This article introduces an insightful essay by Kazue Fujiwara published in Hanada Selection.
It analyzes how Japanese television news programs manipulate public perception by ambiguously using words such as “citizens” and “public opinion.”
By presenting a small minority as if it represented the entire population, mass media create misleading impressions that shape public discourse and political attitudes.

2019-03-27
To describe these one hundred people as “many citizens” is a misleading expression that is far too divorced from reality.
I am republishing here a chapter that I originally released on 2018-04-24 under the title, “The following is from Kazue Fujiwara’s eye-opening and splendidly accomplished work published in the recently released HANADA Selection.”
The following is from Kazue Fujiwara’s eye-opening and splendidly accomplished work published in the recently released monthly HANADA Selection.
The fact that her title is “blogger” demonstrates that the Internet is the greatest library in human history, and that the Internet, where people like her transmit their work, together with monthly magazines including HANADA, which I have repeatedly referred to, are what truly bring truth to light……and that mass media such as newspapers, television, and weekly magazines are profoundly dishonest entities.
This genuine work exposes the shoddiness of Japan’s existing mass media and heralds their demise.
It is a true work of great value that must be read not only by all Japanese citizens but by people all over the world.
The emphases in the text, other than the headings, are mine.
The impression manipulation of “Hodo Station.”
Who are “the people”?.
What became manifest in television reporting in 2017 can be described as irrational attacks on the government using fake news.
To give examples, there were TBS “Hiruobi!”’s report on the refusal of a handshake by the Speaker of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, Fuji Television “Viking”’s report on a bureaucrat dozing off during a Diet committee session, TBS “NEWS23” and “Sunday Morning”’s report on 22,000 retweets, and TV Asahi “Hodo Station”’s blacked-out report on the Abe Shinzo Memorial Elementary School, among others.
What tends to be overlooked amid all this is the old-style manipulation of public opinion that has continued unbroken from the past, conveniently speaking in the name of the “popular will” of “the people.”
From what I observed, from around the time Prime Minister Abe began discussions on constitutional revision, expressions using the word “the people” began to appear with striking frequency on television.
“Hodo Station,” in particular, used the word “the people” repeatedly in studio talk and repeatedly criticized the government in the name of “the people.”
I consider it healthy for the media to criticize the government based on objective grounds, but it is not healthy to abuse the word “the people,” leaving it undefined and ambiguous, in order to attack the government.
In this article, focusing mainly on the case of “Hodo Station,” I would like to point out the unreasonable usage in television reporting of the words “the people” and “public will.”
In Japanese, the word “kokumin,” or “the people,” is used both as a 【common noun】 referring to individual members who possess nationality, and as a 【collective noun】 meaning the body of those members as a whole.
For this reason, the word “the people” alone cannot distinguish whether it means “individual citizens,” “some citizens,” or “all citizens.”
This is where logical 【ambiguity】 arises.
In logic, propositions take one of the following four forms.
A〈universal affirmative judgment〉.
All S are P.
E〈universal negative judgment〉.
No S are P.
I〈particular affirmative judgment〉.
Some S are P.
O〈particular negative judgment〉.
Some S are not P.
Naturally, in propositions such as “the people are ~” or “the people are not ~,” the truth or falsity of the proposition changes depending on whether it means “all citizens” or “some citizens.”
It can be said that mass media reporting exploits this trick, disguising the word “the people,” which in reality means only “some citizens,” as though it meant “all citizens,” and thereby cunningly carrying out impressionistic reporting.
For example, if only some citizens have doubts about a certain issue of national politics, then even if it is reported that “the people have doubts,” that is not false reporting.
However, viewers who cannot read the context may misinterpret this as meaning that “all citizens, that is, almost all citizens other than themselves, have doubts,” and if their own view runs contrary to that assertion, they may refrain from expressing it publicly, thereby falling into the 【spiral of silence】.
Incidentally, in Japan, where 【peer pressure】 operates more sensitively than in Western societies, such “self-restraint” can be said to be an everyday occurrence.
Furthermore, in general, with universally quantified propositions, there is an accepted convention that the adjective “all” may be omitted in order to avoid complexity.
For example, the proposition “Man is a thinking reed” means “All human beings are thinking reeds,” but ordinarily the adjective “all” is omitted.
In this respect as well, when “some citizens” are referred to as “the people,” it is easy for that expression to mislead people into taking it to mean “all citizens.”
Moreover, the phrase “many citizens,” which mass media often use, is also problematic.
This phrase sounds almost like a universal expression, but it is clearly a particular expression.
In some cases, it is not a particular expression close to a universal one, but rather a case of a particular expression close to zero.
For example, the approximately one hundred citizens who participate in an “anti-government demonstration in front of the Diet,” which the mass media introduce with the stock phrase “many citizens,” may indeed be “many citizens” compared with two or three citizens, but from the standpoint of the entire Japanese population they amount to no more than one person in a million.
Even if 10,000 people were gathered, they would still amount to only one person in ten thousand.
To call these one hundred people “many citizens” is a misleading expression far too removed from the actual reality.
This article continues.