Reality is not a neutral construct and cannot be taken as read. It is also a rather elitist view. Yet they are as constructed and artificial as any Hollywood blockbuster. He condemns the media's use of 'Western narrative structures' to transmit its reportage. He nearly touches on a fundamental point here, but misses it completely.
Narratives bind our society.
Of necessity, these stories are not 'real'. Yet the Japanese media contains much more violence, and Japan has an extremely low level of violent crime. There are perfectly sound sociological explanations for this, regarding social cohesion and so on. There happens to be a strong correlation between levels of income inequality and violent crime. There are numerous unhelpful assumptions about causation in this book.