Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/90193

This paper considers the ambiguity of the “impartial, unbiased perspective” by examining the rationality of the Hakko Affair, and adopts Niklas Luhmann's viewpoint of power communication as a theoretical foundation. The Hakko Affair in 1918 is an example of how power communication plays a pivotal role in affecting different entities involved. The government set up sanctions with coercive power backed by administration and law, to suppress Asahi Shimbun successfully (valid sanction). In comparison, the mass media's power can influence public opinion but it cannot change the government by influencing elections, since the election has not yet been in place (invalid sanction). This interplay of power between mass media and government is a precondition for the ambiguity of the “impartial, unbiased perspective”. Only when the power relationship between the mass media and the government is balanced, the “impartial, unbiased perspective” can be considered subsequently a normative concept in journalism.