Perceptions of Australia in the Japanese media have not changed in the past 26 years with Australia still seen as a wealthy, white western nation with unique fauna, according to a University of Queensland study.
For her masters thesis with the University's English Department and Asian Languages and Studies Department, Masayo Tada examined representations of Australia in Asahi Shimbun -one of Japan's major national newspapers-between 1970 and 1996.
She found that representations of Australia and Australians were rarely seen in Japan. "To an extent, the quantity of newspaper coverage can indicate the national importance one country places on another and the Asahi Shimbun coverage of Australia has been modest over time" Ms Tada said.
The months which had more than 15 items on Australia corresponded to times when significant political and economic events occurred in Australia-Japan relations or in Australia, she said.
In the 1970s, she said Australia tended to receive particular attention in months and years according to the seriousness of economic conflicts occurring at the time. An example was the 1976-77 beef and sugar conflict, she said.
"In the 1990s, coverage of Australia slightly decreased from the previous two decades. It's ironic that the visits of Prime Minister Paul Keating, who urged closer links with Japan, were given much less coverage in the newspaper compared to previous prime ministers," she said.
She said representations were dominated by images of Australia's natural environment, foci of which were abundant minerals in the 1970s, tourism in the 1980s, and its atmosphere of freedom in the 1990s.
These images reflected Japanese perceptions of the country, she said.
"Even though recent surveys have found Japanese images of Australia to be overtly favourable, they tend to be based on quite limited information about certain aspects of the country. When Japanese describe Australia, they tend to use words relating to the natural environment such as ?vast land', ?koala' and ?kangaroo'," Ms Tada said.
She said while representations of Australia in Japan were changing on the surface, reflecting social changes in the two countries, Japanese perceptions of the country remained consistent.
Supervised by English Department lecturer Dr Leigh Dale and co-supervised by Asian Languages and Studies Department lecturer Dr Tomoko Aoyama, the thesis also examines the history of Australia-Japan relations from the 1830s to understand how certain perceptions developed.
For more information, contact Ms Tada (telephone 07 3365 1412)
