| This study explores a way of analyzing how national media systems represent their nation as a member of a more general international society of nation-states through a mediated discourse on the symbol of internationalization. Internationalization discourse is studied as a key indicator of how intra-state actors, including media representatives, project an image of their state's international identity and of its role obligations within the world system. However, in this study, internationalization is not defined as a process of mutual inter-connectedness and interdependence working to harmonize relations between states. The conceptual approach is derived from a desire to understand the process of national convergence or internationalization as a complex assemblage of conflicting interpretations on the part of domestic actors concerning how the national self should proceed with the policy of deepening interactions with the external world while maintaining the sovereignty of its domestic laws, institutions and customs.;In order to do this, the study introduces three dimensions of internationalization deemed useful in understanding internationalization discourse as a form of self-other referencing: internationalization direction, internationalization scope and internationalization motivation. The purpose in using these particular dimensions is to see how states, through their media systems, reference themselves towards the international system in terms of whether the nation is projected as an international system "effector" state or international system "reactor" state and in terms of what kind of obligations the state has to converge with other states within the wider international system.;The methodology is tested on the internationalization discourse presented through Japan's leading national daily newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, to see whether the internationalization dimensions would prove effective in discerning shifts in Japan's foreign policy mood during a time of major international change, that of the shift from a Cold War to a post-Cold War world. Overall, the methodology did prove effective in decompacting internationalization as an indicator of how Japan "understands" its international position and role. But the results indicate that, over the ten year period of the study, there were no radical shifts or moves towards a more proactive Japanese foreign policy revealed in either the editorial or government internationalization discourse presented through the newspaper. |
