South Korea in the eyes of the German newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung”

Abstract

This study examines the coverage of South Korea in the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) in the time period between 1997 and 2014. The paper is one of the media of record in Germany. The goal of the study is to find out if there is a general tendency in the reporting about the country and if there are any mistakes in the representation of the country. The analysis makes use of quantitative and qualitative methods. This involves the investigation of the frequency of reports in different fields such as politics, economy, and culture. It has been found that there are specific fields which the SZ emphasizes when reporting on South Korea. Its authors primarily write about the politics and the economy of the country. The qualitative research, especially, focuses on the content analysis of individual articles which involves the analysis of media frames and of agenda-setting. The culture of the country, particularly its movie industry, has been of increasing importance in the last ten years. The study found that only few articles were biased. In this regard the findings of this study differ from the results of former studies which found a rather strong negative bias in the reporting of western media on the country. The large majority of articles in the SZ were balanced and based on a deep knowledge of the country, its politics, economy, and culture.