9/22 The situation in Japan

thourgh today's class, we watched a video featuring how the media and elections work together. How the "vague" and "specific" change the impression of the policies is something that often happens in Japan as well. For instance, Japan's COVID19 policies are exactly the kind. The government has been postponing the "stage of an emergency," (緊急事態宣言) as a vague policy, but when I concentrate on the specific contents of this policy, it does not contain any intelligent countermeasures towards the current situation. As a fact, the situation has not improved at all even during "the state of emergency." However, I feel the one who should be blamed is not only the government. Whether the extreme of the current COVID19 policy is "lock-down" or either "doing nothing" Japan would face strict situations. I feel the government had no choice but to choose the moderate. 

Towards this policy, the Japanese media has rather been giving honest comments. In one of the news I saw, they were commenting "Is this policy really effective? We feel like it does not change with the previous countermeasures." I was slightly surprised by this, as I was expecting the news to rather support the government. In addition, for the elections, I also feel the media has not been making interventions as much. However, such impressions might relate to how I have been picking the media I watch, or my interests. To start with, I do not often see the news as much, especially when it relates to elections, as honestly, it is not really my interest. Therefore, perhaps the media has been making inventions, only just that I have not noticed or ever seen such cases. In spite of this,  I found it rather difficult to catch up to today's class contents.

I felt the necessity to include watching more news in my daily life.