan gives we are more likely to hear about troublesome regional tension with China or South Korea and the need to buttress Japan’s military defenses. Likewise, Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party which, except for four years, has held power in Japan since 1955, remains on the defensive about Japan’s wartime atrocities and enforced sexual slavery in the region, making its apologies to its neighbors continually ring hollow (Dudden 2008).

On September 7, 2013 Japan was awarded the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo over the other two finalists, Istanbul and Madrid. The Tokyo bid was a win after losing to Rio, Brazil for the 2016 Summer Games. It was also a symbolic show of support for a nation committed to rebuilding and rebranding itself economically after the Great East Japan Earthquake and that had shown its gratitude to the world’s people for their support after 3/11. A successful Congressional hearing of Caroline Kennedy’s presidential nomination to be the first female ambassador to Japan followed this good news for Japan. As of this writing, Japan remains a most important strategic partner to the Kennedy was expected to be in Japan in late 2013. United States, a regional leader in Asia, and a world economic powerhouse, China’s second largest economy place

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Aerial view following the second explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Experts forecast radioactive particles from Fukushima would reach U.S. coastal waters in 2014 thus to brand Japan as an environmental leader is crucial to invigorate the country’s image.

The Japan Olympics are still some way off, but their symbolic power will loom over the Abe government’s efforts to work with TEPCO to clean up the continuing disaster of Fukushima. In the meantime, Japan will likely embrace the culture-first approach that Kennedy offers as the daughter of Camelot. At her U.S. Senate hearing on September 19, 2013, Kennedy was warmly received by both Republicans and Democrats who fondly remembered her father and his brother, Senator Ted Kennedy. The take-away for many Japanese observers was undoubtedly similar to what a Tokyo friend wrote me in an email after watching the hearing gavel-by-gavel: I hope and believe she will bring a fresh air to Japan and work for the further improvement of Japan-U.S. relationship and the promotion of the exchange programs of various fields, including students and citizens between two nations. I also expect that she will encourage Japanese people, especially young women, to become more independent and strong. As you said, there are not so many active, intellectual and powerful women in Japanese political field and international affairs fields. I believe we need more women like Sadako Ogata and late politician Fusae Ichikawa.

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It is noteworthy to see from this enthusiasm for Kennedy’s appointment that there is no mention of Japan’s economic revival (Abenomics) or national security ties to the United States. Kennedy’s strengths in education and culture will become her personal brand in Japan, but even she will have to address some yet unknown crises on the horizon for which she will not be fully prepared. Her name recognition alone has created a buzz that may well extend her honeymoon period longer than any of her predecessors. The Kennedy mystique is especially appreciated in a country that prides itself on its cultural superiority. Unless and until Japan gets a firm hold on the Fukushima crisis and works out how it will fuel its energy, a culture-first approach to public diplomacy will be insufficient to ready global publics for 2020. Cool Japan is juxtaposed with an open question about Japan’s lack of public participation in politics. A recent op-ed by Colin P.A. Jones (2013) in the Japan Times points to the Fukushima dilemma:

Japan is supposedly a democracy, so in theory a responsibilityshirking government is ultimately the people’s problem — and responsibility — just as much as the nuclear disaster and all the nation’s other problems are. Of course, the people have a The other thing I was happy to learn about Caroline is that she plentiful supply of other targets to blame until enough of them had visited Japan with her uncle Ted when she was a 20-year- come to that realization. old and was deeply affected by Hiroshima. She mentioned that The Japanese government must now use the momentum from her father had hoped to the first sitting president to make a visit its Olympics win to ask the world to step in and help it overcome to Japan, so she will pursue his ideals as an ambassador. She a disaster that was first man-made, then natural, and then manalso visited Japan for her honeymoon. That is fantastic. made again.

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There should also be a Fukushima legacy -- how not to manage nuclear power plants built along earthquake-prone seacoasts. The world must now test Abe’s assurances to the IOC that the situation will soon be under control. The time for rhetorical assurances is over. (We’ll have to hold our breaths that no repeat 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquakes occur.) In 1964, Tokyo unveiled itself as a global economic miracle a mere two decades after the end of World War II. In 2020, Tokyo should unveil its nation brand as a global environmental leader. Now that would be really cool, Japan.

REFERENCES Book Belogolova, Olga (2013). “Why Japan Can’t Quit Nuclear Power,” National Journal, February 14. Carey, James (1989). Communication as Culture. Routledge: New York and London. Christensen, Asger Rojle “Cool Japan, Soft Power” Global Asia Vol. 6, No. 1, Spring 2011 Dudden, Alexis (2008). Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953). “Atoms for Peace” Address Before the General Assembly of the United Nations on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, New York City, December 8th. Fukushima, Akiko. (2011) Modern Japan and the Quest for Attractive Power. In Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia, Lee, Sook Jong and Jan Melissen (Eds). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jones, Colin P.A. (2013). “Fukushima and the right to responsible government,” Japan Times, September 16, 2013. Lam, Peng Er (2007). “Japan’s Quest for ‘Soft Power’: Attraction and Limitation.” East Asia 24, pp. 349–363. Lasswell, Harold (1948). Power and Personality. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Lippmann, Walter (1927). The Phantom Public. New York: Macmillan Company. Luskin, John (1972). Lippmann, Liberty and the Press. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. McNeill, David (2010). “Japan’s Globalization Project Stalls as Some Criticize Focus on Elite Universities,” Chronicle of Higher Education, September 8. Nakamura, Toshiya (2013). “Japan’s New Public Diplomacy: Coolness in Foreign Policy Objectives.” Studies in Media and Society 3:5, pp. 1-23, Graduate School of Languages and Cultures, Nagoya University. Steel, Ronald (1981). Walter Lippmann and the American Century. New York: Vintage Books. Warnock, Eleanor and Takashi Nakamichi (2013). “Japan Economic Growth Clouds Debt Fight,” Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2013. Watanabe, Yasushi and McConnell, David L. (Eds.) (2008). Soft Power Superpowers: Cultural and National Assets of Japan and the United States. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Online Japan Student Services Organization (2013). Result of an annual survey of international students in Japan 2012. Available online at http://www.jasso.go.jp/statistics/intl_student/ documents/data12_e.pdf (accessed September 13, 2013). Kakuchi, Suvendrini (2013). “Japan’s Aid Programme Takes a Selfish Turn,” Inter Press Service, May 1. Available online at http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/05/japans-aid-programmetakes-a-selfish-turn/ (accessed September 23, 2013).

Nancy Snow, Ph.D

Abe Fellow at the Institute for Media and Communications Research, Keio University, Japan. She is also Professor of Communications at California State University, Fullerton.

Northam, Jackie (2012). “Japan’s Nuclear Debate Weighs Safety, Economics,” National Public Radio, August 7. http://www.npr.org/2012/08/08/158202856/japans-nuclear-debateweighssafety-economics. (accessed August 8, 2012) Warnock, Eleanor. 2012. “Japan Gets AKB48 Girls on the Cheap.” Wall Street Journal, May 29. http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/05/29/japan-gets-akb48-bond-girls-on-the-cheap/ (accessed September 14, 2013) World Nuclear Association. Nuclear Power in Japan. http://www.worldnuclear.org/info/inf79. html (accessed September 7, 2013)

Nancy Snow can be contacted at [email protected]