Join us for a close-up look at Tokyo at a moment of social and political confusion.

Digital TV and The World reporters invite the J-School community and friends to a special screening of “Facing Japan.”   Their 15-short videos document the lives of ordinary people in Tokyo and California.  J-Schoolers Nick Burns (’10), Tuomas Forsell (’09), Julie Johnson (’09), Tyler Sipe (’10), Clayton Trosclair (’10) and Japhet Weeks (’10) reported and produced the videos.  Their works examine tensions and changing attitudes among Japanese and Japanese Americans on both sides of the Pacific.  The group also took an intimate look at a Tokyo neighborhood that clings to tradition. Monzen-Nakacho, located on Tokyo’s east side, typifies some of the demographic and societal shifts taking place in Japan:  an aging population, fewer children, and flagging faith.

At Berkeley, the reporters took Digital TV and the World classes and produced video profiles of Japanese and Japanese Americans in the Bay Area.  They also enrolled in a Reporting on Japan class taught by Yomiuri Shimbun reporter Izumi Miyachi.  Some of the reporters, participated in the Center for Digital TV and the World’s month-long professional reporting practicum in Tokyo.

The Digital TV and the World class is offered each spring. Past reporting projects covered Beijing, Guangzhou, Phnom Penh, India, Latin America and other points around the globe. The class is taught by instructor Todd Carrel with Samantha Grant and technical advisor Milt Wallace. 

The Center for Digital TV and the World, a project of the Tides Center, is supported by the Skirball Foundation, ANA, The Japan-United States Friendship Commission, The Henry Luce Foundation, Sony, and UC Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies, Graduate School of Journalism and Institute of East Asian Studies.

For more information on Digital TV and the World contact Todd Carrel.