Covering the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as the Recovery Olympics After Fukushima

Abstract

This article examines how major Japanese national newspapers - the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, the Yomiuri Shimbun, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and the Sankei Shimbun - discussed the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as the “Recovery Olympics” in relation to radioactive materials as a key post-Fukushima environmental contamination issue. Although many scholars have critically examined the concept of the Recovery Olympics in the context of the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, this study employs Beck’s risk society and Boykoff’s celebration capitalism theories to distinguish between the recovery discourses of the earthquake and tsunami versus the Fukushima disaster. It then explores the media’s depiction of the Recovery Olympics in relation to radioactive contamination. Using Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approch to critical discourse analysis, this study demonstrates that the leading Japanese national newspapers localized the issue of post-Fukushima environmental contamination within Fukushima Prefecture, thereby obscuring broader impacts for the Olympics. Additionally, it uncovers how these newspapers emphasized safety standards, transforming post-Fukushima environmental contamination below such standards into a symbol legitimizing the Recovery Olympics.