Media Figure of the Year: Tepco
A fact of modern life that the Occupy Wall Street movement brought home to the average person is that corporations are nominally "persons," meaning they have been granted the same "rights" as individuals, at least in the United States. In Japan, such legal definitions don't necessarily apply to the same degree, but due to its almost constant presence in the news cycle Tokyo Electric Power Co. has acquired a distinctive image that scans closer to a personality than to an organization. Even the English rendering of the company's acronym, Tepco — a capital letter followed by four lower-case ones — looks almost like a pet name.
Tepco did not cause the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku coastline and traumatized the nation, but in the months that followed it became the most convenient and deserving receptacle for the fear and loathing engendered by the disaster; and like an individual in such circumstances it became defensive, especially in relation to the people it ostensibly serves.
Because of its close ties with the government, not to mention its mutually dependent connection to the media due to its huge advertising and PR budgets, Tepco's monolithic aspects remained constant even as its "human" failings with regard to the safety of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant became more apparent, and in the end the media's initial obfuscation or avoidance of uncomfortable facts only succeeded in pushing public sentiment away from the kind of passive acceptance monolithic entities encourage and toward the kind of active resentment people direct at others they believe are lying through their teeth.