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Push the Button

Interactive Television and Collaborative Journalism in Japan

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Book

Pages: 200

Illustrations: 15 illustrations

Published: February 2024

Author: Elizabeth Rodwell

In Push the Button, Elizabeth Rodwell follows a battle over what interactivity will mean for Japanese television, as major media conglomerates took on independent media professionals developing interactive forms from new media. Rodwell argues that at the dawn of a potentially transformative moment in television history, content conservatism has triumphed over technological innovation. Despite the ambition and idealism of Japanese TV professionals and independent journalists, corporate media worked to squelch interactive broadcast projects such as smartphone-playable television and live-streamed and open press conferences before they caught on. Instead, interactive programming in the hands of major TV networks retained the structure and qualities of most other television and maintained conventional barriers between audiences and the actual space of broadcast. Despite their lack of success, the innovators behind these experiments nonetheless sought to expand the possibilities for mass media, national identity, and open journalism.

Praise

“Across a polymorphous array of new media engagements, Elizabeth Rodwell questions how and with what affects/effects television is being recrafted in Japan following the ‘crisis’ of news dissemination during 3.11. Attentively ethnographic and analytically astute, Push the Button explores the implications—political, social, and technological—of inviting viewers to interact so intimately with their televisual machines.” - Anne Allison, author of Being Dead Otherwise

“Based on solid fieldwork with excellent theoretical analysis, Push the Button provides a fascinating ethnographic overview of interactive television in Japan and offers striking new insights into media in the early twenty-first century. This wonderful book speaks to experts and newcomers alike—a real gem!” - Ian Condry, author of The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan’s Media Success Story

"Well-researched and analytically rigorous, this book is highly accessible to anyone interested in the anthropology of Japan, media studies, and television history." - Keisuke Yamada, Japan Forum

"Push the Button makes a meaningful contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Japanese television." - Yasuhito Abe, International Journal of Communication

"Push the Button is an interesting and informative book for those interested in the future of technology, media, or journalism." - Elsa Claudia Salman, Muliadi Mau, and Sudirman Karnay, Television & New Media

"Push the Button’s biggest asset is Rodwell’s ability to connect media industry studies to a broader context. . . . Her work lays a foundation for future study both in Japan and outside of it." - Mickey Randle, Media Industries

"This thoughtful examination . . . offers important insights for understanding media transformation glob­ally." - Olga Fedorenko, Journal of Asian Studies

"With clarity and narrative flair, Rodwell takes the reader on an engaging and eclectic journey through the possibilities and limits of interactivity in enhancing democratic engagement..." - Yosuke Buchmeier, Pacific Affairs

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Elizabeth Rodwell is Assistant Professor of Information Science Technology at the University of Houston.

Table Of Contents

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Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction. Pushing Buttons  1
1. The Interactive Consumer-Viewer: The Social TV Promotion Collective, Ratings, and Advertising  25
2. Interactivity and Gatekeeping: The Compass and the Limits of Conservative Corporate Culture  46
3. Cultures of Independent Journalism: The Free Press Association of Japan, Independent Web Journal, and GoHoo  64
4. The New Interactive Television  89
5. Teaching Citizen Journalism: Media Activism and Our Planet-TV  108
Conclusion  129
Notes  143
Bibliography  163
Index  179

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Sales/Territorial Rights: World

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Additional Information

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Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-2576-4 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-2102-5 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-2789-8 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478027898