Hold, delete, suppress : a study of press censorship in occupied Japan

• Main Author: Yeo, Cavin Jia Hao
• Other Authors: Zhou Taomo
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::History::Asia::Japan
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76664
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

During the Military Occupation of Japan by the United States from 1945-1952, all forms of media and expression were subject to a strict censorship regime carried out by Allied GHQ. Despite having arrived with a mission to democratise Japan, the US felt the need to suppress speech and communication that was potentially harmful to the overall success of the Occupation. Fearful of the Japanese press’s power to influence public opinion, Occupation authorities sought to control the press by introducing codes of behaviour and drawing boundaries of acceptable discourse. This paper uses the experiences of the Japanese press and the content of newspaper articles that were censored by Occupation authorities as a lens through which to view the growing fears of the US throughout the Occupation. In doing so, this paper wishes to challenge the widely-held notion that Occupation censorship was a tool of power and control over the occupied Japanese. As evidenced by the ways in which various Japanese newspapers engaged with the censorship apparatus, the use of censorship created arenas for the press to contest GHQ’s authority; ultimately signifying the limits of the Americans’ powers as an occupying force.