Abstract
This chapter focuses on various media serving the hegemonic order. Communications appearing in the Washington Times and on YouTube illustrate how new media can help reinforce or frame dominant narratives. The alternative media depicts Okinawan protesters as unpredictable, highlighting their deviation from norms of predictability, one of the four aspects in McDonaldized social relations of production. Framing anti-base protesters as professional (paid) demagogues, who are not even locals, serves as a way to legitimize the FRF in Henoko. The misleading expressions and images, selectively used to depict the protesters, are used to construct silent public consent to the FRF construction in Okinawa as the only avenue to reduce the danger of the Futenma Airfield.
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Notes
- 1.
George Ritzer . The McDonaldization of Society. (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1996), 79.
- 2.
Walter Lippmann . The Phantom Public. (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1925).
- 3.
Walter Lippmann . Public Opinion. (New Brunswick: Transaction Publisher, 1921), 237.
- 4.
James O’Connor , The Fiscal Crisis of the State (Transaction Publishers: New Brunswick, NJ, 2002[1973]) 6.
- 5.
Ibid., 244.
- 6.
David Harvey , “New Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession” in Socialist Register, Vol 40, 2004, 63–87.
- 7.
Details about the security bill can be found here: http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-protests-20150915-story.html.
- 8.
Details about the Okinawan resistance movement can be found here: http://fpif.org/resisting-u-s-bases-okinawa/.
- 9.
Part 4 of interview on “Inverted Totalitarianism as a Threat to Democracy” can be found here: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/chris-hedges-and-sheldon-wolin-on-inverted-totalitarianism-as-a-threat-to-democracy.html.
- 10.
Ibid., Part 4.
- 11.
Ibid., Part 4.
- 12.
“Okinawa newspapers fire back after anti-media comments at LDP event” The Japan Times, July 2, 2015. Accessed April 30, 2017, at http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/02/national/politics-diplomacy/okinawa-newspapers-fire-back-anti-media-comments-ldp-event/.
- 13.
Robert Entman, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” Journal of Communication, 43(4), Autumn (1993), 51–58.
- 14.
Kent Gilbert is well known publicly in mainland Japan as an entertainer who uses his fame to advance the cause of the LDP with media appearance and publications, all of which criticize Okinawa and any local leadership that defies Tokyo .
- 15.
Kent Gilbert . “(Official) The Truth About the Anti-base Activists in Okinawa How Many Are Really Okinawan?” YouTube. Accessed June 13, 2015, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a2xH5ZtwqI.
- 16.
Access to the full article can be found here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/31/robert-eldridge-the-other-side-to-the-okinawa-stor/.
- 17.
Robert Eldridge . “The Other Side to the Okinawa Story: The ‘All Okinawa’ Opposition to U.S. Military Presence is a Leftist Ruse,” Washington Times, Accessed June 14, 2015, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/31/robert-eldridge-the-other-side-to-the-okinawa-stor/.
- 18.
In January 2017, as a result of the partial return of the Northern Training Area (NTA), the figure is now 70.6 percent. Further details may be found here: http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/site/chijiko/kichitai/documents/us%20military%20base%20issues%20in%20okinawa.pdf.
- 19.
Further details may be found here: http://www.stat.go.jp/data/kokusei/2015/index.htm.
- 20.
Op. cit. Part 4.
- 21.
Evidence of the early commitment to Okinawa as the only region fit for the new base can be found in the SACO agreements. The SACO Interim Report of April 1996 specifies thus: “The airfield’s critical military functions and capabilities will be maintained through relocations of facilities. This will require construction of a heliport on other U.S. facilities and areas in Okinawa.” Also, the SACO Final Report of December 1996 specifies thus: “The SBF will be located off the east coast of the main island of Okinawa.”
- 22.
George Orwell . “Politics and the English Language,” Accessed June 13, 2015, at http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/.
- 23.
Further details may be found here: http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/seco.html.
- 24.
Further details may be found here: http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/96saco2.html.
- 25.
Ibid., MOFA.
- 26.
Further details on the earlier plans for Henoko may be found here: http://apjjf.org/-Makishi-Yoshikazu/1819/article.html.
- 27.
Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu . Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States. (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2013), 164.
- 28.
Further details may be found here: http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/96saco2.html.
- 29.
Op. cit., Eldridge .
- 30.
Miyume Tanji . Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa. (London: Routledge, 2006), 70–71.
- 31.
Otis Bell. “Play Fair with the Okinawans,” Christian Century. (January 20, 1954), 77.
- 32.
Ibid., Bell.
- 33.
Anti-base movements in Okinawa have traditionally resisted the permanent singular organizational structure of a ‘movement’. Even the ongoing ‘All Okinawa’ coalition is a temporary alliance of multiple actors focused on stopping the new base construction and the MV-22 Osprey deployment in Okinawa (which may be the only thing they agree on). Union members, political party members, women’s groups, feminists, environmental activists, local historians, and campsite protesters in Henoko and Takae , who may all be identified as ‘anti-base,’ have all different priorities, strategies, and motivations. I have argued: “Splintered organizational structure of the community of protest more genuinely represents the multiple concerns. Individual organizations are less likely to lose sight of their own objectives under the pressure of one, hegemonic organization and reform agenda.” Miyume Tanji , Myth, Protest, and Struggle in Okinawa (London: Routledge, 2006), 180.
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Tanji, M., Broudy, D. (2017). Predictability as a Means of Manufacturing Consent. In: Okinawa Under Occupation. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5598-0_7
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