Arashi & general idol related stuff for a thesis?

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry for disturbing the normal fangirling with my questions but...i need your help!

I'm going to write my thesis for university about idols (of course thinking about Arashi in my heart^^), but my professor told me that i absolutely need scientific-like material and sources! The problem is that I don't think there is a lot of these on the net, does anybody know where to find or how to look for anything?

Anything like idol definitions or something related to the fandom, to the merchandising and the market, to the magazines and newspaper talking about them is very welcomed!
I'm still figuring out a way for finding the right material so I supposed, as i saw people researching about it before, that i should at least try and ask..

Thank you sooo much even also if you just took time to read!

Much Arashi love to everyone <3

Comments

[turtle-yurippe.livejournal.com]

Have you tried a J-Stor search?
Also, I don't know about your university, but maybe, if your prof agrees, you can use only a few academic sources and the rest popular if you need them for your research, like you could do an analysis of fan polls or CD sales or whatever.

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Hi, thank you for your comment ^^!
I havent' tried yet! what does it consist of? Do you mean official J-store?

If could find some academic sources that would be great! But for what concerns polls i think she wouldn't agree as i'm part of literature department and i have to write something like an essay but only based on a lot of academic like sources :(
Anyway i think i'm willing to try adding something like cd sales!Maybe oricon sales?

[faded-lace.livejournal.com]

I know that SMAP and specifically Kimura Takuya are mentioned in this book (http://www.japanreview.net/review_japan_pop.htm), but as someone who has done research on a similar topic, I can say that from my experience, it's difficult to find many English-language sources already providing analysis on idol culture. I ended up using and siting things like Oricon charts, idol magazines, and material from the Johnny's Net site and analyzing it myself to prove my point.

Oh, and a preliminary search of jstor.org just now gave me an article called 'Japanese Music' Can be Popular, which seems to touch on idol music, another called Popular Music, Gender and High School Pupils in Japan: Personal Music in School and Leisure Sites, and a review of a book called The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture. I don't know what specific angle you're looking at for your thesis, but depending on what you're looking for, sources do exist, even if it's not quite as easy to find them.

[quin-tessen-ce.livejournal.com]

Oh, can't give you much specifics since I don't know what your thesis is and where you're going with it, but there's a ton of info out there for fandom studies and idols. There's specific books that focus on the ways of fans, fandom mindset, reasons behind fandom, accidents in fandom, how idols are produced and sold, etc...

And there should be enough books on Johnny's, too if you're going down that path. They prob won't talk about Arashi but it'll prob delve into daisempai + SMAP for sure. I wrote a paper last year on Arashi and another paper on fanfiction, so I can guarantee you there are credible sources that date back two decades from now.

All you need to do is probably do a search with keyword fandom or idol on your university's archives.

[tsutsumi.livejournal.com]

Hey there,

No, what turtle_yurippe meant, is jstor.org. It's a data base for various scientific articles. If you're doing Japanese Studies, it's very useful and, depending on your university, you're also able to download many articles directly from there.

You might also want to tell us your specific topic? Do you want to do an approach relating to the idol industry (economical), their image in society (social/cultural studies) or something different? Depending on your topic and approach it might be possible to i.e. analyse lifestyle literature or something like that.
But your professor is right, there hasn't been much research on (male) idols yet. I looked for literature myself some time ago. >.

[turtle-yurippe.livejournal.com]

Not a Japanese store, J-STOR. It's an online research paper database. Maybe you can't access all parts of it, but if your university/library has access, you could try it from there. Just look it up.

I graduated from the Japanese literature department of my university too (just this year actually) and if you talk to your professor, depending on his or her opinion on modern topics, you could maybe agree to conduct a study on your own. I remember once writing a paper on online literature and author blogs for which I coudn't find many academic sources, so I just did a comparison etc. and my prof found it okay. You have to discuss that first, of course.

[turtle-yurippe.livejournal.com]

Plus, I guess there's a lot more literature written in Japanese than in English - I found academic books on many many topics in Japan -, so you might want to look at amazon.co.jp if your Japanese is sufficient.

[celestedoro.livejournal.com]

But you need to pay for the articles on jstor, or if your university has a subscription to it then you can use it for free. (But you still need something like stunnel to log in.)
Also, you can try sciencedirect.com. I haven't used it yet though. :c
Be sure to check out your library's site of your uni. Because if your uni has a subscription to any similar sites then it's surely listed there!

[tsukiyamada.livejournal.com]

Hi! Actually, I'm writing my doctoral thesis about japanese idols, specifically, Arashi. And my Master thesis was about Johnnys jimusho... but I have been writing in Spanish, as I'm studying in Mexico.
My sources are mainly multidisciplinary articles found on academic databases... you should look on those. Jstor is the best for Japanese related material.
If you could tell me what is your major and what about idols do you want to write about (and for what grade - bachelor, master, doctor-), I may give you better advise :)

[swimmer-chen.livejournal.com]

im not sure if you want something general liket his, but je was on the world guiness records 2x... i don't know what edition though. what kind of things are you looking for specifically? newspapers? >

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you soooo much! I'm going to take a look both for that archive and from amazon even if my japanese is still at a N3-like level so maybe not sufficient yet :(

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Wow thank you so much for your accurate comment!
I'm so happy there are kind people like you ;)
I'm going to take a look for those sources thanks a lot really! About the angle ..well i don't now well either but once i have any material i'll be able to choose and select ;)

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!!

[turtle-yurippe.livejournal.com]

N3 sounds a little insufficient for research, yeah. At least for academic articles. Hmm...

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Ohh i see, unfortunately even if i think finding material on the net and in english is the right way, i'm studying in an italian university so i doubt my university is listed there :(

My initial idea was an approach with a sort of comparison between how kabuki actors were idolized as stars before (when kabuki was in its most popular period) and maybe how that has been a good soil for idols to become so popular in Japan after.
Then talking about the idol thing in general.
I know is quite strange so i'm still in doubt whether to talk just about idols from a cultural point of view..

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you i will look for it!!

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Hi, i'll tell you what i was thinking about in general, that is an approach with a sort of comparison between how kabuki actors were idolized as stars before (when kabuki was in its most popular period) and maybe how that has been a good soil for idols to become so popular in Japan after.
but i'm still not sure at 100% probably i'll end up doing something general on the topic as is still a thesis for the normal graduation thesis and not for a major ^^
But i'm in the oriental culture and literature department..

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Hello, thank you very much for your comment!
Actually my university is an italian one so i doubt it has a subscription there ç_ç
But I'll try also the other site you listed thanks again!

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Hello! thank you so much for your comment!
I'm looking for english material as i though the net would have provided me a lot more infos this way but i'm not writing in english as well, but in italian ^^!
Actually my is still a normal graduation thesis but i'm part of the literature and oriental cultures department, so i was thinking of giving to it a cultural look.
I'll say to you too the same thing i wrote in another comment :
what i was thinking about in general is an approach with a sort of comparison between how kabuki actors were idolized as stars before (when kabuki was in its most popular period) and maybe how that has been a good soil for idols to become so popular in Japan after.
but i'm still not sure at 100% probably i'll end up doing something general on the topic :D

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

hi! well as for now something general is welcomed as well as i was thinking about giving it a general culture look! So magazines articles are welcomed as well!

[svetochkarae.livejournal.com]

not much of a help but perhaps you could look at references and sources section of japanese idol in wikipedia?

[celestedoro.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. c:
Try the site of the English Department's library. :)
Maybe if you have some friends in the English department they can help you.

[purplegabbie.livejournal.com]

Try google scholar as well, i saw a few books and articles when I searched japanese fandom and idols. Again, most of them require a subscription of some sort but there are some that are free and some book previews. The english articles generally come from an international perspective though (transcultural aspects, online communities etc) and your focus seems to want to research from mainly the japanese perspective (kabuki-->idol) so it might be difficult. Good luck though, I hope you don't give up on writing about idols (Arashi:))
PS: Found this dissertation -Islands of eight-million smiles : pop-idol performances and the field of symbolic production. Its old (1999 so no mention of Arashi) but might help. You can download here: https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/9936

[tsukiyamada.livejournal.com]

Well, right now I'm in focus on cultural studies, and I can tell you there are lots of papers around about japanese pop culture and those can be really helpful. It is hard to find about Johnnys, but I don't think you need them to be exactly about them, particularly if you'll be doing field research. Just find general pop culture sources and then you work from there. And well, for a bachelor thesis, I think is better not to go so specific, as you will hardly have the resources to finish, but that's just my opinion :)
As you said you're Italian, you may understand Spanish a bit, right??? I leave here the link to my Master thesis, if you want to take a look. It may help you :)
http://codex.colmex.mx:8991/F/277IDTQM5BA51GAYYQI3JHP7FTGLEX6AMLQM3LVUPR57HHFAM8-36696?func=full-set-set&set_number=021122&set_entry=000001&format=999

[faded-lace.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :)

I sent you a PM with more resources, if you're interested! They're more about kabuki than Arashi, so I figured it was best to move it off the comm.

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

thanlk you so much again gonna check it!

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much really!! I think i can also find someone helping me with spanish so thank you!!

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

You are very nice thank you! I'm gonna take a look at that too thanks a lot!!!

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Yes I'm taking a look at those too thank you ;))

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

sorry if i write again but it seems i can't access the thesis.. should i select the link to the pdf file right?

academic articles on idols, talents, jpop

[captain-snen.livejournal.com]

Aoyagi, Hiroshi, 2005. Island of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.

Brasor, Philip, 1997. Idol chatter: The evolution of J-pop. Japan Quarterly, 44(2), 55-55-65. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/234916266?accountid=10598
Brunt, Shelley. 2003 Autumn. The Kohaku Song Contest: A Community in Performance. Context 25, 5-15.

Condry, Ian, 2011. Popular Music in Japan, Routledge handbook of Japanese culture and society. New York : Routledge.

Darling-Wolf, F., 2003. Male bonding and female pleasure: Refining masculinity in Japanese popular cultural texts- Popular Communication - Routledge
Darling-Wolf, F., 2004. “SMAP, sex and masculinity: Constructing the perfect female fantasy in Japanese popular music". Popular Music and Society 27 (3): 358.
Darling-Wolf, F., 2004. Virtually Multicultural: Trans-Asian Identity and Gender in an International Fan Community of a Japanese Star, New Media & Society, 6: 507 – 528.　

Hosokawa, Shuhei. 2005, Popular Entertainment and the Music Industry, Fabricating Aidoru – overview of idols and fans, A companion to the anthropology of Japan, By Jennifer Ellen Robertson, Blackwell companions to anthropology, ISBN 0631229558, Volume 5, xxiii, 518 p.

Huat , Chua Beng and Iwabuchi, Koichi. 2008. East Asian pop culture : analysing the Korean wave. Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press ; London : Eurospan [distributor].

Kinsella, Sharon, 1995. Cuties in Japan, Women, media, and consumption in Japan By Lise Skov, Brian Moeran.

Lukacs, Gabriella, 2010, Scripted Affects, Branded Selves : Television, Subjectivity, and Capitalism in 1990s Japan

Mōri, Yoshitaka, 2009 Dec. J-pop: from the ideology of creativity to DiY music culture. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, ISSN 1464-9373, Volume 10, Issue 4, pp. 474 – 488.

Painter, Andrew A., 1993 Japanese Daytime Television, Popular Culture, and Ideology, Journal of Japanese Studies. Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 295-325, The Society for Japanese Studies

Stevens, Carolyn, and Shusei Hosokawa, 2001 “So Close and Yet So Far: Humanizing Celebrity in Japanese Music Variety Shows, 1960s–1990s.” Asian Media Productions. Ed. Brian

Tsai, Eva, 2010. The dramatic consequences of playing a lover: stars and televisual culture in Japan, Television, Japan, and Globalization, Ann Arbor, MI : Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan.

[captain-snen.livejournal.com]

Hi, i posted some other stuff, but if that's the case i'd also look at Jennifer Robertson's Takarazuka book. it makes a lot of comparisons between kabuki tradition and takarazuka in terms of androgyny and might be helpful for you.

[papanie.livejournal.com]

previously, I chose fanfics for my thesis topics and I've search for some materials, but then I dropped it and use novel-film adaptation instead :D
So, here's some selection for references about fandom related stuffs ^^ not much, though..

http://www.mediafire.com/?w7aa298u57e7jg9

[slaviour.livejournal.com]

Hi, I just read your post and I read the comment from top to bottom.
About this one thesis.. the link that "tsukiyamada" gave u is working. Just click on PDF icon beside the tittle "El mercado de IDOL varones en Japón, 1999-2008 caracterización de la oferta a través del estudio " then u'd get the thesis u need..^^
Ganbatte~

[slaviour.livejournal.com]

here is the link (if you haven't searched it yet)
JE won 2 guiness record (tokyohive)
http://www.tokyohive.com/2011/09/johnny-kitagawa-nabs-two-guinness-world-record-awards/

AKB48 vs ARASHI in guiness record (jpopasia)
http://www.jpopasia.com/news/akb48-tries-another-guinness-world-record-with-90-cms::10264.html

News from tumbletot
http://www.tumbletot.net/?p=4230

[tsukiyamada.livejournal.com]

Hi, yeah, I tried again, and it works, here is the direct link to the pdf: http://codex.colmex.mx:8991/exlibris/aleph/a18_1/apache_media/8H46N34UM7GBL1FTD285EY14B488J7.pdf

[ezura.livejournal.com]

usually idol refers to celebrity who age range around 11 to 30, who also currently a rising-star. In some cases, like Arashi and SMAP, they can still be called idols. Since we both Arashi fans, i just use them as example. Most idols are agency's moneymaker, and they have their own selling point, such as pretty faces, legs (like SNSD & Miss A), body curves, voices. And sometimes talent is nothing if you have the strongest selling point.

not sure if i helped a bit, but that's what i think about idols. :/

Of course Arashi has all the selling points i stated, accept the legs. Xp

Re: academic articles on idols, talents, jpop

[naming-is-hard.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm keeping this list for ever (even though I have no intention of doing something like OP's thesis)

[rose-kumo.livejournal.com]

I'll suggest cinii site to find about related paper or journal.. just check on google about cinii...

[tsunderellasays.livejournal.com]

Hi.

I'm not sure if this can be counted as academic, but CNN has an article on Japanese male idols (http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/03/the-mystique-of-the-japanese-male-idol/).

You can also try researching on sociology and psychology papers on being fans or something.

Good luck on your thesis!

[drigby.livejournal.com]

Academic papers and books aren't the only sources you can cite. You can also cite newspapers, periodicals and magazine articles, even their online version, as long as you know how to cite them properly in your references.

Re: academic articles on idols, talents, jpop

[captain-snen.livejournal.com]

they are interesting reads, even though i don't agree with all of them

[fallen-shadow68.livejournal.com]

I would pretty much recommend captain_snen's list, especially the Aoyagi book.

Unfortunately, though, in terms of male idol groups, SMAP tends to be more written about than Arashi, and in general, there seems to be more about female idols than male idols.

Depending on what angle from which you're working, you could also analyze magazine interviews, concert MCs, etc. of Arashi as primary sources (what they say about their fans and such, if you're talking about fandom specifically, for example). If your professor is okay with that, you have a whole wealth of information there!

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you again and sorry :P

Re: academic articles on idols, talents, jpop

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

WOW!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
Now the problem is how to find them without spending all my money but that's great thank you :')

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for sharing your material <3

[babicchan.livejournal.com]

Thanks!! wow that's what my teacher tried to suggest me but she couldn't remember the name properly XD Thanks a lot !!