By Patrick W. Galbraith
Spend even an afternoon in an incredible jap urban like Tokyo or Osaka and also you can not forget about them: 'idols,' or industrially produced and promoted women and men who practice throughout media genres and structures. they seem in magazines and ads, practice on television and on degree, recorded and stay. even though imperative to the workings and adventure of media in Japan, idols have regrettably had just a marginal position within the scholarship. This assortment bargains the main whole and compelling account of 1 of the main interesting and least understood facets of eastern media tradition at the present time. It brings jointly a gaggle of interdisciplinary students who interact the learn of media, gender and superstar. delicate to heritage and the modern scene, essays hide female and male idols, construction and intake, business buildings and fan activities.
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Additional info for Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture
Example text
Only those fans who collected all 44 versions would be allowed to attend a “special event” featuring the group. Like packets of trading cards or capsule toys sold to children in Japanese vending machines, the posters were randomly bundled with the CDs. The consumer did not know which of the posters was included with the CD and, in order to collect all 44, would likely need to buy far more than 44 separate CDs. As fans began complaining online, the special event offer was cancelled out of concern that it might be in violation of Japanese antitrust laws (ITmedia News 2008).
The role of the mass media in inflating the margins has created the effect of idols’ perceived widespread popularity. Studies of the number of mentions of the group AKB48 in blogs have found an astounding discourse on idols within Japanese cyberspace. 26 However, not all of these mentions are from committed fans voicing their support. Many are from antifans, who are criticizing their relentless promotion and media hype. Moreover, Japanese idols are intertextual commodities; music is but one dimension of their popularity.
We also see the nation of Japan as idol—eerily actualizing recommendations by Nakamori Akio (2007, 16)—garnering far more sympathy on the global stage than equal or greater natural and human disasters of recent memory. It is difficult to say whether or not the activities of idols can ever be separated from their images,32 when promotion of the cause becomes self-promotion (and a way to generate publicity and boost sales), but that is also not really the point. What is important is that idols can be political commodities in much the same way as they are economic commodities.