About MediaCom

Since its inception in 1946, Keio Institute for Media and Communications Research (or MediaCom, formerly the Institute for Communications Research) has stood as the focal point for research, teaching and outreach on media, communication, and journalism. It has been a hub for scholars and researchers at Keio University and from across the East Asian region who are devoted to the study of contemporary and historical media, communications, and journalism. It has nine core faculty members, many affiliated faculty of Keio University, as well as professional journalists and businesspersons.

Program: MediaCom fosters and facilitates media and journalism-oriented intellectual communication and cross-disciplinary collaboration between departments and programs across the university. It advocates the advancement of knowledge of media and communication through sponsorship and coordination of activities such as workshops, colloquia, conferences, public lectures and forums, and performances that enhance the understanding of the field in the larger community beyond Keio University, including the academic community, business community, the media, and the general public.

Instructional Support: MediaCom offers classes for undergraduate students in the field of journalism, media and communication, and facilitates collaboration between various instructional units that incorporate the institute into the curricula of various degree programs at Keio University.

Faculty Support: MediaCom finances and administers the Faculty Research Grant for the program’s core professorial faculty at Keio University.

Publications: MediaCom is the sponsor and producer of two academic journals: Keio Communication Review (in English) and Media Communication (in Japanese). Keio Communication Review has 33 years of history, whereas Media Communication began in 1950.

Visiting Scholars and Researchers: MediaCom regularly provides affiliationship to 5-8 visiting scholars and researchers from across Japan and the world to conduct research at Keio University.

Message

Establishing Comparative and Regional Media Research Networks

YAMAMOTO Nobuto
Director

We live at a moment when every idea, story, image, sound and relationship is apt to travel across every available channel of communication. The free flow of ideas by words and images, once imagined as ideal, has become a reality in an ever-changing world of information and communication technology. In particular, the recent development and penetration of social media transforms one-way communication from mass media to its audience into multi-way communication. Media contents reach their audience through the conventional top-down process, that is, by way of media industry channels, as well as bottom-up by way of social media. Even the so-called citizen journalism has become mainstream in coverage of everyday events.

The constant renewal of media environment keeps raising (conventionally) important questions- questions about regulation and security, about the balance between responsibility and expression, and about accountability and credibility. In this context, journalism remains a tool universally to educate the masses and keep an eye on those who hold power. For this purpose it needs to adjust itself in response to events, political developments and new media environment.

Media in its broad sense composes of traditional print, oral cultures, and broadcastings, as well as emerging digital forms. Each type of media has its own audience, its cultural components and status, and its own market. The interaction between these different media constitutes the communication environment; in other words, even in a moment when information travels borderlessly, the national boundary of the audience remains the same as it used to be. In addition, the choice of language limits the audience for both professional and citizen journalists.

These national boundaries retain the national characteristics of media environment. In this context, even in the age of transnational internet, comparative and contextual perspectives gain their importance academically as well as practically. Therefore, the Keio’s Institute for Media and Communications Research, known as the MediaCom, has a mission to educate journalists with comparative visions, as well as to conduct comparative researches in the field of journalism and media studies.

For the latter purpose, in particular, the MediaCom tries to establish research networks with our neighbors in South/East Asia. Regional perspectives have become significant in places where regional identity is not necessarily shared by citizens, even though citizens in the region may share numerous (regional) issues, concerns, and views. Needless to say, such shared issues pave the way to regional cooperation. Our efforts to establish such networks have just begun in 2011, the year when Japan experienced a disastrous earthquake, deadly tsunami, and unprecedented nuclear crises that threatened regional security. We welcome and appreciate all the support and suggestions to the MediaCom.