This study focuses on the early period of Japanese television broadcast and, from viewpoints of province residents, reviews the division, differences, and so on between the urban and the province areas. Presently, the digital age holds various problems, but they are not new at all — there were similar problems in the analog age too. This study presents examples of the 'analog divide' in Japanese television and their respective reaction and will probably contribute to discussions in this section in terms of denoting helpful hints for the digital age.
Japanese television began service in 1953. Only the urban cities, represented by Tokyo, had television stations set up in the first year. It took several years before television stations were set up in the province areas and the people got to enjoy television radio waves. Aomori prefecture, the region investigated in this study, had its first television station set up in 1959. There was a 6-year gap between Tokyo and Aomori in their television viewing environment maintenance.
During these 6 years, the people in Aomori prefecture, instead of waiting for television radio waves, fussed over ways to somehow receive radio waves seeped from their neighboring prefectures. When they succeeded at it, they encountered television of different cultures in the background. In a fishing village called Sai village, located in the northern part of Aomori prefecture and near Hokkaido, the villagers promptly pointed their antenna towards Hokkaido as television broadcast started and succeeded in receiving television radio waves. They saw television as an extension for educational visual aids and, focusing on school, each contributed a huge amount of money and were receptive to television as an entire village.
To elucidate the state of television in Japan during its early period, this study added the following three points into Erkki Huhtamo’s perspective of media archaeology (2011). This could be said as an original initiative.
1. From urban areas to provinces: Since the past, Japanese television history has mainly covered topics about Tokyo. In provinces that were assumed similar to Tokyo, television was receptive in different formats from the urban areas.
2. From literature to field: Fieldwork is appropriate for the research method. People who were involved in early television has aged; now is the last chance we can hear from them. Moreover, television history in province areas is not compiled into literature.
3. From producers to recipients: The research targets are the recipients. Television studies in Japan often targets people who are involved in the broadcasting industry, broadcasting administration, and so on. It lacks the viewpoint that television culture is accepted diversely, depending on the region.
Province residents are receptive to television much more than those in the urban areas; this image of theirs seen during the age of 'analog divide' of television in Japan will relativize our premises towards the division, differentials, and so on between the urban and the province areas. This discussion could give us an opportunity to reimagine the present digital divide.