Hierarchy and Democracy in Modern Japan’s Mass Media Revolution

Modern Japan experienced what could be described as its first wave of “mass media revolution” in the period stretching from the mid-1920s into the 1930s, when new forms of media industry as well as technology vastly expanded the number of potential consumers of media products. This talk, with Hiromu Nagahara, explores the political implications of this development, especially as it relates to how the rise of mass media reshaped existing social and cultural hierarchies in Japan (and how, in some cases, it didn’t). Based on his current book project, Japan’s Pop Era: Music in the Making of Middle-Class Society, this talk will focus on the life and career of Horiuchi Keizō (M.S. 1923), an MIT grad who found himself in the center of all of this as a prominent composer, critic, radio broadcaster, and publisher.