Envisioning Democracy : The Visual Transformation of Emperor Hirohito from War to Peace
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概要
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In the field of U.S. Foreign Relations History, many scholars have focused their interpretative analyses on the U.S. occupation of Japan 1945-1952. Historical perspectives of this period varied from social histories examining the rise of women's rights to more standardized political histories with Douglas MacArthur's General Headquarters usually at the forefront of analysis. Likewise, the period of warfare prior to Japan's surrender has also received much attention from scholars across the historiographical spectrum. Few however, besides John Dower's Embracing Defeat, have sought to examine the continuity between the two historical periods in U.S.-Japanese foreign relations. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the larger study of this continuity where psychological warfare became a means of bridging the gap between war and peace. Drawing on the larger historical body of literature from established scholars in the field like John Dower and Eiji Takemae whose works primarily focus on the role of GHQ in post-war Japan, this paper utilizes psychological warfare in the form of propaganda in the media as a primary mode of analysis. In order to establish a viable methodological basis for analysis, the paper discusses the recent contributions of Allison B. Gilmore and Barak Kushner. Gilmore's You Can't Fight Tanks with Bayonets provides a solid analysis of the U.S. psychological warfare campaign against the Japanese during WWII while Kushner's Thought War offers an alternative perspective of Japanese propaganda in the military and society. Therefore, this paper draws from their studies and seeks to adapt their modes of analysis to the period of post-war occupation, examining several newspaper articles and images. Historical analysis alone however, is insufficient for understanding the greater meaning of each article and image. As a result, the author of this paper referred to visual culture studies and theories in order to contextualize how various images and articles of the emperor acted as propaganda for the democratization of Japan. Democratization was perhaps the most important reform of GHQ and their message was often delivered to the common people of Japan via newspaper articles and images that contained encoded visual messages that referred them to the American democratic message. Whether officially sponsored by SCAP or even self-generated by the media and Japanese government, newspapers, movies, and other forms of media became information highways in regards to the democratic message and acted as a form of "peace- time psychological warfare." Ultimately, this paper seeks to contribute to a greater study of psychological warfare during the U.S. Occupation of Japan. Following the introduction, the paper examines the contributions of Gilmore and Kushner to the greater historiography of U.S. foreign relations. Section three draws on visual culture studies for an enhanced analysis of mass media textual and visual messages to the public 1945-1952. Finally, section four assembles several articles and images of Emperor Hirohito and analyzes the encoded messages contained within them that acted as propaganda for democratizing Japanese society and politics. The conclusion simply seeks to illuminate the broader implications and the need for understanding how psychological warfare and propaganda was utilized during the occupation period to democratize the Japanese people in much the same way as it was used to coerce Japanese soldiers and military leaders to submit to the American military during WWII.
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