May 14, 2008...11:15 am
Balanced News Coverage
Who’s making news in Japan?
Rockinginhakata.com’s Deas hit a little bit on the issue of balanced coverage in Japanese media of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election a couple of weeks ago, and it sparked my curiosity.
I ran each name of the three major candidates through Japanese news sites to see how many hits they came out with. (Clinton as 「クリントン」, Obama as 「オバマ」, and McCain as 「マケイン」)
Hits from some major news sites sites were as follows.
Asahi.com (朝日新聞)
Clinton: 628
Obama: 530
McCain: 268
Mainichi.co.jp (毎日新聞)
Obama: 153
Clinton: 152
McCain: 71
Yomiuri.co.jp (読売新聞)
Clinton: 243
Obama: 171
McCain: 77
In all cases, McCain had around half the amount of hits as the lowest Democrat, at most. Clinton had at least as many hits as Obama, most of the time she had considerably more. Some of the Obama hits were just regarding gimmick news related to the candidate and a small Japanese town sharing the same name. (小浜)
The Democratic primary election is still undecided which explains partly why there is such a large discrepancy in numbers, but even so, it’s not uncommon to be asked by the average Japanese person if you will be voting for “Clinton or Obama”. Again, the reason for that is justified in that (from my own possibly skewed experience) there are more Americans in Japan who claim themselves as Democrats than as Republicans. (Which is itself an interesting research project)
9 Comments
May 14, 2008 at 11:27 am
It would make a very interesting research project indeed! Demographically speaking, many people in Japan have come from west coast states (many of which are more blue than red), which may have something to do with it. Proximity and the American political landscape? No clue. But it’s an anecdotal hunch. Thanks for the link!
May 14, 2008 at 11:34 am
Just to add, there are considerably more Republican Americans in South Korea than Democrats. I chalk it up to the military presence. (With a lot of service members coming from red states, they serve in Korea and when their time is up they stick around since they’ve set up their lives there)
May 14, 2008 at 1:32 pm
That makes sense to me. Interesting. (I mean, it is the home of the most militarized border in the world and all.)
I’m going to be posting another Japanese media / American election item later on today, by the way.
May 14, 2008 at 8:22 pm
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May 14, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I think the trend most everywhere for expat-Americans tends towards the Democrats. I remember seeing in a English bookstore in Amsterdam during the last general election prominent signs for ex-pat Democrat groups urging people to register as overseas voters.
Perhaps it has something to do with a more liberal outlook on life and the world; some correlation between more Democrat views and a willingness to travel and explore different countries.
May 15, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Hey - by the way - I asked this during a hard question in a round of Jeopardy at my academic school. 2 kids knew all 3 remaining competitors. I was impressed. The teachers didn’t even know. (Then again, these kids were awesome - I had to give 50 points for the first time to a kid who correctly named the leader of England, Russia, France, China, and Iran. So…maybe not an average kid…
But still, McCain is known by at least 2 high school kids in my prefecture. Ha ha.
May 17, 2008 at 9:42 pm
How did your methodology allow for differentiating between stories about Bill and Hillary?
May 17, 2008 at 10:03 pm
You are very astute Daeguowl! I had the same worry. I simply scrolled through the history to see what sort of stories were typically showing up as results, and they all seemed to be up-to-date, though I would assume some of Bill’s got in as well, especially around 2006 when talk of the new head of the UN was going on. This is all very casual.
Still, there are considerably more than McCain, and probably nearly the same amount as Obama.
May 19, 2008 at 9:14 am
I imagine that both Clinton and Obama had stories, or blurbs at least, about the gaffes their spouses made possible. (Bill Clinton exiting South Carolina, Michelle Obama being proud of America for the first time in her adult life, etc.) For that matter, I bet McCain got a hit over his wife’s tax stuff. Yawn. Ha ha.
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