Moving Images of Ainu People in the Social Context of Ethnocratic Japan

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1) Media articles and related resource materials referring, in some way or other, to the indigenous Ainu people have been extensively collected, sorted and analyzed. The materials were processed, with thematic classification, keywording, text critic and bibliographic referencing, into a 7.6MB machine-readable database on Macintosh with FileMakerPro (2.1-J) application. The database contains 10,370 records (and approximately 1,200 records are yet to be added).2) With the arguably unsuccessful completion of the UN International Year of the World's Indigenous People, Japanese mainstream media quickly retreated from dealing with the Ainu affairs in headlines. This has been quantatively confirmed by the database. Since the first Ainu Senator joined the Diet in August 1994, the absolute majority of media articles are something to do with his activities.3) A new tendency since 1996 is for the media to focus on varied instances in which educators (particularly non-tertiary school teachers) try to include the Ainu issues in both classroom activities and extracurricular activities.4) Though the Advisory Review Commission on the Ainu Policies (1995-96) was much on focus, substantial information on what was debated in it were poorly covered in the media articles. Nor did the mainstream papers carried few explanatory notes on the polemic notions of indigenous right and/or native title rights.