Second of two parts. [Read Part One.]

Business Users as Relevant Social Actors

In the early nineties, the keitai was an expensive status symbol identified with the executive business user. Isao Nakamura (2001) analyzes the changing image of the keitai by dividing its evolution into three stages, with particular user demographics and characteristics. According to his model, the period up to 1995 was characterized by the image of “business use,” as 90 percent of keitai users were businessmen. Even with the economic downturn and downsizing that characterized the period from 1991, the keitai retained the image as a tool for “the adult man,” and women office workers and teenage girls were associated with the pager rather than the keitai.

The meanings associated with the keitai at this time included the sense of “the successful businessman” as well as an image of the “self-important businessman” displaying his status as a wealthy and in-demand person. Japan Railway began announcements regarding keitai use in their bullet trains in 1991 to restrict usage. A newspaper article in this year indicates the emergent social controversies surrounding keitai use at the time:

You have probably seen the figure of a man walking briskly through town while talking on a keitai…. “The original location for phones, even when in a restaurant, is in an unobtrusive place that would not bother other patrons with the sight and sound of the call. Is it really necessary to go out of one’s way to make a call in a busy place full of people? Shouldn’t one choose a more appropriate time and place? It may be fashionable, but I wonder about walking around with on in your hand.” … This viewpoint is apparently common, and Japan Railway was started an announcement on its Tokai bullet train. “keitai calls while seated are bothersome to other passengers, so please make the extra effort to make your calls in the deck area [between cars].”Indeed, in a first class car, it must be unpleasant to have to listen to a loud conversation (Yomiuri Shimbun, September 11, 1991).

At this time, adoption rates were still low, and people strutting through town with keitai were a distinct minority. Even at this time, however, we were beginning to see the first glimmerings of efforts to regulate keitai use in public space.

An Emergent Controversy

keitai use in trains emerged as a topic of widespread social concern in 1995 and 1996, along with a sudden rise in adoption rates – reaching 15 percent of the population in 1996. In 1995, keitai subscriptions surpassed pager subscriptions, and the user base for keitai was broadening. Unique styles of keitai usage by high school girls became a focus of public attention. The following excerpt from newspaper coverage provides some hint of the social consciousness at this time.

With the advent of the PHS, keitai use has suddenly skyrocketed. In commuter trains, I am starting to notice scenes of people hanging on a strap with one hand and talking on a keitai held by the other. Although keitai are convenient, complaints are also frequent: “Their voices are too loud.” “It’s annoying to have to listen to somebody else’s private conversation.” Although train companies are calling for manners to prevail against voice calls in trains, this is still at the level of “just a request” (Asahi Shimbun, November 29, 1995).

NTT DoCoMo first released a handset with a “silent mode” vibration function, the Digital Mover F101 Hyper, in December 1995, so the article refers to a period when phones had to rely on the ring tone to notify users of incoming calls. Because of this, people expressed their annoyance at the sound of the keitai ringing as well as because of having to listen to phone conversations. From this time on, public voices were raised calling for “keitai manner” on trains, and keitai use joined the list of actions considered “bothersome to others” on trains.

Youth as Newly Relevant Social Actors: From Controversy to Stabilizing Consensus

From around 1997, train companies began responding to ongoing complaints by passengers by pursuing more aggressive efforts at regulating keitai usage. For example, from 1997, Japan Railway starting broadcasting a stricter announcement in its regular (non bullet-train) trains: “We ask for your cooperation in refraining from using keitai while on the train.” Prior to this, announcements tended towards language such as, “Please be considerate of others when using your keitai.” This was the period in time where keitai adoption was at about 22 percent of the overall population.

1997 was also the year when all of the carriers began short message services. Further, after the launch of i-mode in 1999, text communication became even more popular, particularly among young people. According to Nakamura’s (2001) three-stage model, in the period from 1995-1999 the core user group had shifted to the youth demographic. He links the growing preponderance of young users to the discourse of keitai as “social nuisances.” Along with this, public discourse also began to tie together young people’s keitai usage with bad manners in public spaces like the train.

As the keitai shifted from an exclusive association with businessmen to greater association with youth, there was a matching increase in efforts to regulate their use in public space. From around 1999, during the morning and evening rush hours, Japan Railway started an announcement, “Please refrain from using your keitai,” and putting up stickers in the trains to same effect. These efforts also coincided with the growth of text messaging, a timely and appropriate way to circumvent the social stigma against talking on trains.

Together with the rising tide of regulatory announcements on trains, consensus was beginning to emerge regarding manners for keitai use on public transportation. Young people’s bad keitai manners on trains were taken up widely in newspapers, magazines, and on TV, accordingly, a new social order was constructed around prohibition of keitai use in trains. At this time, the overall tendency was toward rejecting keitai use in trains, and the announcements reflected this. However, rather than a “natural” outcome of “proper” keitai use, this norm emerged from a historically specific process of both enlisting and disciplining a new social actor of “youth” in the meanings and practice of keitai. This contingent social order was achieved through a complex interaction between various social actors – public transportation organizations, keitai-adopting youth, and adults in a position of power in relation to those youth –, signage and announcements in public transportation, discourse in mass media, and changing keitai technology. The meanings surrounding keitai have shifting dramatically towards issues of regulation and control as youth became dominant actors in this space, and the case of public transportation is one arena where this shift played out.

The Pacemaker as a Newly Relevant Social Actor

As of March 2002, keitai adoption rates stood at approximately 60 percent of the Japanese population. The social consensus at this time a year before the writing of this paper is roughly the same as it is now, that voice calls are not appropriate on trains, but email is no problem. Although users try to avoid ring tones and voice conversations disrupting the space of the train car, they do not actually turn their phones off and rely on silent mode settings to keep their keitai quiet.

Within this relatively stabilized social order, however, a newly relevant social actor enters the mix, the pacemaker, or perhaps more accurately, the cyborg entity of the “passenger with a pacemaker.” Up to this point, the primary social actors on the passenger side, were “youth keitai users,” “businessmen keitai users,” and “passengers disturbed by keitai noise.” Public discussion of the relation between pacemakers and keitai electromagnetic waves emerged early as 1996. At that time, however, coverage by the popular press was still spotty, and the pacemaker was not immediately incorporated as a “relevant” and influential actor in determining keitai usage patterns on trains. Unlike the more visible and pervasive technology of the keitai, the pacemaker is an invisible and more uncommon social actor that required more explicit public advocacy to be noticed. It was only relatively recently that pacemakers and pacemaker users became relevant social actors in these negotiations. Here is an excerpt from a newspaper from 2002:

Many people simply put their phone in silent mode without turning off the power [of their keitai]. Along with the spread of mobile phones, more people feel they cannot turn off their phones because of work-related calls. Although it is important for train lines to repeatedly broadcast announcements to “turn off the power while on the train,” I don’t think this alone will result in better manners. We have known of the effects of a keitai’s electromagnetic waves of pacemakers for some time now. Some of the large train lines in central Tokyo have been calling for passengers’ cooperation by setting a new rule that keitai need to be turned of in train cars with even numbers, but can be left on in silent mode in odd numbered cars, though voice calls are still prohibited. I feel that train companies should be more innovative in working to make trains an environment where people with pacemakers can ride with peace of mind (Yomiuri Shimbun, December 13, 2002).

The issue of pacemakers and keitai is still unstable due in part to the instability of the “scientific facts” surrounding the interaction between the two technologies. The outcome of this current negotiation between keitai-using passengers, pacemaker using passengers, the public, and transit facilities is still uncertain. This case, as well as the historical development of “appropriate behavior” on trains, is indicative of how social order is built through ongoing social and cultural construction and maintenance work at level of everyday interaction, institutional policies, and public and everyday discourse. As Joan Fujimura has argued about the construction of “packages” of facts, theory and practice in the sciences, “Resolutions can be short-lived or long-term, but they are rarely, if ever, permanent. Even consensus requires maintenance” (Fujimura 1996:14)

Conclusions

In many ways, the negotiations between keitai users and pacemaker users can be located in a much broader set of social and cultural negotiations between different “sociotechnical entities” (Dobashi) about what constitute appropriate cyborg couplings and cyborg behavior. Public places like trains are stages upon which these negotiations between a changing set of cyborg entities is played out face-to-face. These stages are also the object of a political process through which different social actors enlist other technologies (keitai, pacemakers, etc.) as well as other institutional entities (the press, transit agencies, etc.), and scientific facts (e.g., the relation between electromagnetic waves and pacemakers, empirical studies of youth keitai use) to their cause.

The keitai acquires new meanings and features that become naturalized through time; pacemaker users become newly visible and consequential, public transit institutions become accountable to a new set of health and social welfare issues; and intergenerational tensions are reinvigorated with the addition a youth-identified wedge technology. The web of negotiations and interactions that characterize even the particular setting of public transportation is indicative of the complexity of the process through which new technologies become established in an evolving social and cultural ecology.

Introduction

Despite an often oppressive crush of humanity, trains and subways in Japan are remarkably quiet. Although many passengers type into their keitai keypads or scroll through pages on tiny screens, nobody is talking on their keitai. Even the sounds leaking from a young person’s Walkman are considered a violation of this norm of silence. Pervasive announcements and signage prod commuters towards behavior that minimizes their audible presence in this shared space, but the subtle interactions between passengers are the most effective mechanisms for maintaining this social order. Say a ring tone breaks this silence, or somebody sitting in a subway car starts a keitai conversation. Most likely, people nearby will glance quickly at the source of the noise. If the offender speaks particularly loudly, they may get a glare or an expression of disapproval (even if there are ladies chatting more loudly in the next seat). This kind of scene is a familiar one in everyday life in urban Japan.

Keitai have suffered from a bad reputation, particularly regarding their use in public places. Although keitai use is restricted in other public places, trains and buses are the sites of the most intensive efforts at regulating use. In the initial adoption period in the early nineties, keitai were more often objects of envy rather than public regulation. However, after keitai became widely adopted by youth from 1996 on, public transportation facilities have stepped up their efforts to dictate limits to keitai use. The current social consensus is that “voice calls should be avoided but keitai e-mail on public transport is okay.” These norms for keitai usage on trains and buses are the result of a decade-long process of developing social standards and regulations.

Keitai in Japanese Trains Today

In our observations of the frequency of different forms of keitai use on trains, we found that the general social norm of “no voice, e-mail okay” was borne out in the actual practice of passengers. For example, one 41-minute observation on a busy train line represented the highest volume of usage that we recorded. During the period of observation, there were 37 in stances of observable keitai e-mail usage (including both receiving and sending e-mail), and 4 instances of voice calls. In a 30-minute observation with the lowest volume of usage, there was one voice call and 10 instances of keitai e-mail use. The overall average of keitai voice calls in any given 30-minute span is 1-2 calls.

In our 24 interviews with keitai users, almost all responded that they would freely engage in e-mail exchanges but were hesitant to make and receive voice calls. For example, interviewees described how they might decide not to answer a voice call if the train was crowded, or they might move to a less crowded location to take a call, or they might take the call but cut it right away. Most also responded that they were annoyed when somebody took a voice call on a train and talked in a loud voice. These responses were consistent across all age groups.

Keitai manners in trains in Japan are part of a broad palette of behaviors that are policed explicitly and persistently by public transportation institutions. Most similar to the issue of keitai is the problem of noise pollution through Walkmans that have been the subject of controversy and regulation since the eighties (du Gay et al. 1997). In addition, in stations and on trains, posters illustrating appropriate and inappropriate behaviors are pervasive, as are announcements cautioning, directing, and instructing passengers towards certain behaviors. Posters illustrate and warn against such transgressions as leaning a wet umbrella on another passenger’s leg, eating or applying make-up, feeling up female passengers, getting fingers pinched by train doors, taking up too much space on seating, or leaving a backpack on rather than holding it one’s arms at a more unobtrusive level. Announcements warning against running through closing train doors are repeated as each train is about to leave the platform. As passengers get off the train at each station, announcements remind them not to forget anything on the train. Even more than buses, trains in urban centers are characterized by precise technical and social regulation and very low rates of disorder whether it is poor manners, a late train, graffiti, or litter.

Keitai Involvements

In addition to the formal efforts of public transportation institutions to keep trains and passengers running in good order, passengers engage in ongoing acts of mutual surveillance, regulation, and sanctioning that keep other passengers in line. Even before the advent of the keitai, passengers on Japanese public transportation regulated behavior through mutual surveillance, so it is not surprising that these practices have extended to keitai usage as well. In Goffman’s (1963) terms, the space of the train is a well-defined social situation, with specific expectations of mutual “involvement” or participation in the space. Deviance from these expectations is noticed and acted upon by other passengers, often through non-verbal displays.

Most instances of keitai voice calls resemble this kind of scene: The phone is in silent mode, and the receiver decides to take the call, but conveys through an introverted gaze and posture and low voice that she is trying to minimize disruption to the social situation of the public space. She also makes use of what Goffman (1963: 38042) might call a “portable involvement shield,” a prop—in this case a magazine—“behind which an individual can safely do the kind of things that ordinarily result in negative sanctions.” In this case, there the keitai user is clearly demonstrating her understanding of the behavioral expectation of the social situation, even while transgressing it, she is subject to only mild sanctioning by those in the vicinity. In other cases, a passenger might display respect for the social situation by moving from a crowded area to a more vacant area while taking the call.

The social situation of “riding a train” is constructed and maintained through these kinds of ongoing interactions and displays. When a keitai user “unavoidably” has to take a call in a train, the situation demands that they continue to display involvement and respect toward the shared setting by performing their taking of the call as a secondary involvement. If they don’t display the appropriate level of involvement and consideration to the social situation, then they are subject to more visible forms of sanctioning by other passengers. Drawing from Goffman (1959), Ling describes public mobile phone use as “interacting on a double front stage,” where the user must manage accountabilities to both the online conversation and the local setting. He suggests that “the verbal and the gaze/gestural effects can be used in opposite ways for various publics.”

Ged Murtagh (2001) describes some of the non-verbal ways in which other passengers indicate what they feel to be appropriate or inappropriate in terms of other passengers’ involvements with mobile phones. He points to gaze, posture (changing direction of the face or upper body) as subtle negotiations that construct shared context and the implicit boundaries of what constitutes “a public nuisance.” The most common form of non-verbal sanctioning behavior is the gaze. Glancing or glaring at a keitai user is a way for other passengers to engage in public regulation of behavior. The following interview excerpt gives some sense of behavioral expectations and the effectiveness of the gaze as sanctioning behavior.

(College student, 20 years old, female, Osaka)
Interviewer: What to you think are the situations and places that keitai should not be used?
Interviewee: On the train, I try not to make voice calls.
Interviewer: What if you get a call?
Interviewee: I do answer it…
Interviewer: When that happens, do you, like, try to appear apologetic? Maybe covering your mouth with your hand?
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: If people around you started glancing at you, would that bother you?
Interviewee: Hm. Probably if somebody looked at me, I would stop.
Interviewer: If another passenger is making a voice call, what do you think?
Interviewee: Hm. If they talk just for a short time in an apologetic way, I think maybe that’s okay? But if there is like a high school girl talking in a way loud voice, then it pisses me off. I think they should cut it out.

Even as the keitai has been adopted by Japanese of all ages and social stripes, there is still a gap between different social actors, such as youth, business users, train companies, and the elderly, in their sense of what is appropriate keitai use. For example, in the Kansai region of southern Japan, the announcements on trains about keitai use are not as strict as those in the Kanto region, and were implemented later. In our interviews and observations, we also saw that passengers in the Kansai region were more forgiving about keitai usage on trains. According to Shunji Mikami (2001), age also colors how people view keitai usage. In the case of “a crowded bus or train” 50% of 16-19 year olds and 58% of 20-24 year olds felt that “you should never use a keitai and should turn it off,” in contrast to 81% of those aged 50-54 and 88% of those aged 55-59. In other words, older people had a stricter sense of how keitai should be used.

It is difficult to posit a uniform standard for how keitai should be use in trains, and actual keitai usage is keyed to the tendencies of particular users situated in specific contexts. Perception has also changed along with the evolving landscape of keitai adoption. We turn now to examine the current state of social understanding of appropriate keitai use in trains developed over the course of the mid nineties to the present.

Compared with telecommunications, the broadcast laws that make up the core of the broadcasting system instated in 1950 have remained unchanged, without any review, even today. The system for two divisions of public and commercial broadcasting in terrestrial broadcasting have not changed, nor have there been any great changes in the commercial networks centered in the five key commercial stations in Tokyo. This terrestrial broadcast market has been growing steadily, and furthermore, there are new related broadcasting services popping up one after another.

The first of these is the expansion of broadcasting services. Even in just the terrestrial broadcasting realm the number of services have increased, starting with the no-charge terrestrial broadcasting, which started out with AM radio broadcasting service, and then television broadcasting and FM radio broadcasting thereafter. In addition, in 1972 cable television broadcasting was established. The fixed-line cooperative reception equipment that was located in difficult-to-reach regions, named the community antenna television (CATV) at that time, and that was up until then the ground-based rebroadcasting equipment, was added to the broadcasting laws. These were positioned within the system as new media. Furthermore, in 1989 NHK began its satellite broadcasting aimed specifically for difficult reception areas, and thus Japan entered upon its satellite broadcasting era.

Having embarked into satellite broadcasting, there were newly created regulations regarding consignment broadcasting and carriage broadcasting. The broadcasting law up until this time granted a broadcasting license to those who owned a broadcasting station (strictly speaking, a wireless station for broadcasting), and those license holders, in principle, were to create their own broadcasting programs and air them. Even with satellite television, it is not impossible that the main program creators, that is, the broadcasting company, could own the transponder installed on the satellite, but that kind of regulation is exactly the type of regulation that would become a barrier to growth in these services. Given this situation, new regulations were created envisioning a broadcasting service that would use communication satellites (CS). These regulations grant the communications satellite business owners a consignment broadcasting license, and grant the businesses which offer programs using that transponder a carriage broadcasting business license. As a result of these regulations, what emerged were CS broadcasting businesses. Currently, there are over 200 channels on the CS digital broadcast (which began in 1996). (2) There are businesses that operate more than one channel, but each business is granted a license as a consignment broadcasting business.

On the other hand, satellite broadcasting was started as an analog broadcasting service that was offered by the commercial pay television broadcasting stations, NHK and WOWOW from the start. Then in December 2000 they began digital broadcasting along with the analog service, and the terrestrial private affiliates also started satellite digital broadcasting stations on their own. This service, like the terrestrial services, are offered at no-charge. Currently, NHK has three channels, and the private terrestrial stations have seven channels, together making 10 digital satellite broadcasting channels that are being offered in Japan.

As can be seen from the above, multiple media and multiple channels have emerged in broadcasting. However, all of these services, including the paid or free services, are under the broadcast law, considered to be “broadcasting” and, in principle, are regulated under that law for programming.

The second notable change is the broadcast transmission method of digitization. As mentioned above, in satellite television, broadcasting is already well into digital transmission, and from December 2004, even the terrestrial stations have begun digital broadcasting. According to plans, all terrestrial analog transmissions will be terminated in July 2011, making all terrestrial stations digital only. However, this change presents a different scenario than the other changes. That is, not all businesses prefer digital broadcasting, but as a national policy digitization is being promoted (specifically, for the efficient use of broadcast waves and in order to respond to the growing international trend towards digitization) so that the existing broadcast industry will be affected economically by this digitization. These effects over the long-term have large benefits, but currently only the negative aspects (such as the need for initial additional investments) are being emphasized. Regarding this issue, in order to secure wave frequencies for digital use, a portion of the UHF bands used by the analog broadcasting stations have been converted out of necessity (commonly called analog to analog), and for this portion, government funding has already been granted.

With digitization, there is the issue of consumers on the receiving end, as to whether the receiving end is prepared to receive digital waves. Will all of the analog receivers have been digitized by 2011, as expected? That is to say, as seen from the perspective of one individual in the business, “For all of the 100 million televisions to be digitally compatible by 2011, 13 million digital televisions per year would have to be exchanged, which is a very high hurdle to overcome.” (3) The reality of the matter for the complete transition into digitization to be actualized is that the demand on the consumer’s part to purchase digital televisions instead of analog televisions must increase.

A more foundational problem that the broadcasting corporations are facing is changes in the networking environment, specifically the effects of rapidly spreading broadband networks on broadcasting operations. Should broadband networking start to be used widely in the average household, it will be possible to offer broadcast video services using these networks. Perhaps it’s not a pleasant scenario that, in the future, in place of terrestrial digital transmission routes, broadband networks will carry all of the imaging information to households, but the number of transmission lines for imaging services is steadily growing.

A regulation concerning “broadcasting using electronic communications services” was incorporated in 2001, enabling broadcasting services using broadband networks to not only be technologically feasible, but also legally feasible. There is not enough space here to debate the details of this. It demands, however, discussion of whether in this new networking environment if all broadcasting should be left to compete freely in the market, or perhaps some types of broadcasting should be protected because of their public value from a “merit goods” perspective. (4)

The size of this type of broadcasting industry is indicated in Figure 1-5. (5) From 2000 to 2003, the broadcast content market grew slightly, but included in this is the remarkable growth of the Internet and mobile distribution. However, even if these two markets are combined, they make up only a little over 50 billion yen (about $47.8 million) of the market, and relative to the 3.6 trillion yen (about $34.4 billion) broadcasting market it does not even reach 2 percent of the total. The growth of the broadcasting market is definitely slowing down, however, it still is 80 percent of the overall market. In addition, even within this broadcast market, there are not many terrestrial broadcasting channels, but it holds an overwhelming share of the whole market.

Let us say that NHK, the public broadcasting company, operates only on the reception fees it collects, and in contrast, because commercial broadcasting is prohibited, it may be said that this affects the national advertising outlay. The terrestrial private commercial broadcasting companies depend almost entirely on advertising revenue, which is a large percentage share of the overall broadcast industry.

That is to say that a large portion of the broadcasting industry’s income in Japan is dependent upon advertising revenue, i.e. a third party dependent structure. As long as this income structure remains, the size of the broadcasting industry will depend on the advertising outlay of the Japanese economy.

Japan’s paid broadcasting market is still not fully developed, but even in this environment new business models have been a focus of constant attention. These are the so-called “television shopping programs.” These types of programs are definitely through terrestrial broadcasting media, but can also be seen on satellite broadcasts, communication satellites, cable television and other broadcasting media. It cannot be said that there are no television shopping programs created by the television stations, but most of these programs are produced by the mail order industry. In other words, from the perspective of the mail order industry, television stations are one of their many sales vehicles. Besides television they use newspaper inserts, radio broadcasting, the Internet, magazine ads and a variety of other media to directly sell their products. In the case of television broadcasting, mail order businesses purchase programming time from the television stations and offer their television shopping programs. In these cases, it is set up so that the broadcasting station receives income that is comparable to a network advertising fee.

From the business perspective of broadcasting stations, whether they create the program themselves or purchase a program from an outside source, both the program and the network fee are received. That is to say, it is paid broadcasting income — a new source of income other than that of the normal advertising income. In the United States, the number of terrestrial channels has increased and as a result, there are television stations that exist by broadcasting these types of television shopping programs 24 hours a day, according to the standards of “public interest.” But these examples should be interpreted as exceptional and not the norm.

In the near future, all broadcasting avenues will be digitized and the mutual exchangeability between digital networks will greatly increase. In other words, right now broadcasts are being received using a broadcast receiver and communications services are being received through telecommunications terminals.

But in the digital era, besides these dedicated end terminals, dual-purpose end terminals capable of receiving broadcasting or other communications will emerge one after another. With such a dual-use end terminal the receiving party will be able to enjoy services unhampered, whether what they are receiving is currently broadcast media or digital media. As to whether the broadcasting regulatory system that was framed during the analog era will continue to hold any meaning in this all-out digital era is a point that needs to be fully deliberated in the future.

Net Business

The number of Internet users in Japan is approximately 77.6 million people (taken from the Digital Contents White Pages 2004). Of these users, those who subscribe to broadband crossed the 10 million mark in 2003. In addition, from a survey on the “state of household consumption” taken by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the number of households that have a person in the household who has used the Internet even once was 37 percent (the average for 2002). In the same survey, there was a social survey that targeted the whole country, summarizing for which purpose the Internet was used in these households. Out of all of the households, when looking at the purposes for which the Internet is used, ranked in order of the most common usage, it was as follows: e-mail, shopping, auctions, banking and financial products trading, and other. (6) Out of these, information gathering and e-mail have costs related to connecting to the Internet. But for “Internet business,” defined as all transactions besides shopping, those that are carrying out business over the Internet are a little over 10 percent. Then 10 percent of the broadband users would be approximately 1 million people who are in some way conducting business on the Internet.

On the other hand, according to the Digital Contents White Pages 2004, the number of people subscribing to an IP service is 9.73 million, which comes to 80 percent of the total number of subscribers for a mobile phone service. In addition to these, if you add the ringtone melody and ringtone songs market, this industry has grown to a 900 billion yen (about $8.6 billion) market. In the future, it is said that the mobile phone will have paid add-on functions such as television, radio and other broadcasting functions advancing it into multi-functionality. When combined with the number of broadband users, the Internet business user’s industry pie for Japan is large.

This is a translated excerpt from the book “East Asian Media Content Distribution,” published in April and edited by Minoru Sugaya.

Minoru Sugaya is a media policy professor at the Institute for Media and Communication Research at Keio University in Tokyo. He received a doctorate in public utility economics from International Christian University in Tokyo. He also served as a visiting professor in the telecommunications department at Michigan State University, where he received a master’s in telecommunications, as well as a visiting researcher at the Kennedy School of Public Administration at Harvard University. His other books include “Media Industry Policy in the United States,” “Economics of Broadcasting Media,” and “Industry Theory of Media Content.”

Footnotes:

2. For the channels of this company see the SKY PerfecTV home page

3. Commercial Broadcasting Monthly, June 2003; “The Basic Policies of the Key Commercial Broadcasting Stations,” from the special series, “The Dawn of Terrestrial Digital, Part 1,” pages 6 to 15

4. Refer to the following for the debate over merit goods: “The American Media Industry Agenda,” Chapter 8, pages 143 to 159

5. Based on figures from Digital Contents Association: Digital Contents White Papers 2004 Chart 3-1-3 (page 48)

6. Computerization White Pages 2004, page 356
Source: Japan Information Processing Development Association; Computerization White Pages 2004