Introduction
On March 11 in 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake and the following tsunami, caused
damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a facility operated by TEPCO
(Konoplev et al., 2016). Loss of power resulted in failing cooling systems which
consequently led to a meltdown. Eventually, this resulted in radioactive waste being
distributed across the country and beyond. (Konoplev et al., 2016). This event did not go
undiscussed by other countries.
In this paper, it is examined how the environmental impact of the Fukushima disaster is
portrayed in the media in The United Kingdom and China, where the purpose is to explore
similarities and differences. This will be done through media analysis.
The chosen articles for this research are: Fukushima nuclear cleanup could create its own
environmental disaster and Japan fears radioactive contamination of marine life from The
UK. The articles from China are Japan begins radiation dump and Radiation spreads as
crisis likely to continue for 'a long time'.
Methodology
There are several reasons why the countries are chosen. The UK has a parliamentary
democracy (Britannica, n.d.), as China is a one-party state with a communist ideology where
the media is controlled by the CCP (Xu & Albert, 2017). These differences may result in
different portrayals. Third, China is a geographically close country to Japan, which could lead
to more worries for China’s environment than for The UK, for example regarding marine life.
This prediction is also the main argument.
The research question that will guide this research is: ‘How did the media in China and The
UK portray the environmental impact of the Fukushima disaster and what are the similarities
and differences?’ The articles will help in answering this question and researching the
portrayals, as all four of the articles cover the environmental consequences of the Fukushima
disaster.
There are three reasons why the articles were chosen. The articles for The UK are from The
Guardian, a newspaper with journalistic freedom and a liberal ideology (Eurotopics, n.d.-b),
as The Global Times has a communist ideology and a view from the Chinese government
(Eurotopics, n.d.-a). The chosen articles from China are from the same newspaper, as another
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