Marc Steinberg is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Concordia University and the author of Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Alexander Zahlten is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

“Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten cleverly edited this collection of essays, and it will likely become an important reference for critical re-examination of media studies in Japan and for reconsidering this field in the West, which means a reconstruction of the field of media studies.” - Shin Mizukoshi (Designing Media Ecology) “A groundbreaking collection. . . . The diverse range of rigorous and engaging essays make the collection as a whole essential reading for an extensive range of audiences in media studies, Japan studies, and humanities-based area studies more broadly.” - Franz Prichard (Pacific Affairs) “This groundbreaking collection is a welcome contribution to recent writing that focuses on Japan not only as an object of study but as a location of theory. Media Theory in Japan is a valuable start to necessary cultural commutation, a kind of atlas of thinking on media in Japan that only makes me wish for more pages.” - Michael Raine (Critical Inquiry) "The question of how to recognize the complexity of new media at the scale which it intervenes in our collective consciousness and everyday life is one that Media Theory in Japan leaves its readers to grapple with on their own. . . . What this provocative set of essays ultimately points toward is a future media studies, both in and of Japan, where theory and method effectively collaborate in the construction of its evolving tower of babel." - Hoyt Long (Journal of Japanese Studies)

• Acknowledgments  ixPreface / Akira Mizuta Lippit  xiIntroduction / Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten  1Part I. Communication Technologies1. From Film to Television: Early Theories of Television in Japan / Aaron Gerow  332. Architecture as Atmospheric Media: Tange Lab and Cybernetics / Yuriko Furuhata  523. The Media Theory and Media Strategy of Azuma Hiroki, 1997-2003 / Takeshi Kadobayashi  804. The InterCommunication Project: Theorizing Media in Japan's Last Decades / Marilyn Ivy  101Part II. Practical Theory5. McLuhan as Prescription Drug: Actionable Theory and Advertising Industries / Marc Steinberg  1316. The Culture Industries and Media Theory in Japan / Miryam Sas  1517. Girlscape: The Marketing of Mediatic Ambience in Japan / Tomiko Yoda  1738. 1980s "Nyū Aca": (Non)Media Theory as Romantic Performance / Alexander Zahlten  2009. Critical Media Imagination: Nancy Seki's TV Criticism and the Media Space of the 1980s and 1990s / Ryoki Misono  22110. At the Source (Code): Obscenity and Modularity in Rokudenashiko's Media Activism / Anne McKnight  250Part III. Mediation and Media Theory11. An Assault on "Meaning": On Nakai Masakazu's Concept of "Mediation" / Akihiro Kitada  28512. Much Ado about "Nothing": The Kyōto School as "Media Philosophy" / Fabian SchÄfer 30513. Kobayashi Hideo and the Question of Media / Keisuke Kitano  32814. Media, Mediation, and Crisis: A History-and the Case for Media Studies as (Postcultural) Anthropology / Tom Looser  347Afterword. The Disjunctive Kernel of Japanese Media Theory / Mark N. B. Hansen  368Bibliography  389Contributors  413Index  417

Marc Steinberg is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Concordia University and the author of Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Alexander Zahlten is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

“Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten cleverly edited this collection of essays, and it will likely become an important reference for critical re-examination of media studies in Japan and for reconsidering this field in the West, which means a reconstruction of the field of media studies.” - Shin Mizukoshi (Designing Media Ecology) “A groundbreaking collection. . . . The diverse range of rigorous and engaging essays make the collection as a whole essential reading for an extensive range of audiences in media studies, Japan studies, and humanities-based area studies more broadly.” - Franz Prichard (Pacific Affairs) “This groundbreaking collection is a welcome contribution to recent writing that focuses on Japan not only as an object of study but as a location of theory. Media Theory in Japan is a valuable start to necessary cultural commutation, a kind of atlas of thinking on media in Japan that only makes me wish for more pages.” - Michael Raine (Critical Inquiry) "The question of how to recognize the complexity of new media at the scale which it intervenes in our collective consciousness and everyday life is one that Media Theory in Japan leaves its readers to grapple with on their own. . . . What this provocative set of essays ultimately points toward is a future media studies, both in and of Japan, where theory and method effectively collaborate in the construction of its evolving tower of babel." - Hoyt Long (Journal of Japanese Studies)

• Acknowledgments  ixPreface / Akira Mizuta Lippit  xiIntroduction / Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten  1Part I. Communication Technologies1. From Film to Television: Early Theories of Television in Japan / Aaron Gerow  332. Architecture as Atmospheric Media: Tange Lab and Cybernetics / Yuriko Furuhata  523. The Media Theory and Media Strategy of Azuma Hiroki, 1997-2003 / Takeshi Kadobayashi  804. The InterCommunication Project: Theorizing Media in Japan's Last Decades / Marilyn Ivy  101Part II. Practical Theory5. McLuhan as Prescription Drug: Actionable Theory and Advertising Industries / Marc Steinberg  1316. The Culture Industries and Media Theory in Japan / Miryam Sas  1517. Girlscape: The Marketing of Mediatic Ambience in Japan / Tomiko Yoda  1738. 1980s "Nyū Aca": (Non)Media Theory as Romantic Performance / Alexander Zahlten  2009. Critical Media Imagination: Nancy Seki's TV Criticism and the Media Space of the 1980s and 1990s / Ryoki Misono  22110. At the Source (Code): Obscenity and Modularity in Rokudenashiko's Media Activism / Anne McKnight  250Part III. Mediation and Media Theory11. An Assault on "Meaning": On Nakai Masakazu's Concept of "Mediation" / Akihiro Kitada  28512. Much Ado about "Nothing": The Kyōto School as "Media Philosophy" / Fabian SchÄfer 30513. Kobayashi Hideo and the Question of Media / Keisuke Kitano  32814. Media, Mediation, and Crisis: A History-and the Case for Media Studies as (Postcultural) Anthropology / Tom Looser  347Afterword. The Disjunctive Kernel of Japanese Media Theory / Mark N. B. Hansen  368Bibliography  389Contributors  413Index  417

Marc Steinberg is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Concordia University and the author of Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Alexander Zahlten is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

“Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten cleverly edited this collection of essays, and it will likely become an important reference for critical re-examination of media studies in Japan and for reconsidering this field in the West, which means a reconstruction of the field of media studies.” - Shin Mizukoshi (Designing Media Ecology) “A groundbreaking collection. . . . The diverse range of rigorous and engaging essays make the collection as a whole essential reading for an extensive range of audiences in media studies, Japan studies, and humanities-based area studies more broadly.” - Franz Prichard (Pacific Affairs) “This groundbreaking collection is a welcome contribution to recent writing that focuses on Japan not only as an object of study but as a location of theory. Media Theory in Japan is a valuable start to necessary cultural commutation, a kind of atlas of thinking on media in Japan that only makes me wish for more pages.” - Michael Raine (Critical Inquiry) "The question of how to recognize the complexity of new media at the scale which it intervenes in our collective consciousness and everyday life is one that Media Theory in Japan leaves its readers to grapple with on their own. . . . What this provocative set of essays ultimately points toward is a future media studies, both in and of Japan, where theory and method effectively collaborate in the construction of its evolving tower of babel." - Hoyt Long (Journal of Japanese Studies)

• Acknowledgments  ixPreface / Akira Mizuta Lippit  xiIntroduction / Marc Steinberg and Alexander Zahlten  1Part I. Communication Technologies1. From Film to Television: Early Theories of Television in Japan / Aaron Gerow  332. Architecture as Atmospheric Media: Tange Lab and Cybernetics / Yuriko Furuhata  523. The Media Theory and Media Strategy of Azuma Hiroki, 1997-2003 / Takeshi Kadobayashi  804. The InterCommunication Project: Theorizing Media in Japan's Last Decades / Marilyn Ivy  101Part II. Practical Theory5. McLuhan as Prescription Drug: Actionable Theory and Advertising Industries / Marc Steinberg  1316. The Culture Industries and Media Theory in Japan / Miryam Sas  1517. Girlscape: The Marketing of Mediatic Ambience in Japan / Tomiko Yoda  1738. 1980s "Nyū Aca": (Non)Media Theory as Romantic Performance / Alexander Zahlten  2009. Critical Media Imagination: Nancy Seki's TV Criticism and the Media Space of the 1980s and 1990s / Ryoki Misono  22110. At the Source (Code): Obscenity and Modularity in Rokudenashiko's Media Activism / Anne McKnight  250Part III. Mediation and Media Theory11. An Assault on "Meaning": On Nakai Masakazu's Concept of "Mediation" / Akihiro Kitada  28512. Much Ado about "Nothing": The Kyōto School as "Media Philosophy" / Fabian SchÄfer 30513. Kobayashi Hideo and the Question of Media / Keisuke Kitano  32814. Media, Mediation, and Crisis: A History-and the Case for Media Studies as (Postcultural) Anthropology / Tom Looser  347Afterword. The Disjunctive Kernel of Japanese Media Theory / Mark N. B. Hansen  368Bibliography  389Contributors  413Index  417