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An investigation into audience perception of Mononoke Hime: construction and reconstruction of contemporary Japanese identity

This exploratory study follows existing theory and analysis of mass media product and its audience analysis. It aims to analyse how audience members utilise a popular anime in Japan for their construction and reconstruction of sense of self, which is referred to as socialisation. Academic research has increasingly shed light on audience members??? socialisation by utilising mass media products in encompassing academic fields such as media studies, communication studies and cultural studies. It is widely agreed that the content of mass media products play a significant role in their socialisation. This study takes up a Japanese anime, Mononoke Hime as a sample case for investigating audience members??? socialization. Through the analysis of reactions of audience members to Mononoke Hime, it will be investigated how audience members interpret the anime reflecting one???s experience in the society relating the experience to the content of Mononoke Hime. It will be clarified that the audience members of the anime construct and reconstruct their sense of self, morals and values in the society, that is, they utilize the anime as a facility for their socialization. The data of this study are collected comments which are compiled in a published magazine and private comments posted on Internet sites. 133 comments in the magazine and 32 comments on Internet sites are selected for the analysis. The data were analysed by two analytical approaches. The first analysis is to see how the consulted viewers established their relationship with the anime, while the second analysis is to see how the viewers depicted and interpreted the content of the anime. This study concluded that the consulted audience members show high level of ideological involvement with the anime; they depict parts of the anime relating to their experience in the real life and talk the anime seriously rather than playfully enjoy it as an entertainment. By analysing the comments of consulted audience members, it is also revealed that the audience members take characters of the anime as a role model both in cross gender and gender based ways.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/257221
Date January 2006
CreatorsSuparman, Michie Akahane, School of Modern Language Studies, UNSW
PublisherAwarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Modern Language Studies
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsCopyright Michie Akahane Suparman, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright

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