It is said that the magazine of paper may disappear in 2027 according to “the day whose weekly magazine is lost” (Kenichi Ogura, Wani books PLUS). The sales total of magazine is calculation that decrease 50 billion yen respectively every year, and 2017 will come to zero.

There were books describing ruin of the established media 30 years before I was a student. It is a fishy story in general.
To be sure, the established media are on the decline with the peak of 1996, and the way of the decline is clear to anyone’s eye.
However, it does not disappear easily. Especially the 2000s was quite noisy with media disappearance theory. “Radio is lost in 2020” “The newspaper and the magazine are a dead language”. The so-called experts who use various data and draw a truly logical disappearance scenario occurred one after another. As long as the present condition is seen, it means all of those prediction being misdirected on the other hand.

I conclude that the established media does not disappear, although the established media are not revived. They will make a living continuing reproduction on a diminishing scale. Although it seems that many media will disappear after the 2050s which the decrease in population will follow at increasing tempo, some will still remain. Net media of Japan may also be in a critical state at the time, and it may be swept over it by the overseas player. Japan which the marketspace reduced by the decrease in population may be ignored by the overseas player and hollowing out of net media may be following it.

I have realized the situation of media of Japan to be the miniature of Japanese society. I think that the route of revitalization and creation of Japan and the sustainable reproduction of Japanese media correspond. (Kei Kitajima)