Press Freedom and the 26th Century Affair in Meiji Japan
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 6, Heft 3, S. 337-351
ISSN: 1469-8099
For a little over twenty years the Meiji press demonstrated a remarkable degree of vitality, resilience, and strength of purpose in the face of severely repressive laws of which the most onerous and irksome were those authorizing the government to ban and suspend publications. When, in March 1897, the 26th Century Affair culminated in the passage of revised press laws eliminating that dreaded power, the new freedom was largely the product of leadership which came from the press itself, and particularly from that part of the press often characterized as 'conservative', 'right-wing', 'nationalist' or even 'ultra-nationalist'.