Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Social Inquiry, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-87).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

The relations between China and Japan are strained and continue to foster negative emotions partly because of China’s grievances about Japan’s actions during World War II and the allegedly false historiographical accounts found in Japanese history textbooks. This study will utilize historical analysis of the events leading up to the Nanjing Massacre in December of 1937, examine the Japanese Ministry of Education’s (MEXT) critical and contentious role in the selection of textbooks, used for primary and secondary schools, and will also juxtapose the controversial 2001 Atarashii rekishi kyōkasho with current Japanese history textbooks. The study will also include a syntactical analysis of key terms through my own original translations of multiple Japanese history textbooks, which are currently used in the Japanese school curriculum, to reveal that the textbook publishers, MEXT, and regulation councils are involved in adjusting the content causing the information to reveal various degrees of whitewashing.

With the development of media framing research on the issue of comfort women, people have gradually realized that the media's interpretation of the issue of comfort women will have a considerable impact on the understanding of this issue. The image of comfort women was also established in this process. The different framings all contain different perspectives and historicities. The feminist framing is an important media framing in addition to nationalism and class. It is not only an important framing that accompanies the development of feminism, but also an important way to liberate comfort women from other framings with a new vision including women's human rights. However, the research devoted to the feminist framing has not yet been systematized and mature, and more comprehensive and in-depth research is needed. This master's thesis, as an attempt to explore the feminist framing of the issue of comfort women by the news media, also serves this purpose. For this reason, out of consideration of both locality and internationality, 40 articles on the issue of comfort women in the four English-language media of The New York Times, The Guardian, The Japan Times, and The Korea Times were selected as the material for the analysis of the feminist framing. The 20 articles from 2015 and the other 20 articles from 2021/2021 will be used as framing and critical discourse analysis to show the changes brought about by the feminist movement. The research results of this master's thesis also found that there is an inevitable connection between feminist framing and other types of framing.

The thesis is focused on Japanese media and especially on their role in the Japanese society. Their impact is noticeable in the way of shaping the national collective memory. One of the unsolved issues of Japan's past, which still resonates in the Japanese society, is the issue of the former comfort women. From the beginning of the 1990s the thus far neglected issue has been given more media attention, which makes it an ideal study case for the influence of media on shaping the collective memory of a nation. With the help of one media that has been following the plight of the former comfort women incessantly till now, the Asahi Shinbun, the thesis documents the method, by which the issue has been dealt with, and the response of the public to the articles of this daily newspaper, which it has created. As the topic has been being discussed for over thirty years, the analysis of the articles is concentrated on two key periods: 1991-1997 and 2010-2014. Using Susan Pharr's model of the types of roles of mass media, the thesis seeks to learn what role the Asahi Shinbun plays in this issue and whether anything has changed in the last thirty years. Key words: role of mass media, comfort women, collective memory, public opinion, Asahi Shinbun

This thesis explores how the documentary film The Apology (as a medium) and its filmmaker (as a carrier group) functions as connection points between cultural trauma and transitional justice reparations driving social change. Earlier approaches to bringing justice to comfort women have been based on legal frameworks which this thesis considers restrictive and instead examines justice and reparations from a victim-centred perspective. To dig for details about how the protagonists' and the filmmaker understand justice, this thesis conducted a narrative analysis of the documentary film The Apology and an interview with the film director. Connecting theories from cultural trauma and transitional justice, the findings show a lack of higher levels of participation of the comfort women in designing and implementing justice and reparation programmes. The documentary produced new master narratives that facilitated the comfort women’s identity shift from passive receivers to active seekers of justice and reparations. This thesis concludes that carrier groups are humane agents with the ability to create powerful influencing narratives to support collective identity shaping, awareness raising, and push for social change and government actions. Finally, an effective public apology must be victim-centred and truthful. Otherwise, it risks remaining as a nice-looking political gesture to deceive the public.

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This diploma thesis attempts to provide an analysis of the human rights discourse in Japan and Japanese foreign policy. The author analyses the most important current issues (falling under the category of first-generation human rights) including: Korean minority issue, discrimination against persons of burakumin origin, gender issue and the topic of comfort women. In the second part of the thesis, the author explores the human rights discourse in the foreign policy of Japan. With the help of his research conducted in 2013 in Tokyo among diplomats, academics and NGO representatives, he examines three possible approaches to explain the current state of affairs: a national interests approach, a constructivist approach (cultural conditionality) and a policy-making approach (taking into account the role of intrastate actors).