Virginia Tech massacre - Media reaction in Japan?
Posted by Matt Dioguardi on April 20th, 2007
I’m curious about what people think concering the media coverage in Japan of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Would anyone care to comment on this?
While I’m looking for serious comments and not vents, I’d really like to hear what people think of the coverage. So you’re welcome to skip my own comments here and go right ahead and post your own in the comment box.
I have not yet had time to review any of the editorials written in the Japanese papers, but I have noticed *some* of the following on TV:
1. Initially the focus of the coverage was on gun ownership in America being common place. Various statistics showing America to be dangerous because of gun ownership were used. I saw it stated by various media commentators that America is a gun culture, and that this is something that Japanese just can’t understand because Japanese culture is different.
2. Once it was discovered that the perpetrator of the shootings was a South Korean National, the emphasis switched from America being a gun culture to America being a diverse place. Here being a diverse place means racial tensions and problems, and that this sometimes manifests itself in violence. The perpetrator of the crime was bullied for being Asian, and as a result he couldn’t fit in. Wow, how dangerous heterogeneous societies can become!
So to the limited extent I’ve seen the coverage in Japan, I’ve been really disheartened. It seems to me that the message is clear. Japan is safe and good, because Japanese unlike Americans don’t possess an irrational desire to protect themselves with guns, and because Japan is a homogenous society it doesn’t have the problems inherent in a heterogeneous society.
I’m not at all convinced that race was a major factor in the shootings. In fact, while I recognize that people may have bullied the perpetrator of the crime for being Asian, they could have easily just as well bullied him for something else. Moreover, the bullying didn’t in any way, shape or form, *justify* his actions.
While I’m sure there are those who find the debate over guns very easy to resolve, I’ve always been genuinely perplexed by it. I don’t like guns, have never had one, and do not want one. People who enjoy collecting guns make me at least a little nervous. Nevertheless, I’m not one to decide issues like this on a kind of subjective taste score or raw emotion, but instead on the weights of the various pros and cons. My personal view is that this is a very hard issue. At different points in my life I’ve leaned both ways on the issue, and right at this moment probably lean towards some form of limited gun ownership.
(By the way, guns are legal in Japan. Hunting rifles and so on. All one needs is a license. However, I’m fairly certain hand guns are completely illegal, but the Yakuza obviously have them.)
Japanese who quickly dismiss the need for private ownership of guns need to ask themselves why after about 60 years, America still has military bases in Japan? Has or has not America been facilitating the liberty of Japanese nationals to at least some extent? But then who has been facilitating the liberty of American nationals? Excuse me for saying so, but self-governance is indeed a bitch.
Taking the above into consideration, perhaps the debate over gun ownership should not be so readily dismissed as idiosyncratic American culture, and instead, both sides of the debate should be aired more accurately. What you get in Japan is a kind of anti-gun snow job, reaffirming the essential goodness of the Japanese. This message is complete with bloody bodies, fleeing students, and scary visages of the gun man.
Honestly, I’m not at this point convinced that random shootings even provide a good litmus test for gun policy. Though we should note that Viginia Tech has a gun free policy, while Virginia State doesn’t.
Just a few links:
April 21st, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Interestingly, media correspondence from Japanese nationals in the U.S., particularly in Virginia, are stating that they hope they are not going to be victimized simply because they are Asian.
Not a far drop from being associated with criminals here simply by being “foreign”…
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:13 am
Garrett published an editorial piece at TPR on this, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it yet.
I followed TV coverage more than anything, and I was appalled by the focus on him being “Korean,” sometimes to the point of mentioning it twice in a sentence. I don’t think ethnicity had anything to do whatsoever with this massacre, and the attempt to tie his citizenship with criminal proclivities was pretty sad.
I also thought the announcers had a very poor grasp on American culture, laws, ways of life and so on. They also made quite a few translation errors in broadcast that I never saw acknowledged.
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:15 am
Hi Andrew!
Hi Ken!
At one point I was tempted to make a video and try to get some of what I was seeing onto the internet. But at my level of expertise it would have been too time consuming a task. I don’t know how to edit video clips. Perhaps I need to learn how …
Here’s the link to editorial piece that Ken mentions:
http://www.transpacificradio.com/2007/04/20/korean-killing-spree-virginia-tech/
I am glad that someone else wrote about this.
I watched coverage on Tokudane and News Station.
Apparently some Japanese anti-Koreans were upset when the term Asia-kei was applied. They posted clips of the news station report onto the internet. See here.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
There has been more written about this topic at the above link.