Scandal in Japan

'This is an excellent piece of work that combines fascinating ethnographic and historical data in a well-rounded and well thought out theoretical perspective. The only other book that I know in English that is anything like this book is the work of Mark West mentioned by the author several times. This book is superior to West's book in that it puts its material in a theoretical framework that allows us to make comparisons not only with other cases in Japan but also with cases elsewhere.' Roger Goodman, Nissan Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford 'This is an astonishing book. You may start reading thinking that scandals are marginal if entertaining, and you soon find yourself learning and thinking about the most probing issues and intricate mechanisms of the contemporary Japanese society. By combining the analytical insights from philology, media studies, and cultural sociology with an intimate knowledge of Japan, the author succeeds in explicating the social functioning of scandals as highly mediatized rituals that tend to preserve the status quo, while shedding lights on the range of roles and strategies of the actors involved.' Koichi Nakano, Professor of Japanese Politics, Sophia University Tokyo 'Theoretically engaging and interdisciplinary in its approach, Scandal in Japan provides an insightful critique of the Japanese media's complicity in the ritualized performance of scandals. Beyond showing how media scandals serve to reproduce society and social norms, Prusa's careful analysis-ranging from celebrity to political to corporate scandals-reveals the ways that spectacle, pseudo-events, and fake news distract from meaningful social change.' Jason G. Karlin, Professor of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, The University of Tokyo