Deprivation of Media Attention by Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: Comparison Between National and Local Newspapers

Abstract

Abstract On March 11th in 2011, a huge earthquake and tsunami struck Japan and caused severe accidents at the Fukushima first nuclear power plant (NPP). The impact and damages of these triple disasters, called “3.11,” continue to this day. There was a diversity of damages and social conditions among devastated areas. This means that this disaster struck so broad area that it brought many kinds of “realities” to different areas. Therefore, we cannot treat the various regions that were affected uniformly. At the same time, the attention given to the 3.11 based on location has ultimately been covered differently between various media sources. The aim of this paper is to share basic descriptions and media analysis of the 3.11 disasters for future discussions. Through our analysis, it is showed that there is a different framing of the 3.11 between national and local media. The difference implicates that it is deprived of social interest in the national newspaper by the NPP accident, and on the other hand, the local newspaper kept their perspectives reflecting damages from the earthquake and tsunami. Keywords