The Korean media mass-produced numerous articles by selecting an agenda based on the frame of each press. The same was true for the Northeast Project of China, the THAAD incident, Corona 19, and the Trump administration's containment policy on China, which had a major impact on South Korea's anti-China sentiment. This paper aims to analyze the attitudes of the two media companies by analyzing the vocabulary frequency, vocabulary network, and vocabulary sentiment on the THAAD reports of the JoongAng Ilbo and the Hankyoreh in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
As a result of analyzing vocabulary frequency, vocabulary network, and vocabulary sentiment in 2015, the JoongAng Ilbo's reporting attitude until 2015 maintained that emphasized the need for economic cooperation with China while maintaining a security alliance with the United States. was doing The words related to the advancement of China's economic relations and the spread of the Korean Wave showed centrality and were mentioned the most. The emotional attitudes of the words were also overwhelmingly higher in positive than negative. However, starting with the announcement of the THAAD installation in 2016, the center of the JoongAng Ilbo's reports on China was rapidly reorganized into a security focus. Security-oriented vocabulary began to appear rapidly in vocabulary frequency, and security-oriented vocabulary was positioned at the center of the vocabulary network rather than economic-oriented vocabulary. The JoongAng Ilbo's Chinese report did not fundamentally, but it could be confirmed that it was moving toward a more security-oriented attitude.
As a result of analyzing vocabulary frequency, vocabulary network, and vocabulary sentiment in 2015, the Hankyoreh newspaper did not show much difference between positive and negative attitudes toward China compared to the JoongAng Ilbo. Compared to the Hankyoreh, the JoongAng Ilbo viewed China more positively. Unlike the JoongAng Ilbo, which positively views the advancement of economic relations with the rising China, it is judged that the vigilance toward the rising China has been activated. If you look at the Semantic Network of the Hankyoreh in 2015, vocabulary related to the economy or Hallyu is not located at the center. This reveals that the Hankyoreh did not view China in a specific frame. The Hankyoreh's reporting is a critical attitude of excessive dependence on the US for security, and also alerted the heightening economic dependence on China. The Hankyoreh's reporting attitude is generally maintained in 2016 and 2017 as well.
The problem, however, is that the Hankyoreh's bipartisan reporting attitude may be the right choice to maintain the media's mechanical neutrality, but it can be seen as an ineffective measure in preventing the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment among the public in Korean society. The point is that the Korean public was in a structure where they had no choice as the number of negative reports about China by conservative media increased, but to be inclined toward anti-China sentiment.