Japanese Public Diplomacy for 2020 Tokyo Olympics

     Japan was chosen for the host of 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. However, even though this was a great victory for both Japan itself and Abe administration, an important problem has remained unsolved, which is radiation problem caused by Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 11^th in 2011.

      Tokyo is not distant from Fukushima very much, so there have been many voices that worry about health of athletes from around the world. Moreover, there have also been doubtful opinions against Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) because of its mismanagement. According to Abe’s statement, Abe administration will support Tepco, but it is difficult to say there is a faith and trust for Tepco from the world since this accident happened.

     Therefore, it is time for Japan to take action for cleaning up Fukushima and to regain trust from the world by 2020. And this will be strongly related to Japanese Public Diplomacy. If the government repeatedly states that "Tokyo is safe" without showing any evidence, that will be seen as propagandistic because it is seen as manipulating information and implanting certain information into the public. Therefore, Japanese government should present reliable evidence that shows Tokyo is not contaminated.
Also, if the government creates or intervenes the guidelines for this plan too much, that will be seen as propagandistic policy because, according Jay Black, excessive use of power of authority became propaganda even if people do not mean to make it propagandistic. Moreover, James Pamment argues that new public diplomacy in modern society is more collaborative, and more actors are engaged in it; therefore, not only the government but also some other actors should elaborate to make public policy be successful.

     Jay Black also argues about Propaganda by comparing and contrast education and propaganda. He claims that education takes long time and is slow process for letting receivers know and learn, while propaganda is training receivers quickly and takes short time. Therefore, Japan can take long time to let people around the world know the process of achieving goal gradually by 2020 with publishing some statistic data and statement, which can be educational, not propagandistic.

This is the article that I referred:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-snow/tokyo-2020-the-whole-worl_b_3887372.html