post-311 japan and the radical recontextualization of value- music, social media, and end-around...

International Journal of Japanese Sociology Num

ber 20 Novem

ber 2011

Contents

Number 20, November 2011

EDITOR’S NOTEDaisaburo Hashizume 1

SPECIAL ISSUE—COOL JAPAN

IntroductionIan Condry and Yuiko Fujita 2

Post-3/11 Japan and the Radical Recontextualization of Value: Music, Social Media, and End-Around Strategies for Cultural ActionIan Condry 4

Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of JapanLaura Miller 18

The Pitfall Facing the Cool Japan Project: The Transnational Development of the Anime Industry under the Condition of Post-FordismYoshitaka Mo–ri 30

Fabricating Japaneseness? The Identity Politics of Young Designers and Artists in Global CitiesYuiko Fujita 43

Can Cool Japan save Post-Disaster Japan? On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool JapanologyJonathan E. Abel 59

ARTICLE

Relative Rank-order of Salient Identities of the JapaneseRyotaro Uemura 73

AWARDED ARTICLES

2003 JSS Award winner: Article Division

Representations of “the West,” “Japan,” and “the Periphery” in the Discourse of Lafcadio Hearn StudiesYoshiaki Fukuma 89

2010 JSS Award winner: Article Division

Social Integration in Post-Multiculturalism: An Analysis of Social Integration Policy in Post-war BritainSatoshi Adachi 107

2010 JSS Award Winner: Book Division

Sekinin To Shakai: Fuho Koi Sekinin No Imi O Meguru Arasoi (The Meaning of Tort Liability in Japan: A Sociological Exploration): Summary by the AuthorJun Tsunematsu 121

BOOK REVIEWS 124

ISSN 0918-7545

Number 20 November 2011

The Japan Sociological Society


Introduction

Post-3/11 Japan and the Radical Recontextualization of Value: Music, Social Media, and End-Around Strategies for Cultural Action

Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan

The Pitfall Facing the Cool Japan Project: The Transnational Development of the Anime Industry under the Condition of Post-Fordism

Fabricating Japaneseness? The Identity Politics of Young Designers and Artists in Global Cities

Can Cool Japan save Post-Disaster Japan? On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool Japanology

001_ijjs_v20_i1_OC_8.01mm.indd 1 10/13/2011 5:45:32 PM

International Journal of Japanese Sociology2011, Number 20

Contents

Number 20, November 2011

EDITOR’S NOTEDaisaburo Hashizume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1


IntroductionIan Condry and Yuiko Fujita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Post-3/11 Japan and the Radical Recontextualization of Value: Music, Social Media, and End-Around Strategies for Cultural ActionIan Condry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of JapanLaura Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

The Pitfall Facing the Cool Japan Project: The Transnational Development of the Anime Industry under the Condition of Post-FordismYoshitaka Mo–ri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Fabricating Japaneseness? The Identity Politics of Young Designers and Artists in Global CitiesYuiko Fujita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Can Cool Japan save Post-Disaster Japan? On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool JapanologyJonathan E . Abel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

ARTICLE

Relative Rank-order of Salient Identities of the JapaneseRyotaro Uemura . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

© 2011 The AuthorInternational Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society

101-102_ijjs_v20_i1_toc.indd 1 10/13/2011 5:47:50 PM

Introduction

Does the idea of “Cool Japan” have a placein a post-3/11 world? The images of thetsunami and the ensuing devastation havebeen etched in the minds of people aroundthe globe, and one wonders whether this sin-gular event will permanently transform theimage of Japan, both at home and abroad. Inthe wake of the “triple disaster,” could it bethat Japan will go from kakkoii (cool) toyabai (dangerous)? This special issue of theInternational Journal of Japanese Sociology,co-edited by researchers from Japan and theUSA, draws together articles from bothcountries in an effort to imagine possiblefutures for analysis for these and other ques-tions related to Japan’s global status. Takentogether, the articles show that Cool Japanwas never a singular designation, nor wasit necessarily all that it seemed, and sothe authors take different, though comple-mentary, approaches. Each offers a criticalperspective on various aspects of thepopular in Japan, whether music, animation,manga, fashion, or art, to explore waysof re-evaluating “cool” in light of recentdevelopments.ijjs_1143 2..3

The article by Ian Condry uses examplesfrom Japanese popular culture to examinethe dynamic interplay between social con-texts and cultural action. He argues thatmusic provides a model for cultural move-ments that do not attack power directly, butrather operate through a slippery, insidious,“end-around” strategy of change that gainsits force from recontextualizing social logics.The elements of “cool” are less importantthan the lessons to be taken from looking athow framing cultural production producesnew kinds of value. Some features of musicforeshadow a few of the contemporarydevelopments in social media, and maypoint to untapped potentials for subverting,

and possibly transforming, enduring struc-tures of power and inequality.

The next article by Laura Miller contrib-utes to an understanding of genderedaspects of Cool Japan ideology as found ingovernment-sponsored texts and imagery,as well as in other international arenas. Shedemonstrates that Cool Japan reifies andofficially promotes male geek culture, bydisplacing to the margins female innova-tions and creativity in cultural production.This discussion shows that Cool Japan’sotaku (obsessive fan) ethos tends to erase,trivialize, or ignore women and girls who failto conform to a narrow model of cute femi-ninity. Cool Japan ideology, as promoted bygovernment officials among others, thuspromotes enduring structures of genderstratification.

The next two articles focus on the tran-snational production system of media andcultural products, and problematize the wayin which the Japanese government natural-izes national borders. Yoshitaka Mori drawsattention to the transnational division oflabor in the production of “Japanese”anime, examining how the anime industrydeveloped since the mid-1960s to thepresent. The international connections inboth production and consumption of Japa-nese popular culture indicate that we needmore nuanced understandings of globaliza-tion and of meanings of the popular.Although anime is seen both as a culturalproduct from Japan and as an export in therecent Cool Japan promotion projects thatthe Japanese government is now pursuing,in fact, anime has been a very hybridizedproduct in the transnational productionsystem, in particular relying on workers inSouth Korea and China. As these countriesdevelop their own animation industries,

International Journal of Japanese Sociology doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6781.2011.01143.x2011, Number 20

© 2011 The AuthorsInternational Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society

there could be a further erosion in thealready difficult position of Japaneseanimators.

The research conducted by Yuiko Fujitalooks at another side of Cool Japan, namely,fashion, design, and contemporary art,based on in-depth interviews with youngprofessional artists and designers working inLondon, New York, and Paris. She exploreshow these practitioners negotiate their cul-tural identities in subtle ways. They oftenresist the pressure to represent Japan, butthey have to do so strategically given theconstant expectation by those in the mediaand art worlds of the West, as well as thosein Japan, which constantly remind the publicthat such artists are expected to be“Japanese.”

Finally, Jonathon E.Abel’s essay discussesthe possibilities (and impossibilities) of a“Cool Japanology.” He offers a reading ofdifferent dimensions of “cool” and cautionsagainst defining a field of study around CoolJapan, a stance, he notes, that instantly turnsits object of study into something “uncool.”As an alternative, he uses the example ofthe 2009 anime film Summer Wars to giveinsight into thinking about otaku, hikiko-mori (shut-ins), and collective action. It ishere that he finds reason for optimism.

What these essays share is an urge to gobeyond the common formulations of CoolJapan that have been in circulation since2002, when the journalist Douglas McGraycoined the term “gross national cool.”At thetime, he argued that the global strength ofthe nation’s popular culture meant thatJapan was “reinventing superpower,” andsome media watchers and government offi-cials took him at his word. Meanwhile, inacademia, widening efforts to include moremedia and popular culture in the formalstudy of Japan has been a welcome additionto more traditional approaches to thecountry through literature and cinema. Butas the essays collected here make clear, theexcitement over Japanese popular culture’sability to connect people around the world

has been tempered by a realization thatpopularity can lead to new kinds of distor-tions as well. The goal of including moretypes of cultural production in the study ofJapan has still left out many people, includ-ing young women and their creative provo-cations, as Miller points out. Similarly, anemphasis on anime as “Japanese” can ineffect erase the substantial contributionsother Asian people have made, and con-tinue to make, to animation production.Fujita shows that Japan’s visibility on theglobal stage can limit the freedom of Japa-nese artists, some of whom feel hemmed inby stereotypical understandings of what thenation represents. Abel and Condry drawattention to the spaces around “cool” in aneffort to track broader social dynamics.

The authors collected here represent onlya small fraction of academic work world-wide that is interested in re-evaluating CoolJapan. We, the editors, hope this collectioncan make a small contribution to thosebroader efforts. We remain confident that afocus on global media and popular culture isa valuable direction for research, provided,of course, that we maintain a critical stanceand keep a focus on the people most directlyimpacted by the kinds of analysis thatunfolds. In that regard, the dynamics of CoolJapan, regardless of the longevity of theterm itself, should provide clues for the cul-tural connections, dangerous distortions,and critical potential of popular culture in away that can contribute to the rebuildingand rethinking of Japan’s challenges in theaftermath of 3/11.At least, that is our desire.

Ian CondryMassachusetts Institute of Technology,

Comparative Media Studies,Room 14N-314,

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA02139, USA. Email: [email protected]

Yuiko FujitaMeiji University, Research Building 153,

1-9-1 Eifuku Suginamiku, Tokyo 168-8555,Japan. Email: [email protected]

Introduction 3

© 2011 The AuthorsInternational Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society

Post-3/11 Japan and the RadicalRecontextualization of Value: Music, Social

Media, and End-Around Strategies forCultural Action

IAN CONDRY

Abstract: The disasters of 3/11 provoked a global outpouring of emotion towardsthe suffering in Japan. In many ways, this singular event seemed to refigure themeanings of community and technology by drawing attention to the fragility ofhuman control in times of disaster. Although the long-term consequences remainuncertain, this radical recontextualization of value points to a way of thinkingabout broader processes of change, a contrast to cultural analysis that proceedsby directly critiquing structures of power on their own terms. If we look toprocesses whereby a new context can be the impetus that undermines seem-ingly entrenched interests, we might find inspiration for alternative forms ofcritique and action. Music provides a model for cultural movements that do notattack power directly, but rather operate through this kind of slippery, insidious,“end-around” strategy of change that gains its force from recontextualizing sociallogics. These features of music foreshadow some of the contemporary devel-opments in social media, and may point to untapped potentials for subverting,and possibly transforming, enduring structures of power and inequality.ijjs_1144 4..17

Keywords: music, social media, cultural action

Introduction

In a recent essay, the novelist Junot Diazdiscusses the power of natural disasters,especially in light of the Haiti earthquake ofJanuary 2010, in terms of their ability toopen our eyes. They give us a chance, hesays,“to see the aspects of our world that weas a society seek to run from, that we hidebehind veils of denials” (Diaz, 2011). Henotes that natural disasters are always“social disasters,” that is, disasters made pos-sible by “the often-invisible societal choicesthat implicate more than those beingdrowned or buried in the rubble” (Diaz,

2011). With natural disasters we encountera radical recontextualization of our dailyassumptions. We are brought face-to-facewith our precarious positions in an unpre-dictable world, and reminded of the impor-tance of re-calibrating our understandingsof the sources of our collective well-being.

If we are to identify innovative ways ofbringing about social change, we mightbenefit by thinking of critique in terms ofhighlighting new contexts. We can see thisby considering the dynamics of music, andby extension social media. Music and socialmedia are similar in the sense that they bothdraw our attention away from media as

International Journal of Japanese Sociology doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6781.2011.01144.x2011, Number 20


packaged or broadcast object, and towardsquestions of performativity and the net-worked interactions between artists, fans,and other participants in a community ofshared interests and activity. Music slidesfluidly between categories, a kind floatingfree radical that can attach to diverseprojects: neoliberal copyright enforcementversus communitarian piracy networks,soundtracks with reactionary or progressivemessages, local or global identity forma-tions, almost always imbued with markers ofrace, class, and gender. In this respect, musicprovides a fascinating perspective on “socialmedia” by showing us that the social inmedia is best viewed as an analyticalapproach on what media does, rather thanas the capabilities of particular online plat-forms. Facebook no more defines “socialmedia” than the compact disk defines“music.” Rather, Twitter, YouTube, NicoNico Dôga and the rest give us a new senseof media not as something we watch, butas something we do, a “doing” that gainsmeaning from our embeddedness in specificsocial networks. If we view this as a changein context rather than a change in form, wemight gain insight into new kinds of socialdynamics that can emerge when unusualconnections are made. In this essay, I wantto explore what “radical recontextualiza-tion” might suggest for alternative routes tochange.

Questions of context become especiallysignificant in thinking about contemporaryJapan following the 11 March 2011 earth-quake. Nascent anti-nuclear power activismcame to life in the context of FukushimaDaiichi’s ongoing crisis, and we might see inthis a reminder that change can be nearer athand than we might think. Radical shifts inour assumptions can alter what we valueand how we act, sometimes through thelinking of once-disparate spheres. In thatspirit, I use an eclectic range of examples:disaster in Japan, new directions in Japanesehip-hop, the excesses of neoliberalism, andthe unlikely success of a crowd-sourced

virtual idol. Overall, I am interested in end-around strategies for social change, and I aminspired by the ways radical recontextual-ization can force us to reconsider the work-ings of value within competing culturallogics.

Japan’s Triple Disaster

The people in Japan now face what is beingcalled a “triple disaster” of earthquake,tsunami, and nuclear crisis. The tsunamiappears to have wreaked the most havoc,devastating entire communities in parts ofJapan’s northeast (Tôhoku) region, killingaround 25 000 people, and leaving hundredsof thousands homeless. Like so manypeople, I was stunned watching the videofootage of a black wall of water, carryingburning houses, tossing around cars andboats, and pushing forward a liquid ava-lanche of debris that swallowed everythingin its path (Fig. 1).

I was reminded that our existence on thehuman scale, where I spend most of my timethinking and living, is small and fragile whencompared to the planetary scale of shiftingtectonic plates and vast oceans. Addition-ally, the crisis at the Fukushima nuclearreactors highlights frightening limits ofhuman control in dealing with complexitiesof nuclear fission. At the same time, while

Figure 1. Footage of the 11 March 2011

tsunami on YouTube

Post-3/11 Japan and Radical Recontextualization 5


newspapers in the USA focus on the nuclearcrisis and the disaster relief efforts in thenorth (or lack thereof), friends and col-leagues who live in Tokyo reported that adifferent source of anxiety plagued them.Even more than fears of radioactivity, theyfound that the ongoing aftershocks, which inother times would be reported as majorearthquakes, kept them constantly on edge.Something happens when our everydayframes of understanding are overrun by aradical shift in context.

Of course, the impacts of large-scaleevents like “natural disasters” depend tre-mendously on a history of human decision-making, economic development, and othersocial factors. Consider the contrastbetween the devastation from the 7.0 earth-quake in January 2010 in Haiti, with esti-mates of between 100 000 and 300 000 dead,or the quake in the Sichuan region of China(at least 68 000 dead from an 8.0 quake),including the unthinkable tragedy of thou-sands of schoolchildren (almost all fromone-child families) crushed in faulty schoolbuildings. The massive tsunami caused by a9.2 earthquake in the Indian Ocean inDecember 2004 is estimated to have causedaround 227 000 deaths, mostly in Indonesia.In northeastern Japan, recent estimates ofcasualties are much lower, thanks in part totechnological advances in earthquake-resistant buildings and tsunami warningsystems. Economic and technological devel-opment may turn out to be a double-edgedsword, as we wait to see how the nuclearcrisis will unfold (Fig. 2).

In any event, these spectacles of humansuffering across our television and computerscreens clearly cause an outpouring ofemotion, a sense that the world is not as itshould be, and this prompts a desire to dosomething. As a “singular event” that willshape Japan for years, if not decades,to come,we have the opportunity to think abouthow moments like this can be catalysts forchange. Since the devastating Indian Oceantsunami of 2004, I have often wondered, and

now I am reminded again, of how thingsmight be different if we viewed ourselvesliving in a post-tsunami world, rather thana post-9/11 world. What if America’s “waron terror” were instead a “war on humansuffering”? How different would the USgovernment’s policies around “security” and“global connectedness” be?

Natural disasters operate as focal pointsin media spectacles, and the volatility ofemotional responses can ripple through thesocial and economic fabric of our world inunexpected ways. Media activist and scholarStephen Duncombe argues that progres-sives could learn from the efficacy ofutopian media spectacles, even adoptingthem as vehicles for progressive changethrough the portrayal of how people’s hopesand dreams can be realized (Duncombe,2007). Social disasters are a different kind ofrevelation, portraying instead the humanwork that still needs to be done.

Many musicians worldwide responded tothe disaster with lyrics about the emotionalweight of the tragedy and hopes for abrighter figure. For example, consider theselyrics from a rapper called Toshihiro in hiscollaboration with SIN (pronounced“shin”). They released this song “RisingSun—Pray for Japan” for free online, laterselling it on iTunes and donating the moneyto disaster relief.

Figure 2. Radiation fears, NY Times, 19 March

2011, article by Ken Belson

Ian Condry6


SIN (Kaminari) “Rising

Sun—Pray for Japan,”

first verse

(NCC) Toshihiro (NCC crew)What’s hypocrisy?

What can you see?mother

f*cking days of stomping, helplessmixed with a sigh,

because we also are blessed

how is my familydoing? where are my friends?

the crowds wandering,stressed and alone

feet running faster, pulseclimbing higher

a back-and-forth ofemotion and information

a wave of fear sneakingup unnoticed

when time and dailylife came to a stop

stolen dreams and hopesdarkness lit by an

uncommon earthit’s time to ask our-

selves, what matters?1

The video shows many of the strikingimages of the disaster: burning houses float-ing in a black morass of tsunami water, theflooding of Sendai airport, the explosions atFukushima Daiichi. As we hear in this song,there is a sense that the context for thinkingabout hopes and dreams has changed, andthe rapper feels an urge to re-evaluate whatreally matters. It is this emphasis on valueand rearranged contexts that is suggestivefor thinking more broadly about culturalpolitics today.

How many billionaires does it take?Traditional politics through governmentsseem increasingly ill-equipped for dealing

with the challenges facing the world’s popu-lation today, whether with the microdynam-ics of global poverty or with macro-storms,such as climate change, on the horizon. InJapan, the failure of the government to dealwith the scale and scope of the triple disas-ter reinforces the idea that political institu-tions are lacking in ability, even if they havegood intentions. Meanwhile, the globalorder in recent decades has led to an inten-sification of a process that the songwriterLeonard Cohen identified years ago: “Thepoor stay poor, the rich get rich/That’s howit goes, and everybody knows.” Diaz’s essaynotes this widening inequality as well: the“World Bank reports that in 1960 the percapita GDP of the twenty richest countrieswas eighteen times greater than that of thetwenty poorest. By 1995 that number hadreached 37.” Even within wealthy countrieslike the US and Japan, the divide betweenwinners and losers is widening. We do notneed more proof that globalization contin-ues to be an engine of increasing inequality;the question is what to do about it.

Why not a direct redistribution of wealth?At MIT, Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee andothers have created the Poverty Action Lab,which aims to assess empirically the effectsof different strategies for economic devel-opment among the very poor (povertyac-tionlab.org). In their book Poor Economics,their idea for a “radical rethinking of theway to fight global poverty” is described interms of the importance of empirical studiesof what works (Banerjee and Duflo, 2011),but could be read as well as a reminder ofthe need to look closely and sensitively atthe desires and hopes of the poor them-selves in the contexts in which they live. Inother words, change comes by dealing withcontexts as well as actions. In that spirit, Ithink we also need an Anti-Wealth ActionLab, which would work to take money fromthe ultra-rich to share with those less fortu-nate, or at least to do more to bring thediscussion of the needs of the poor into con-versation with the expansion of the super-



rich. Forbes magazine reported in 2010 thatthe world saw a growth in the number ofbillionaires, now 1011 of them, and that “lastyear’s economic wasteland has been a bil-lionaire bonanza. Most of the richest peopleon the planet saw their fortunes soar in thepast year” (Miller and Kroll, 2010). In what-ever forms in which we imagine contempo-rary empire to take, surely this is one aspectof it. These spectacular outrages of excessaccumulation continue, yet somehow theold idea of direct redistribution of thiswealth never gets off the ground. It wouldbe “naïve,” as people say.2 The rich and pow-erful are simply too rich and powerful toallow change, at least that is the commonargument.

I wonder, though, to what extent mightthis be learned helplessness? As I readDavid Harvey’s A Brief History of Neolib-eralism, I get a clear sense of the interlock-ing forces that give ideas of “freedom,”especially the “free market,” such traction,but I am not sure that identifying thesepower structures is the best way to trans-form them (Harvey, 2005).The cultural logicbegins to seem all-encompassing and all-powerful. We might learn from a loosereading of Karl Marx: he was right aboutcapitalism, but wrong about revolution. Heaccurately describes the exploitation thatarises from the concentration of power inthe hands of those who control the means ofproduction, but he was wrong in predictingthat a clear understanding of this injusticewould lead to proletarian revolt. Arguably,the Marxist critique of global capital is nowaccepted as commonsense. Corporationsprofit by extracting surplus value from thelabor of workers. A statement like thatdoesn’t lead to revolt; it is viewed as corpo-rations’ responsibility to improve “share-holder value” (Harvey, 2005; Ho, 2009).When critique becomes commonsensewithout initiating change, new forms of cri-tique are needed.

An intriguing example of change involvespolicies and practices around smoking in

public spaces. I am still amazed to walk intomusic clubs in Boston and New York andfind the air not filled with smoke. I neverthought it would happen. For years, I hadheard that the tobacco companies were toowealthy and powerful, and that they coulduse their lobbyists to control lawmakers insuch a way that public policy would sidewith the industry on almost all issues. (Thisis something we hear about the US handgunindustry as well.) At the risk of oversimpli-fying a more complicated process, “second-hand smoke” became a lightning rod thatattracted attention and changed the equa-tion of public smoking. What once wasviewed as an individual right (to smoke andkill myself if I want to) became transformedinto an infringement on the rights of others(to live and work in safe environments). Itseemed like overnight that the music clubswhere I often spend my time went fromchoking, smoke-filled boxes, to smoke-freespaces that now smell more like ammonia,rotting beer, and sweat. This change isspreading globally as well, albeit in fits andstarts, and even in Japan, smokers areincreasingly segregated into closed rooms attrain stations and at work.

What’s most interesting is that the changecame about without challenging the UStobacco lobby on its own terms. Anti-smoking activists didn’t accumulate amassive war chest of money to pay lobbyiststo prod lawmakers to change their mindsabout smoking directly. Rather, the idea of“secondhand smoke” operated as a kind ofend-around play (i.e., not charging up themiddle of the defense, to use a footballmetaphor). If we want a change in thedynamics of global and local inequalities,the underlying issues of social disasters, thenwe need more of these game-changing solu-tions that not only assemble the “factors inthe equation,” but change the very nature ofthe equation itself.

Social media offers numerous opportuni-ties for similar kinds of end-around plays,enabling new kinds of organizing and com-

Ian Condry8


munication. We have seen that remarkablyin the “Arab Spring,” especially in Egyptand Tunisia, albeit with long-term conse-quences very much uncertain. Still, we seethat change depends not only on under-standing the structures of power, but also ondetermining what alternative structures ofaction can emerge. It may mean lookingin unlikely places, and it certainly meansconsidering unintended consequences. (Tobe honest, I had always assumed thatthe USA would deal with its handgunproblem—upwards of 50 000 deaths peryear—before its problem of smoky bars andrestaurants. I also wish the anti-smokingchanges could have been less all-or-nothing;such radical shifts seem particularly unfor-giving once set in motion.) Music, it seemsto me, can provide clues to this by illustrat-ing some of the potentials of social mediafor creating new sources of meaning by gen-erating new contexts for discussion, sharing,and exchange.

An important analytical step then may beto consider competing formulations of valueand action, and to see how they can beamplified, extended, and put to work. Alongthese lines, cultural anthropologist andanti-globalization activist David Graeberencourages us “to look at social systems asstructures of creative action, and value, ashow people measure the importance oftheir own actions within such structures”(Graeber, 2001: 230). Through this logicalstep, the terms of social change—system,structure, value, and action—become avail-able for us to define in ways that need nottake as their starting point “neoliberalism”or the “global system” as singular contextsfor social life. “Value” as defined by the“free market” does a very poor job, in myopinion, of explaining the motivations forraising a child, participating in amateursports, becoming an academic, or startingout as an artist. Arguably, we move throughdivergent universes of value at all times.Still, a caveat is in order. Graeber’s theoreti-cal reformulation of “value” in relation to

structures of creative action only gives us acertain kind of tool, not the solution to ourproblems. It remains to be seen what can bedone with these tools.

Transmedia Musicians

and the Faltering Empire

of Copyright

Music and neoliberalism intersect aroundquestions of copyright. Much of the historyof empire revolves around issues of controland profiteering, so too with copyright, andmusic is analytically slippery in this context.As many have noted, copyright rests uneas-ily on paradoxical goals of private rights andpublic progress (Lessig, 2004; Vaidhy-anathan, 2004; McLeod, 2005). Accordingto the so-called copyright clause of theUS Constitution, the idea is “To promotethe Progress of Science and useful Arts,by securing for limited Times to Authorsand Inventors the exclusive Right to theirrespective Writings and Discoveries”(Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8). In this, copy-right confers a limited monopoly to creators,and also encodes a theory of cultural action.But is monopoly on property the best wayto promote “Progress”? Even for thosewho answer “yes,” the affordances of ourdigital present mean that eliminating onlinesharing is really not an option.

Music is “slippery” because it does notchoose sides. The recording industry madeenormous profits in the 1990s with the peakof the compact disk, but music also led theway in illustrating the enthusiasm for(choose your characterization) Internetpiracy/unauthorized sharing, which took offwith Napster in 1999. After Napster wasshut down by a court injunction, I recall arecord industry executive quoted in a news-paper saying, “Napster seemed to good tobe true, and it was.” Now, however, it lookslike the CD was too good to be true for the



recording industry.When CDs first came outin 1982, the price for an album was sethigher than the then-leading format cassettetapes. There was good reason. CDs wereexpensive to produce and they offeredadvantages over tapes, including “randomaccess,” a more durable media package, andhigher-fidelity sound. But when the cost ofproducing CDs dropped dramatically in the1990s, the price to consumers went largelyunchanged, and the cash flow within recordcompanies increased dramatically. I am notsaying the record companies “got what theydeserved,” but we should be careful in howwe interpret the difficulties faced by recordcompanies today, especially if the 1990s areregarded as the norm.

For some copyleft activists,Napster and itsspawn were reason to cheer. Decentralized,democratic, and anti-capitalist, the varietiesof peer-to-peer file-sharing demonstratesome of the possibilities of crowdsourcedgoodness. A “celestial jukebox,” it was oncecalled;now, the wisdom of the“cloud.”Whilethe tech companies who enable this continueto change, the demise of Napster, Kazaa, andothers has not led to the collapse of thesocial, that is to say human, networks thatinsist on sharing copyrighted materials, notjust music, but also TV, film, video games,software, books, anime, manga, and of courseporn. The platforms change, but as long asthere are creators desired by audiences,media communication will continue. In thisregard, music, which in media studies oftenseems relegated to the status of a lessercousin seated behind film and television,maybe better regarded as the predictive earlyadopter, a bellwether of the future. If that isthe case,where might music be heading now?

Japanese Hip-Hop and

Contexts for Creative Action

Hip-hop in Japan is an example of whatmany viewed as an unlikely emergence.

When I began my doctoral research onJapanese rap musicians in 1994, manyexperts, such as music magazine writers andrecord company professionals, told me thathip-hop would never take off in Japan. Somepeople find it odd that Japan has domestic,local-language rap musicians, often, I think,because these skeptics view the (stereotypi-cal) culture of hip-hop, with its braggadocio,gun play, and drug use, as unsuited to thecontext of Japan’s (stereotypical) culture ofreticence, non-violence, and inhibition. Theimplicit assumption is that culture is a set ofpatterns that we inhabit, rather than a kindof “field of debate,” that is, a living system ofcommunication that is complexly linked tospecific social and historical contexts. Ifound, however, that specific social contextsfor performance, especially nightclubs,provide an explanation for cultural mixturesthat some view as contradictory (Condry,2006). In my fieldwork in Tokyo clubs andrecording studios, for a year and a half start-ing in 1995, and with at least annual visitssince then, I found that Japan’s rap musicscene developed through competitionbetween families of rap groups, who builtfollowings over time through specific clubevents. These loose collectives graduallydefined divergent trends in local hip-hop,such as party rap versus underground/hardcore styles, or regional variationsbetween Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo,and Okinawa (to name a few). Some ofthese artists broke into pop music stardom,but more generally the scene developedunder the radar of mainstream media.

The flow of hip-hop around the world isan example of “globalization from below” inthe sense of not being driven by major gov-ernments or corporations (at least at first).The paths of this globalization in Japan ledthrough the nightclubs, where musicians,fans, writers, record company execs, andorganizers came together to network, social-ize, and have fun. These “genba” or “actualsites” constitute the contexts in which hip-hop is actualized through performance. In

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these spaces, Japanese rappers appeal toimages of global American blacknessthrough their clothing, lyrical styles, physi-cality, sometimes even kinking their hair ortanning their skin, and this performativity ofrace is central to hip-hop (Fig. 3). What isinstructive are the ways that performativecontexts both enable and shape the kinds ofcultural action taking place, giving value andmeaning to such performances by youngJapanese artists, and naturalizing their pres-ence over time by producing devoted fans aswell.

As the CD era gives way to a mobile,digital future, the power of record compa-nies is on the wane, and musicians areincreasingly broadening their connectionsacross media platforms. In addition to a wid-ening reliance on live events, musicians areincreasingly working with other mediaoutlets, such as video game companies and,in Japan, anime producers, in an effort tobuild transmedia alliances as a response tothe decline in package (CD) sales.An onlinemusic consultancy called E-Talent Bankuses manga (comics) designed to be viewedon cell phones to portray in visual form thelyrics of musicians they want to promote.When I lived in Japan in the fall of 2010, aboom in “anime songs” (or ani songu) washighlighted by many record company ana-lysts. Songs used in anime series as openingor closing theme songs, or songs inspired bycertain series, bucked the trends and soldwell, the theory goes, because anime fansare part of a collector culture that still

desires objects, so music is purchased alongwith figurines and other character-relatedmerchandise. Whatever the reason, thisdevelopment has helped push record labelsand artists to consider the possibilities ofnon-traditional vehicles for music.

We can see this trend in individual musi-cians as well. Miss Monday, a female rapperwhose career I have followed since 1995,went from being a backup dancer in thenineties to a solo artist in her own right inthe 2000s, releasing eight albums and gradu-ally building a fan base that buys her musicacross platforms. As CD sales declined inthe early 2000s, Monday scored hits withtwo songs for mobile phone ringtones. Atone point, when she was between recordcontracts, she and her manager worked withan independent design company calledFloating Moon and cut a deal with San Rioto release Miss Monday/Hello Kitty-branded towels to sell at concerts. Thedesign? Miss Monday’s signature perm afrowas drawn onto Hello Kitty (Fig. 4). Weshould note that his recontextualization ofthe Afro as Hello Kitty merchandise risksdisguising (or even erasing) the meaning ofan Afro as a political statement in the USA.Again, we can see that new contexts involveboth gain and loss.

In other ways, Miss Monday has sought tobuild connections away from music salesalone. A song she released in the summer of2010 was written as the theme music for aJapanese professional basketball team, the

Figure 3. Miss Monday from music video

“Believe” (2010) Figure 4. Miss Monday/Hello Kitty

cross-branding



Hitachi Sun Rockers.As further evidence ofa shift to new media styles, this was also thefirst song that she personally released onYouTube.

Media scholar Henry Jenkins has writtenpersuasively about “transmedia storytell-ing” as a revolution in the ways stories aretold through media, across platforms, suchthat each medium can do what it does best(Jenkins, 2006). For Jenkins, it is the “story”or the “world” that gives coherence acrossmedia platforms. I would argue that what wecall “transmedia” might be better viewed asfurther evidence of the centrality of thesocial in media. Our connections to otherpeople are naturally “transmedia;” we don’tthink a person is different depending onwhether we talk via phone or email. In otherwords, coherence may have more to do withthe social relationships we have, rather thanwith something internal to a story or world.In fact, there need not even be a celebritylike Miss Monday herself at the center toattract attention; some forms of popularculture can emerge from the crowd itself.

Hatsune Miku: Virtual Idol as

Social Media

Case in point: Hatsune Miku, Japan’s mostsuccessful virtual idol. She is 16-years-old,she has blue hair, and she doesn’t exist. Orrather, her existence comes from the energyof a community of people who created hersongs and her music. She demonstrates newpossibilities for an unusual model of musicalproduction—the crowd-sourced idol—andalso the value of not monopolizing controlas a path to success. Others extol the virtuesof free culture (Lessig, 2008),Wikipedia-likecollaboration (Shirky, 2008), and the freesoftware movement (Kelty, 2008), but Mikuseems to be a somewhat different breed, andworth some consideration in her own right.She may be the harbinger of an emergingform of pop creativity.

Miku appeared in August 2007 as anexpansion module associated with musicsynthesizer software called Vocaloid, ini-tially released in 2004. Vocaloid is differentthan other music synth software in that youcan type in words and melody to makemusic with computer-sung lyrics. Yamahamakes Vocaloid, but a small Sapporo-basedcompany called Crypton Future Mediadeveloped the Miku voice. Miku was thefirst in Crypton’s “character vocal series,”and the release was accompanied by theposting of a cartoon character image withcostume and some biographical details(Fig. 5).The site says that she is 16 years old,158 cm tall (5′2″), and weighs 42 kg (92 lbs),and adds that her specialty is “idol pops anddance-style pop music.”

Significantly, Crypton decided not tocontrol the use of this image, and insteadencouraged Miku’s song creators to use theimage for fan-made works. Over the pastseveral years, a huge number of fans havemade songs featuring Miku, and many ofthese are posted as music videos to the Japa-nese video-sharing site Nico Nico Dôga (aname that combines the Japanese word for“smile” with “moving pictures”). Nicodo, asit is sometimes called, is similar to YouTube,except that it encourages users to add com-ments to the videos themselves so that thecomments scroll by as you watch the video.The most viewed Miku video has achievedmore than 8 million views, and the com-ments form a kind of cloud over the imagesthemselves (Fig. 6).

As Miku’s popularity grew, some musi-cians who created music using her voicebegan selling on iTunes. Crypton recentlyworked out a profit-sharing scheme so thatfan-made Miku songs that become hits canbe streamed to karaoke establishments inJapan.Various companies have been experi-menting with their own virtual idols sinceDate Kyoko’s debut in 1996, but centralizedproduction and control was not successful;crowd-sourced openness generated the firstvirtual idol star.

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It wasn’t long before major media compa-nies wanted in on the act. The Japanesevideo game powerhouse Sega createdgames under the “Project Diva” title that

built on the Miku phenomenon, including aseries of games for the handheld Sony Play-station Portable (PSP) and an arcade gameas well. In the fall of 2010, the new Project

Figure 5. Miku’s physical details, Crypton’s site (accessed 31 March 2011)

Figure 6. Most-viewed Miku video, Nico Nico Dôga & comment cloud



Diva consoles at one of the Sega arcades inthe Akihabara section of Tokyo were cor-doned off with a rope to control the crowds,and there were also notebooks set out sofans could contribute their own illustrationsof Miku for others to see. The games them-selves are a variety of the rhythm genrewhere you push buttons in time with themusic. In the arcade version of the game,the pretense is that you help Miku dance thecorrect moves (arms and legs) for her musicvideos.

One of the most remarkable elements ofthe Miku phenomenon, however, is the liveshow that Sega created to promote the videogames. The concerts featured a hologram-like image projected on-stage while a liveband (piano, drums, guitar, bass) playedbehind “her.” A video of the performanceshows a crowd of thousands, many wavingfluorescent glow sticks,going wild as she risesup out of the stage, and sings “The World isMine,” which features lyrics of her scoldingany would-be paramours to pay close atten-tion to her needs and desires (Fig. 7).

The Miku phenomenon can be interpretedin many ways, but what jumps out at me ishow the energy of a large community ofpeople can gravitate towards something thatis just an idea.This is social media in the sensethat the connections and actions of a commu-

nity are more central than the “message” orthe “means of transmission.” She is “trans-media,” certainly, but more importantly, sheis social without being real.3 Rather, we associal beings are eager to give our ownenergy (both in creating and listening toMiku songs), and that energy is infectiousand potentially empowering. Miku demon-strates that providing a means for participa-tion, sharing and community can be a way tochannel that energy into unexpected formsof creative action. The importance of Grae-ber’s definition of “value” and “structures ofcreative action” can be seen quite clearly inthis case because if we work from traditionalnotions of what prompts creativity (autho-rial control of copyright, for example) wecannot easily explain this phenomenon.Instead, we need Graeber’s idea that valueshould be defined by how people gauge theimportance of their own actions.

I would add, however, that there are wor-risome elements about the directions thisMiku creativity takes. I worry about theeroticized cartoon imagery for some of thesame reasons that Laura Miller, in this issue,criticizes the “male geek culture” often usedby government efforts to stand for “CoolJapan.” There is a risk that retrogradenotions of femininity get reproduced andcelebrated as if they stood for real women.

Figure 7. Miku “live” on stage and fans with glowsticks. See http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI (accessed 4 April 2011)

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Nevertheless,once there is a context in whicha critical mass of people cares about Miku,this alters the equation of creativity, openinga space for crowd-sourced innovation todevelop under a system of value that is not,atleast at first, driven by neoliberal greed.

In some ways, however, Miku is simplyan outgrowth of fan practices that can beseen in many other realms as well. Con-sider the enormous fan convention ComicMarket, which is held twice a year inTokyo. The largest, during 3 days each yearin August, draws upwards of half a millionvisitors who come to check out and pur-chase the fan-made works, mostly comicbooks but also video games, illustrationbooks, posters, figurines etc., which arecreated by the upwards of 30 000 smallgroups that participate.

An ethnographic study of Comic Marketby media scholar Nobushige Shichijo makesan interesting finding regarding the motiva-tions of those who make things to sell. Theorganizers of the Comic Market describe theaim of the convention as providing a spacefor free expression. Comic book publishers Iinterviewed in Japan described the ComicMarket as a place where people make moneyoff copyrighted characters owned by others.Shichijo’s findings, however, contradict bothunderstandings of the engine of ComicMarket. Instead, he found that participantsidentify their own motivation as primarily“It’s fun to make the works themselves”(50%) or, second,“It’s fun to have others seemy works” (27%). Only 8% said it wasbecause they had a “message they wanted toconvey” And far fewer said they do it formoney. In other words, the value of partici-pation in a community (or circle of friends)that cares is what makes the fan-made worksmeaningful. Here are the responses to hissurvey question: “Why do you make fan-made (dôjinshi) works?”

•– Because making works itself is fun•

– Because it’s fun to have others see myworks

•– Because I have a message or something to

emphasize•– Because it’s a chance to increase my

number of friends or fans•– As a kind of art activity, or as form of

expression•– To make money by selling my works•– Other.Source: (Shichijo, 2010: 23)

Anyone who participates in some ofthe do-it-yourself fan communities (animemusic videos, fansubs, fan art etc.) may findthis obvious. These insights are important,however, in helping us understand that cre-ating a social context for creative actioncan lead to the emergence of new forms ofvalue and practice. Miku illustrates anotherexample of an end-around strategy to trans-formative success.

Conclusion

For Japan, 3/11 will stand as a singular eventfor years to come. Not unlike other disastersbefore, those of us at a distance awake witha new sensitivity to a vastness of human suf-fering. The people in the disaster zones, andthose with family and friends there, face themost immediate trauma and uncertainty,creating ripples of concern through oursocial networks. Those of us further awaymay be more likely to experience the disas-ter as a kind of tragic spectacle, though onewith obvious human reality. Emotions gripus, and they leave a mark. It is natural thatwe want to help, “natural” because wehumans are social beings. But the disaster inJapan can also prompt feelings of helpless-ness, with many Americans wondering if a



$10 text message to Red Cross is the best wecan do. How might we transform our newmedia potentials to better take advantageof these feelings of solidarity tinged with asense of impotence?

A positive step might be towards viewingsocial media as a shift in context rather thana transformation in content. Might this be aprompt to change our understanding of howwe relate to the media around us? Televi-sion and YouTube can convey the visual epi-sodes, spectacles of disaster and struggle, butwhat has altered is (hopefully, ideally) ourability to talk back, or to speak around, inways that lead to deeper, more meaningfulengagement. I see social media as a provo-cation to participate in new ways, evendespite the limitations of the technology asit stands now. I share some of the same skep-ticism about social media as others—thesuperficiality of “friending” and the falsesatisfaction of “clicktivism”—but such cri-tiques focus on the limitations within thesystem as it stands, not the way it createsnew contexts for action that end-aroundstrategies may be able to exploit.

The shift around smoking in public pointsto a radical recontextualization as well.Those who opposed Big Tobacco did notwin by raising more money and hiring moreinfluential lobbyists; the change came from adifferent direction. It is oversimplified,perhaps, but we might learn from how theinnovative idea of “secondhand smoke”reframed the logic of harm (killing myself vskilling others), while maintaining a centrallogic of “freedom” and “rights.”“Context” isnot the only way to view this shift, butsomehow a changed context is related tothis subversion from the side.

Other examples around transmedia musi-cians and a virtual idol give us a sense thatdiscrimination and connectedness can beenacted in diverse ways. For musicians likeMiss Monday and for others reaching fansthrough live performances and transmediaconnections (manga, anime, games, prosports), music offers a way to connect,

regardless of the technological platformitself. Hatsune Miku illustrates that crowd-sourced creativity can generate a move-ment, a celebrity in her own right, yet onewhose rights are not owned by any indi-vidual or single corporate entity. Takentogether, I see these “end-around” strategiesas providing a form of social critique thatworks from radical recontextualization,rather than direct attack. Music’s ability tospread globally, sometimes in support ofimperialisms and sometimes at odds withimperialists’ best efforts, reminds us thatcategories of action are fluid and unstable,and that change may be closer at hand thanwe commonly assume.

Notes

1 For full song/video visit: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0qV3zaPbPY>.

2 Part of the problem, as anthropologist Karen Hoshows, is the cultural logic of (self-identified)“smart,” and usually white, workers at invest-ment banks: they learn to celebrate “liquida-tion,” an idea and a practice that has led tomassive downsizing and rampant job insecurity,as well as record corporate profits and soaringstock prices (Ho, 2009). The march towardsshareholder value dominates political discus-sion, inside and outside companies, and hencethe idea of changing that would be viewed asnaïve, and “out of touch.”

3 In a way, it explains something that I alwaysfound mysterious about celebrities. Why cansome musicians who seem to lack talent never-theless become such powerhouses of celebrity?We always try to explain such idols’ success interms of something special about them (even if itis just being “normal” or “typical,” the dream ofthe “singer next door”). In Japan, a commonexplanation for the success of unremarkableidols is that people can relate to someonewithout talent, and that makes them more like-able (Aoyagi, 2005). But the Miku phenomenonshows that neither internal talent nor an“approachable-ness” is necessary. An idol neednot have any personal magnetism at all, indeed,may not even need to exist.

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References

Aoyagi, Hiroshi. 2005. Islands of Eight MillionSmiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Produc-tion in Contemporary Japan. Cambridge:Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Banerjee, Abhijit V. and Esther Duflo. 2011.Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking ofthe Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York:PublicAffairs.

Condry, Ian. 2006. Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and thePaths of Cultural Globalization. Durham: DukeUniversity Press.

Diaz, Junot. 2011. “Apocalypse: What DisastersReveal.” Boston Review 36. (http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.3/junot_diaz_apocalypse_haiti_earthquake.php, accessed on22 July 2011).

Duncombe, Stephen. 2007. Dream: Re-ImaginingProgressive Politics in An Age of Fantasy. NewYork: New Press. Distributed by W.W. Norton.

Graeber, David. 2001. Toward An AnthropologicalTheory of Value: the False Coin of Our OwnDreams. New York: Palgrave.

Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberal-ism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ho, Karen Zouwen. 2009. Liquidated: An Ethnog-raphy of Wall Street. Durham: Duke UniversityPress.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: WhereOld and New Media Collide. New York: NewYork University Press.

Kelty, Christopher M. 2008. Two Bits: the CulturalSignificance of Free Software. Durham: DukeUniversity Press.

Lessig, Lawrence. 2004. Free Culture: How BigMedia Uses Technology and the Law to LockDown Culture and Control Creativity. NewYork: Penguin Press.

Lessig, Lawrence. 2008. Remix: Making Art andCommerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. NewYork: Penguin Press.

McLeod, Kembrew. 2005. Freedom of Expression:Overzealous Copyright Bozos and OtherEnemies of Creativity. New York: Doubleday.

Miller, Matthew and Luisa Kroll. 2010. “World’sRichest People: Bill Gates No Longer World’sRichest Man.” Forbes Magazine (online).(http: / /www.forbes .com/2010/03/09/worlds-richest-people-slim-gates-buffett-billionaires-2010-intro.html, accessed on 10 March 2011).

Shichijo, Nobushige. 2010. “Dôjinkai no ronri:kôisha no rigai, kanshin to shihon no henkan.”Kontentsu bunka shi kenkyû (Cultural Historyof Contents) 3: 19–32.

Shirky, Clay. 2008. Here Comes Everybody: thePower of Organizing without Organizations.New York: Penguin Press.

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. 2004. The Anarchist in theLibrary: How the Clash Between Freedom andControl Is Hacking the Real World and Crash-ing the System. New York: Basic Books.

Ian Condry

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Room 14N-314, 77 MassachusettsAvenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Email: [email protected]

Received 20 May 2011; accepted 30 June 2011.



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