This article aims to reconsider the conventional ways of representing mass communication and power during the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) in contemporary Japanese historiography by challenging the limiting recurrent epistemological premises that dominate the scholarly discourse. This is a preliminary effort to explore alternative perspectives and methodologies that will enhance research on the social and cultural dimensions of media communication during the war. Specifically, this article analyzes how postwar historiography has myopically interpreted the wartime practices of radio broadcasting—a medium often regarded as emblematic of a centralized, top-down mode of wartime communication—and how this interpretation has been perpetuated throughout the “long postwar” (nagai sengo) period.
Conventional postwar historiography has framed wartime media communication and power primarily through the lens of oppression and propaganda. Despite significant criticism, the constant repetition of this limiting framework renders it increasingly imperative to investigate the primary factors that have contributed to its ongoing recurrence in contemporary scholarship. As such, this study proposes a reevaluation of the main assumptions that underlie the dominant postwar historiography of wartime Japan, particularly the liberal concept of power and media determinism, including the magic bullet theory.
First, this article will trace the consolidation of these assumptions during the war years and the early postwar period, a perspective which resulted from the collaboration between U.S. policymakers and Japanese political elites. Additionally, I will discuss specific examples that illustrate how recent studies on wartime radio broadcasting, while attempting to transcend conventional approaches by integrating developments informed by the concepts of total war systems and transwar history, ultimately revert to prior established orientations by inadvertently relying on longstanding conventional assumptions to frame their analyses. Lastly, I propose alternative ways of inquiry and provide examples of overlooked yet significant cases that will help historical research to move beyond the conventional paradigms and constructively reevaluate the notions of power and media communication in wartime Japan.