Who controls newspapers' political perspectives? Source transparency and affiliations in Korean news articles about US beef imports

Abstract

By empirically investigating the political orientations of three conservative and two progressive newspapers in Korea, this study examined the source usage of these papers regarding the US beef imports issue. Results showed that while progressive newspapers took a more negative stance in reporting US beef imports than conservative ones, both papers together used sources that are more transparent more frequently compared to less transparent sources in order to build their political perspectives. At the same time, the information from more transparent sources was generally provided by more credible source categories in terms of source affiliations. These results imply that, regardless of political stances, Korean newspapers might have followed the journalistic norms that suggest using more transparent and credible sources than less transparent and credible ones. However, the authors also stress that conservative and progressive papers would have framed the story by purposely selecting favorable informants for their respective political stances, even if they originate from more transparent and credible sources, as ways of pushing for their own viewpoints.