For those interested in media and cultural studies, I would like to invite you to the upcoming conference "Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture" at the University of Tokyo on December 10, 2011. The papers from this conference, along with others, will be published in Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), co-edited by Patrick W. Galbraith and Jason G. Karlin. For more information, see the following website:
http://individuals.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~karlin/Idols.html

*** Idols and Celebrity in Japanese Media Culture ***
Date: December 10, 2011
Time: 1:00-7:00 PM
Location: University of Tokyo, Fukutake
Hall, Learning Studio

Organizer: Jason G. Karlin
Admission: Free and open to the public

Throughout the world, the mass media is becoming more market oriented. As a result of increased competition, a vast entertainment-driven economy has formed for the purpose of expanding audiences and maximizing profits.
One consequence of this shift has been a worldwide growth in the spectacle of celebrity. As the nexus between producers and consumers, celebrities facilitate the circulation of media discourse and the promotion of goods and services.
Idols are first among equals in the Japanese entertainment industry. They organize the market into fan communities that allow for predictable patterns of viewership and consumption. The purpose of focusing on idols specifically, and celebrity more generally, is to understand the Japanese mass media by focusing on its most prominent characteristic. By situating the study of idols within the framework of media and cultural studies, this conference aims to bring the Japanese mass media into productive dialogue with scholarship and theoretical debates beyond Japan. Each presenter will illuminate a different dimension of the phenomenon of idols and celebrity in Japanese media culture.

Schedule:

1:00-1:15 Welcome and Opening Remarks (Jason G.
Karlin, University of Tokyo)

1:15-1:45 "The Jimusho System:
Understanding the Production Logic of the Japanese Entertainment Industry" (W. David Marx, Neojaponisme)

2:00-2:30 "Idol as Accidental Activist:
Agnes Chan, Feminism and Motherhood in Japan"
(Alexandra Hambleton, University of Tokyo)

2:45-3:00 - Break -

3:00-3:30 "Megaspectacle and Celebrity
Transgression: The Sakai Noriko Media Scandal" (Igor Prussa, University of Tokyo)

3:45-4:15 "From Boys Next Door to Boys'
Love: Gender Performance in Japanese Male Idol Media"
(Lucy Glasspool, Nagoya University)

4:30-4:45 - Break -

4:45-5:15 "Through a Looking Glass
Darkly: Television Advertising, Idols and the Making of Fan Audiences" (Jason G. Karlin, University of Tokyo)

5:30-6:00 "Johnny's Idols as Icon: Female
Desires to Fantasize and Consume Male Idol Images"
(Nagaike Kazumi, Oita National University)

6:15-6:45 "The Virtual Idol: Producing
and Consuming Digital Femininity" (Daniel Black, Monash
University)

7:00 Closing