Mayuko WATANABE
Media Researcher and Journalist,
President of the Association for Sexual Media Literacy Education (ASMLE)
Tokyo, Japan
▶▶CONTACT
▶ Blog: Sexual Media Literacy Education
< Biography >
Mayuko WATANABE is an award winning journalist, a researcher, and an author
specialized in media literacy, gender and sexuality. Her research interest through
over 20 years of career including as a TV news reporter has been the regulatory policy of obscene expressions.
Not only taught media theories at several universities, she also worked on the Japanese Government to apply a concept of "Healthy Development of Youths" to its regulatory policy. She has served as a government committee member, and as a lecturer of Internet moral education for Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and also as a lecturer of human rights for Ministry of Justice.
Featured in International Media:
・Channel News Asia
- The reality of Domestic Violence in Japan
・SBS
- Japan's Broadcasting Regulation
・Japan Today
- How to deal with Online Stalking
Conference Presentation:
-- 2017 International Telecommunications Society (ITS) Conference --
--2013 Japan Association of Gender and Law Annual Symposium
-- 2011 International Telecommunications Society (ITS) Conference --
< Current Research Interest >
Media Literacy of Obscene Information among Youth in Japan
In late years, the young people in Japan tend to see obscene information more frequently by the flood of magazines, comics, and adult videos that handle obscene contents, and especially by the spread of the Internet.
While Japan is known as the country called "pornography superpower," parents and schools are not going to face the sex education directly. Therefore, the young people rely on the media as a textbook of sex.
Based on the result of her survey of male and female university students, she examines how the obscene information of such media is associated with youths’ behavioral and normative beliefs about having sexual intercourse, and harmful effects for their sexual communication.
< Publications >
Journal Articles
・ Watanabe, Mayuko. International trend and human rights over child pornography:
the future agenda of Japan. In Information and Communications Policy Review No.10 March,
2015
・ Watanabe,
Mayuko. A Review of Research which Discusses the Effects of Obscene Harmful Information
from Old Media to the Internet. In The Japan Society of Information and Communication Research No.30 (2), 2012
・ Watanabe, Mayuko. Regulations and Media Literacy Education on Online Obscene Harmful Information:
A Japanese Perspective.
In UNESCO: Media & Information Literacy
Clearinghouse / Keio Communication Review No.34, 2012
Books
・ Watanabe, Mayuko (2018). Virtual Child Pornography and the Rights of the Child: The way to regulate manga, anime and game in
Japan. Keiso Publishing, Inc., Tokyo. (End of Sales)
・ Watanabe, Mayuko (2015). Revenge Porn: Young people who's sex are diffused.
Kobundo Co., Ltd, Tokyo.
・ Watanabe, Mayuko (2013). Media Literacy of Obscene Information among Youth in Japan. Amazon Services International, Inc.
・ Watanabe, Mayuko (2010). When Children Expose Their Secrets Online: addicted to SNS. Shufunotomo Co., Ltd., Tokyo.
・ Watanabe, Mayuko (2008). The Truth of Cyber bullying. Minerva Publishing, Inc., Kyoto.
・ Watanabe, Mayuko (2007). Media Literacy for Adults. Liberta Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo.
< Awards >
Radio documentary: Suicide of 16 years old boy - What did the bereaved family fight against?
・ Highest award from the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association
・ Award for excellence from the Hoso Bunka Foundation
< Education >
・ 2013 Withdrawal from the Doctoral Program with the Completion of Course Requirements,
Media and Governance, Keio University, Tokyo
・ 2006 P.B.D. Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada
・ 1998 B.A. Human Science, Keio University, Tokyo