Actually there are articles on this written by researchers. I was looking for articles on street fashion a while back and also came over some articles on the "two faces of enka singers" which dealt with the image of japanese artists, mainly enka singers though. But many of the points made seemed valid for jpop too. Unfortunetly these articles were only avaliable to me through the computers at the university, and I can't really recall the url either.
THe power of the companies and how the artists are being treated/hired is very diffrent from the west. THe whole japanese business culture is different and in order to understand how the companies work you'll have to take a looka t how the japanese economy has worked in the past and works now. There have been a lot of corruption scandals in the past. Most of the most powerful figures have gone to the same university and somehow share a common bond .
Quote:
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The most important human factor in the policy-making process is the homogeneity of the political and business elites. They tend to be graduates of a relatively small number of top-ranked universities, such as the University of Tokyo and Keio University. Regardless of these individuals' regional or class origins, their similar educational backgrounds encourage their feeling of community, as is reflected in the finely meshed network of marriage alliances between top official and financial circle (zaikai) families
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off wikipedia, but I originally read it in a book I have at home. I's too lazy to look up it's name now. It's late. =PTHis also extends to the music business as it is a business like any other. Also, treatment the idols get has much to do with culture. Seiko matsuda might not sell that many records anymore, but her tickets for christmasshow is still the most expensive and always sold out. My guess is that if she worked for the same agency as f.ex koda (I'm using her because she has relatively newly aquired high sales) right now her base salary would be lot higher then koda's. The same is true for Hello project idols, the graduated girls get a higher wage because they have done a good job and have been working for the company a while. That's how it works in the regular business world of Japan. You work your way up by proving your a useful and faithful employee. (allthough the shiftings in the music industry surely are a lot more shifty... )
I hope some of this makes sense, it's too late and I'm very sleepy..
This is not fresh knowladge to me anymore, so there may be some errors.