Book launchThursday 21 July 2011
6:00pm – 7:00pm
The English-Language Press Networks of East Asia, 1918-1945
Drinks reception from 8:00pm
Daiwa Foundation Japan House
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
By Dr Peter O’Connor
Published by Global Oriental
English-language newspapers such as the Japan Advertiser, North-China Daily News, Japan Chronicle, China Press, Japan Times, and Seoul Press occupied a vital segment of the public sphere in East Asia in the first half of the 20th century. As forums of opinion on Japanese, Chinese and Western interests in East Asia they also served as vehicles of propaganda, particularly during the crisis-ridden 1930s and the Pacific War.
In this talk Dr Peter O’Connor outlined the commonalities of media affiliation, editorial policy, political and economic interest and access to officialdom that coalesced into these press networks and demonstrated how they lined up on Japan’s imperial project and the contested leadership of China. By dominating the lines of access to Western publics, Japan’s English-language titles came to serve as the West’s default source of news of East Asia, with American pro-Guomindang papers in close contention.
This discussion was about Japan’s place in the international media history of East Asia, and about the circumstances in which low-circulation ‘local’ titles can speak to a global audience, especially at times of international tension.
About the contributors
Dr Peter O’Connor (author)
Dr Peter O’Connor received his MA in Area Studies (Japan) and PhD in History from SOAS, University of London. He teaches at Musashino University and at SILS, Waseda University, Tokyo. Global Oriental published his The English-Language Press Networks of East Asia, 1918-1945 last autumn. Critical Readings on Japan, 1906-1948: Countering Japan’s Agenda and the Communist Menace in East Asia, Series 2: Pamphlets and Press, the last ten volumes of his 40-volume collection on Japanese propaganda and its critique in East Asia, The Representation of Japan in Modern East Asia, 1872-1948, were published by Brill (Leiden and Boston) in June 2011.
Professor Ian Nish (Discussant)
Professor Ian Nish is Professor Emeritus of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he served from 1962 to 1991. His main fields of interest and research are Japan’s foreign relations and in particular her relations with China over the twentieth century. His publications include The Japanese in War and Peace, 1942-48 (Global Oriental, 2011), Japanese Envoys in Britain, 1862-1964 (Global Oriental, 2007) and Japanese Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period (Praeger Studies of Foreign Policies, 2002).