権威主義国家マレーシアにおけるマス・メディア事情(松野みどり教授 退官記念論文集)  [in Japanese] Situation of Mass Media in the Authoritarian State Malaysia  [in Japanese]

The situation of mass media in Malaysia is much harder than that of Japan. So it is impossible to make a superficial comparison of those both countries. In spite of knowing this factor, I am very surprised how much similarities exist between Japan and Malaysia. It doesn't seem that Japan still exceeds the level of an authoritarian nation when I think of the announcement journalism in the name of objectivity report, the self-regulation of the journalists and the low degree of democracy. In the infiltration of the globalization and the consumption civilization, in pursuit of the individual freedom according to pleasure principle, Malaysian people seem to become politically indifferent like Japanese people. Under such circumstances people cannot be educated to become politically .active so that politics become inevitably corrupt. So-called Asian value and Confucian capitalism are served for elite powers as a tool to prolong their rule and to provide people ruling philosophy. Authoritarian countries tend to propagate narrow nationalism, which may make it difficult to understand other nations. Enough attention towards human rights and protection of personal information are not often paid in the news report on the criminals and victims in the faith that journalists should play a role to educate people morally. Such a tendency will be found in reports in Japan. So I conclude that journalism in Japan must still have an authoritarian tradition. In term of freedom of speech, Japan is located in the 44 th place among 164 countries according to the investigation of "reporters without borders".

The situation of mass media in Malaysia is much harder than that of Japan. So it is impossible to make a superficial comparison of those both countries. In spite of knowing this factor, I am very surprised how much similarities exist between Japan and Malaysia. It doesn't seem that Japan still exceeds the level of an authoritarian nation when I think of the announcement journalism in the name of objectivity report, the self-regulation of the journalists and the low degree of democracy. In the infiltration of the globalization and the consumption civilization, in pursuit of the individual freedom according to pleasure principle, Malaysian people seem to become politically indifferent like Japanese people. Under such circumstances people cannot be educated to become politically .active so that politics become inevitably corrupt. So-called Asian value and Confucian capitalism are served for elite powers as a tool to prolong their rule and to provide people ruling philosophy. Authoritarian countries tend to propagate narrow nationalism, which may make it difficult to understand other nations. Enough attention towards human rights and protection of personal information are not often paid in the news report on the criminals and victims in the faith that journalists should play a role to educate people morally. Such a tendency will be found in reports in Japan. So I conclude that journalism in Japan must still have an authoritarian tradition. In term of freedom of speech, Japan is located in the 44 th place among 164 countries according to the investigation of "reporters without borders".