The Role of Entertainment Media in Promoting Culture: The Case of Japanese Cartoons and Superhero tv Series in 80s-90s Thai Society

Abstract

This research delved into the specificity of Japanese cartoons and superhero tv series during the 80s-90s based on two questions; how their content familiarized the Thai audience with the culture of Japan and what impact they have delivered. Content analysis, audience analysis, and document research were used as the research methodology. The discovery suggested that Japanese cartoons and superhero tv series were culturally powerful. Their presentation of the local culture was comprehensible, repetitive, and joyous, causing the audience to be connected to the culture of Japan with ease. Each cartoon and superhero tv series also possessed high entertainment quality that drew mass attention from the Thai audience as well as enlarging the consumption scale. This came to light as a result of some creative techniques employed by their creators and, therefore, engendered some significant impacts as explained in the theory of soft power.