ABSTRACT

Illustrated posters appealing to passenger conduct – so-called ‘manner posters’ – are ubiquitous in Japanese public transport spaces. This article draws on archival research and interviews with railway and design professionals to introduce transport company-issued manner posters as a genre of public communication, and link its development to social shifts in post-war Japan. The article first examines passenger behaviours targeted by posters, discussing efficiency, comfort and safety as underlying concerns of company appeals, and analyses the textual structure of posters. This review of the genre’s defining characteristics is followed by an exploration of its history. While manner posters are frequently traced back to a 1974 poster series issued by Eidan (now Tokyo Metro), this article argues that although posters became more complex and widespread in the 1970s, their history reaches back to the Taishō era. The article explores the historical context of the genre’s development by highlighting changes in the railway and advertising sectors. I argue that it was railway companies’ increased efforts to improve the quality of public transport, along with advances of posters as an advertising medium and changes in the style of public communication, that spurred greater adoption of elaborate manner posters in the mid-1970s.

摘要

吸引乘客行为的插图海报——所谓的“礼仪海报”——在日本的公共交通空间中无处不在。本文利用档案研究和对铁路和设计专业人士的采访，将运输公司发布的礼仪海报作为一种公共传播类型进行介绍，并将其发展与战后日本的社会变化联系起来。文章首先考察了海报所针对的乘客行为，将效率、舒适性和安全性作为公司诉求的潜在关注点进行了讨论，并分析了海报的文本结构。在回顾该类型的定义特征之后，将对其历史进行探索。虽然礼仪海报经常追溯到 1974 年 Eidan（现在的东京地铁）发行的海报系列，本文认为，虽然海报在 1970 年代变得更加复杂和广泛，但它们的历史可以追溯到大正时代。文章通过突出铁路和广告部门的变化来探索该类型发展的历史背景。我认为，正是铁路公司加大了提高公共交通质量的力度，加上海报作为广告媒介的进步和公共传播方式的变化，促使更多地采用了 1970 年代中期精心制作的海报。