liberal media, anyone?

[c-korone.livejournal.com]

I know this isn't a brand new revelation, but in case it hasn't been shared here before...

Some interesting articles and a study showing that most of the media really is more liberal than the general public:

Media Research Center: The Press and The Public Are Worlds Apart

The American Enterprise: The Liberal Media — Every Poll Shows Journalists Are More Liberal than the American Public — And the Public Knows It

Christian Science Monitor: Newsroom conservatives are a rare breed

The Pew Research Center: Bottom-Line Pressures Now Hurting Coverage, Say Journalists; 'Press Going Too Easy on Bush'

"..the poll finds that many journalists - especially those in the national media - believe that the press has not been critical enough of President Bush. Majorities of print and broadcast journalists at national news organizations believe the press has been insufficiently critical of the administration. ... There are significant ideological differences among news people in attitudes toward coverage of Bush, with many more self-described liberals than moderates or conservatives faulting the press for being insufficiently critical. ... 34% of national journalists describe themselves as liberals, compared with 22% nine years ago. ... More striking is the relatively small minority of journalists who think of themselves as politically conservative (7% national, 12% local)." [In the survey results, 34 % of the public thought the media was too critical of the president, and 24% said not critical enough. Also in a 2004 Pew Media survey, 33% of the public said they are conservative, 20% said liberal.]

(x-posted a couple places)

Manga Genre Which May Be Of Interest

[mosellegreen.livejournal.com]

Or maybe not, depending on if it's done right.

I was searching http://findarticles.com for articles about fanfiction, and came across Adult Manga: Culture & Power in Contemporary Japanese Society, a book review. It says:

The most significant innovation in this period was the creation of a new politically conservative adult manga sub-genre called information manga (joho manga). As a result of this new pro-establishment sub-genre, the manga industry gained a more respectful and stable position within Japanese society, which aided in the revival as well as in the modernization of national businesses and institutions.

I've never heard of this genre before, but then I only dabble in anime. Does anyone here know anything? If not, I'll find out about it and get back to you guys.

"The official end of high heels in Washington."

[maidenjedi]

I love Peggy Noonan. Hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did.

===========

The Shoe Must Go On?
"The official end of high heels in Washington."
by Peggy Noonan, OpinionJournal

Thursday, May 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
==

This is the official end of high heels in Washington, isn't it?

The Republican Senate staffer, who spoke to me after she returned to her desk following the evacuation of the Capitol, laughed.

"I think it might be, yeah," she said.

She spoke to me anonymously because she wanted to be free with her observations.

I asked her what it was like at 11:59 a.m. Wednesday, when word came to the Hart Senate Office Building that everyone had to get out. Here's her story.

"I was on the phone in the office. The girl behind me, about 30 years old, all of a sudden jumped up and said, 'They're running off the floor!' We have a TV monitor in the office that is always showing the floor of the Senate. Sen. [Carl] Levin was running off the floor.

"A few minutes later the alarms came. The squawk box goes off: 'Evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately!' Each office has a big black duffel bag with gas masks and decontamination stuff. We're all trained in the use of this stuff. Big sealed bag. Somebody grabbed it. We evacuated immediately.

( Read more... )

Joho Manga

[mosellegreen.livejournal.com]

I found a little information about it on the Web, and also an article written by the author of the book reviewed in my last post: ADULT MANGA: PRO-ESTABLISHMENT POP-CULTURE AND NEW POLITICS IN THE 1990S.

The enhanced status of manga increased the possibility of producing manga magazines for more culturally-conservative readerships - for precisely the type of people which would not previously have wanted to read manga magazines. Commitment to shrinking traditional readerships and popular manga themes was gradually supplanted by conservative, political and social themes, which might appeal to a more political and culturally mature new manga readership.

And

Key concepts - the need to take individual and national 'responsibility', show 'strong leadership', reform political and corporate 'factionalism', and re- establish the Japanese military, - which were ubiquitous to political discussion during the 1990s (Ozawa 1994) featured strongly in the themes of adult manga series.

I'm going to find some of these and I'll let you guys know how they are.

Ooo! More Articles!

[mosellegreen.livejournal.com]

I think I'm on to something! I've ordered a few items already, but these articles make joho manga sound promising:

White-Collar Workers Are Heroes Too, with Manga

http://najs.jp/papers_2004/gaens.pdf
"Remasculinization of the Salaryman"
PDF file

The Noble Sarariman
However, apart from Madison Avenue publishing, the notion of sarariman as economic soldier has been a relatively stable theme in an array of Japanese media: from movies to television to commercials. More than any other communication form, however, it has been manga (or Japanese comics) that has helped reinforce this caricature. In the words of Yoshihiro Yonezawa, "when Japanese adults became avid manga readers in the mid-1970s, it was the white-collar employee ("salaryman") who was more and more the comic book hero.

Bringing Home the Sushi: An Inside Look at Japanese Business through Japanese Comics