Discursive diversion: Manipulation of nuclear threats by the conservative leaders in Japan and Israel

Author:

Watanabe Kohei1ORCID,Segev Elad2,Tago Atsushi3

Affiliation:

1. Waseda University

2. Tel Aviv University

3. Waseda University and PRIO (Peace Research Institute Oslo)

Abstract

We study how leaders of parliamentary democracies attempt to trigger the “rally-around-the-flag” effect through the mass media. We have collected news articles on North Korea and Iran published by liberal and conservative newspapers in Japan and Israel from 2009 to 2018 and analysed them in terms of their emphasis on threats, employing semi-supervised quantitative text analysis techniques. We find that both Japanese and Israeli conservative newspapers overemphasised nuclear threats before important political events (enactment of Japan's National Security Laws and Israel's 2014 General Election). We argue that leaders of countries that lack opportunities or capabilities often attempt to manipulate perceived threats through the mass media, calling such actions discursive diversion. We explain the similarity between the Japanese and Israeli cases by the following factors. Firstly, the diminishing political gains from the successful economic reforms in the earlier years; Secondly, the increasing opposition in the legislature or competition in the elections; Thirdly, the lack of the countries’ ability to solve the security issues unilaterally; Finally, the diplomatic and military relationship with the United States.

Funder

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Sociology and Political Science,Communication

Reference56 articles.

1. Bandel N (21 November 2019) Ex-tycoon, News Publisher Indicted for Bribery in Netanyahu Cases, Haaretz, 21 November 2019. Retrieved 1 February 2020 from https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-three-key-figures-in-netanyahu-corruption-cases-to-be-indicted-for-bribery-1.8161413.

2. The Iraq Coalition of the Willingand(Politically)Able: Party Systems, the Press, and Public Influence on Foreign Policy

3. Toward a Theory of Press-State Relations in the United States

4. quanteda: An R package for the quantitative analysis of textual data

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3