Is Orientalism Bad? Between the Communication Game and the Non-game

Jabłoński's paper examines how intercultural communication about Japan becomes distorted when verifiable facts are blended with stereotypes, and it argues that orientalist motifs in Polish popular culture and media are a central case of this problem. The author builds a classification of narratives into three types drawn from Berne's transactional analysis: expert narratives, which are verifiable and governed by the Adult; non-expert narratives, which are partly verifiable and playful, governed by the Child; and careless narratives, which present themselves as expert while serving a predetermined thesis, often reproducing stereotypes. This framework is meant to help readers separate verifiable claims from misleading accounts.

The core critique targets careless narratives in Polish media about Japan. The paper examines Joanna Bator's books and Karolina Bednarz's articles and book, arguing that Bednarz's treatment of a divorced woman in "Defeated dog," along with her writing on Japanese schools and railway suicides framed through "toolbox sets," selects facts to reach conclusions fixed in advance. The author contends that such texts operate as anti-information and post-truth, and that their authority makes them hard for non-specialists to distinguish from reliable reporting.

The paper's scope is interpretive and conceptual rather than quantitative. It contains no statistical data, and its evidence consists of textual examples drawn from Japanese studies scholarship, Polish pop songs, and Polish journalism and literature about Japan. Its geographic focus is Japan as represented to Polish audiences, and its primary concern is the representation of Japan in media and games.

The concluding argument is that accurate, verifiable information is the most effective counter to careless narratives and the stereotypes they sustain. By proposing a methodology that combines transactional analysis with the expert, non-expert, and careless typology, the paper offers a tool for evaluating intercultural portrayals and for identifying where popular accounts of Japan shift from informed description into orientalist distortion.