Lessons from Fukushima: Japanese Case Studies on Science, Technology and Society

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011, scholars from diverse disciplines, including STS, have engaged in discussions of why the nuclear disaster came about in the way it did. Some scholars have sought to understand the nuclear disaster from historical perspectives; others have focused on the role of the media in shaping the Fukushima Daiichi disaster as a disaster of communication from the perspectives of media and communication studies. That scholars from different fields have become involved in the debates over Fukushima could be seen as evidence that various perspectives will be required if we are to learn as many lessons as possible from the event. Whereas a great deal of scholarship has contributed to a better understanding of the Fukushima disaster, virtually absent in the English-language literature are Japanese...