Earl: Thank you for at least citing a study in defending your viewpoint. My chief point and complaint in this stream is the sweeping generalizations about the U.S. without any study, data, distinction about what percentage of Americans hold those characteristics, or qualifications. For some reason it seems ok to do this about the U.S. but if some of those same type of sweeping generalizations were applied to Japan we'd be appalled! If we are holding people in this forum to the same social scientific standards we should have in our published work, then seems to me such data, subtle distinctions, and qualifications are necessary; if this is just an opinion blog in which we can vent all our personal opinions (yes, and
prejudices) fine, but don't try to cloak them in the authority of social scientists.

I happen to think a lot of what your study says about the US media is probably true (although I'd have to see the methodology of the study to know about how valid it is). My own personal reactions when I read a lot of the articles about Japan in the NY Times, for e.g., is the
same: always the cultural explanation for everything.
Drives me crazy. But whether this is a distinctly American media trait or a more universal one of journalism to deal in stereotypes, cultural platitudes, and catering to popular prejudices remains to be seen.
Similar systematic studies of other media would have to be done. My outdated knowledge of some studies done elsewhere is that other media have some of the same (or different equally egregious) tendencies, although there may be some exceptions such as specialty business papers like the FT (which actually has more coverage of Japan than any US paper). I would also bet if you read the LA TImes and the San Jose Mercury that have a fair amount of coverage of Japan, i.e. West coast newspapers where the audience's knowledge of Japan and Japanese may be more extensive, you might not find as much of what that study found.
Best regards,
Ellis

Best regards,
Ellis