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Paper short abstract

This study examines how furusato (“hometown”) was formed in 1960s–70s Japan through a live national TV show showcasing regional culture and mobilizing residents. It reveals furusato as a social practice created through media, migration, locality, and shared emotion.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how rural Japan came to be articulated as furusato (“hometown”) in the 1960s and 1970s, and analyzes the social relations and community processes through which this representation was collectively produced. While furusato is often understood as a nostalgic cultural trope internal to Japan, this study shifts attention to the institutional and social mechanisms through which it was made visible and emotionally resonant. As a primary source, it focuses on NHK’s live entertainment program Furusato no Uta Matsuri (Hometown Song Festival), broadcast from 1966 to 1974. Each week, well-known announcer Teru Miyata introduced festivals, folk performing arts, and elements of daily cultural life alongside guest singers, drawing nationwide viewership ratings of 30–40 percent. Large groups of residents participated, presenting their communities on a national stage.

The program communicated the vitality of the furusato to audiences who had migrated to cities during Japan’s period of rapid economic growth. At the same time, it staged regional pride before a dispersed national public, giving local actors a rare opportunity for visibility. A defining feature was the sense of unity cultivated among Miyata, performers, singers, and audiences on site—a form of mediated co-presence that complicates assumptions about passive television spectatorship.

With NHK’s cooperation, we analyzed the 35 surviving episodes. We also conducted interviews with Miyata’s secretary and former directors. Furthermore, with the cooperation of Miyata’s family, we examined production materials preserved by his partner, including scripts, interview notes, schedules, venue layouts, municipal publicity documents, local newspaper reports, and correspondence among NHK regional stations, municipalities, preservation societies, residents, migrants, and viewers.

Rather than approaching television as a representational surface, the study adopts a sociological perspective that understands media as a field in which social relations, local identities, and feelings of furusato are produced. By tracing how municipalities, Chambers of Commerce and Industry, preservation groups, and residents sought to shape how their communities would be seen, the paper argues that furusato was not only emotionally imagined, but actively organized and negotiated through media, migration, locality, and collective emotion.