Attribution of Responsibility for Nuclear Accidents Based on “Political Neutrality”：the NHK’s Commentary Program “Jiron Koron” as A Case Study

• Published in: Japan Journal of Media, Journalism and Communication Studies Vol. 105; pp. 151 - 171
• Main Author: Wei, Yu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japan Association for Media, Journalism and Communication Studies 31.07.2024; 日本メディア学会
• ISSN: 2758-1047; 2758-3368
• DOI: 10.24460/jamsmedia.105.0_151

    In newspaper editorials, the attribution of responsibility for the Fukushima nuclear accident is intertwined with partisanship over nuclear policy. However, it is difficult for the broadcast media to express its own political preferences, which are required by the Japanese Broadcasting Act to be unbiased and politically impartial.     Therefore, in the broadcast media, the attribution of responsibility for nuclear accidents needs to be done in a way that is less associated with nuclear policy partisanship. The purpose of this paper is to examine the attribution of responsibility for nuclear accidents on the basis of political neutrality and to discuss its significance.     The research subject of this paper is the public broadcaster NHK, which is required to be more politically neutral than commercial broadcasters. The program in which NHK news commentators express their opinions and arguments is ‘Jiron Koron’. This paper examines the characteristics of the attribution of responsibility by watching 79 ‘Jiron Koron’ programs related to nuclear power plants saved in the Earthquake TV archive from 16 December 2012 to 31 July 2017.    In ‘Jiron Koron’, news commentators raised issues such as the problem of contaminated water and the challenges of restarting nuclear power plants, but many of their conclusions called for better enforcement of actions by the government. In other words, the responsibility for the nuclear accident attributed to the government was simply the responsibility to improve the situation. In order to maintain political neutrality, the political responsibility for the occurrence of the nuclear accident was not often mentioned.    The attribution of responsibility to the government by the media is valued as an activity that politicizes social problems. However, further discussion is needed when simply presenting the government’s responsibility for solving the problem.