Framing the Arab Spring: Partisanship in the news stories of Korean Newspapers

Abstract

This study explored how the Arab Spring coverage by South Korean newspapers was influenced by the ideological orientations of those newspapers. Employing quantitative content analysis of the news stories, it compared the coverage by two major conservative papers (The Chosun Daily and The Joongang Daily) and two major liberal papers (The Hankyoreh Daily and The Kyunghyang Daily). The findings show that the partisanship of these newspapers resulted in divergence of the news framing by the conservative and liberal papers. Specifically, the liberal papers tended to present the Arab uprisings as being due to economic insecurity, including factors such as poverty, unemployment, and income inequality—more frequently than did the conservative papers. They were also somewhat critical of the U.S.’s role in the Middle East as being a facilitator of the Arab dictatorships. In contrast, the conservative papers put an emphasis on the possible impact of the Arab Spring on democratic movements in countries such as North Korea or China. This tendency may have originated from the conservative papers’ support of confrontational foreign policies toward North Korea. This study elaborated on the ‘hierarchy of influence’, in which ideology is a variable at the environmental level, while the partisanship of news outlets is a variable at the organizational level.

Keywords

Arab Spring framing Middle East newspaper South Korea

Introduction

As digital media technologies have developed, communication scholars have paid particular attention to how the traditional gatekeeping role by the news media has shrunk due to active citizen involvement in the news gathering process. In particular, some scholars have proposed the theory of ‘networked gatekeeping’ to address the dynamic relationships of gatekeeping between journalists and citizens in a new media environment in which citizens actively participate in news production by using social media platforms, such as Facebook (Barzilai-Nahon, 2008; Bro and Wallberg, 2015; Heinrich, 2012; Shin, 2013; Xu and Feng, 2014). In this regard, Heinrich (2012) claimed, ‘[w]e are moving away from a fairly closed operational structure of journalistic production and towards a rather open and dynamic network structure’ (p. 770).

However, the circumstances under which traditional gatekeeping by journalists is boosted or diminished is less examined as a scholarly topic. Despite the citizens’ increased use of social media, concerns remain that citizens’ active involvement and engagement in news production can be restricted or limited. For example, citizens are more dependent on the news media in the area of foreign affairs where their direct experience is generally constrained. International news involves a ‘foreign’ phenomenon by its very nature. Thus, the gatekeepers—reporters and editors of local media—are obliged to publish only news items that are meaningful to their local audiences (Alasuutari et al., 2013; Clausen, 2004; Gurevitch et al., 1991; Nossek, 2004). In addition, it is probable that the partisanship of news organization can restrict the contribution of networked gatekeeping to news production by excluding citizens’ voices in the coverage of international issues.

By employing the Hierarchy of Influences Model, proposed by Shoemaker and Reese (2013), the present study attempts to clarify the forces that influenced local media’s gatekeeping and media framing for the ‘Arab Spring’, which refers to an unprecedented number of social and political protests and demonstrations in favor of democracy and freedom across the Middle East.

One particular factor to influence gatekeeping and media framing by journalists is news media’s partisan orientation (Xu and Feng, 2014). There is a strong tendency for journalists to be induced to highlight certain aspects of an issue and to manipulate information in order to create a social reality that is congenial to their target audience (Shoemaker et al., 2001). It is against this background that this study explores how the partisanship of South Korean media influenced their portrayal of the Arab Spring.

Arab Spring’s relevance to South Korea

While many nations across the globe have expressed concern about the events of the Arab Spring, South Korean media have shown a particularly keen interest for several reasons. South Korea is immensely impacted by the upheavals in Arab countries because it relies on the Middle East for almost three quarters of its petroleum (Stangarone and Scarlatoiu, 2011, p. 76). The Middle East is also a crucial region for South Korea’s exports of products and services.

More importantly, South Korean media’s attentiveness toward the Arab Spring originated from the rivalry between South Korea and North Korea. South Korea experienced colonization by Japan for 36 years after 1910. Also, during the Korean War of 1950–1953, Korea was divided into two nations, and South Korea was shattered by a war with a North Korea that was supported by the Soviet Union and China. As half of a divided country, South Korea remains seriously threatened by its Communist neighbor to the North. Consequently, South Koreans have anxiety about their country’s continued survival since South Korea is bounded by superpowers such as China, Russia, and Japan in Northeast Asia. These geo-political circumstances as well as the lack of natural resources have shaped the worldviews of the South Korean people. Since North Korea is under the dictatorship and oppression by an iron-fisted leader, South Korean journalists might have also expected political change there since the emergence of the Arab Spring.

The South Korean relationship with North Korea is perhaps the most controversial issue separating liberals and conservatives in the south. Conservatives tend to disparage their opponents as ‘Pro-North Korea’, while liberals criticize conservatives as ‘immersed in the Cold War ideology’. In the South Korean context, liberal media maintain a conciliatory attitude toward North Korea, putting an emphasis on co-existence and reunification with North Korea, while conservative media are generally hostile to North Korea and advocate hardline policies toward a neighboring nation. In addition, compared to conservative media, liberal media are more critical of the role of the U.S. in the modern history of South Korea due to the U.S. having assisted dictatorship by South Korea’s authoritarian rulers during the 1960s to 1980s (Kim et al., 2006).

By comparing media framing of the Arab Spring by liberal papers and conservative newspapers in South Korea, this study attempts to explore in what ways the partisanship of news outlets determined South Korean media’s gatekeeping and framing of the Arab Spring. The present study is warranted for two reasons.

First, this study explores a much neglected subject in journalism studies: the degree to which the coverage of a social movement by certain newspapers (in this case, Korean ones) may be influenced or even determined by their ideological orientation. The South Korean newspaper media analyzed in this study are all national dailies. These papers have often been criticized for their partisan reporting of public issues (Kang, 2005; Kwak, 2011; Woo, 2009). They have been known to have framed news events from conservative and liberal ideological points of view (Min, 2000). However, the influence of the partisanship of news outlets on their coverage of foreign affairs has not been particularly overt or easy to see.

Second, this study provides a good opportunity to see how local media ‘domesticate’ an international social movement according to the geopolitical situations and contexts in their home country. The media often delegitimize protestors and advocate in favor of established values (Dardis, 2006; Hertog and McLeod, 1995; McCluskey et al., 2009). The Arab Spring can be perceived as being less relevant to maintaining the status quo of South Korean society. In addition, the social and political causes (such as freedom, democracy, and economic security) which the Arab protesters are advocating are regarded as being consistent with South Korea’s most cherished values. In this context, this examination can contribute to revealing not only how South Korean media present a particular social movement to their local audience in South Korea’s politcial and social contexts but also clarify the ways in which they advocate or marginalize this protest movement.

With these purposes in mind, this study compares the coverage of the Arab Spring by two conservative newspapers (The Chosun Daily and The Joongang Daily) and two liberal newspapers (The Hankyoreh Daily and The Kyunghyang Daily). Analysis of the news stories was carried out by employing quantitative content analysis.

Literature review

Untangling the news framing of international issues can be a somewhat complicated task since the framing of foreign affairs is shaped by a complex interaction of many factors, including journalistic values, the news organizations’ resources, media routines, the relationship with the nations covered, and so on. During the process of determining the domestic significance of foreign issues, the news coverage of the issues is likely to reflect each nation-state’s aspirations, as well as its national values, state interests, and journalistic values (Akhavan-Majid and Ramaprasad, 1998; Gans, 1979; Hafez, 2007). Thus, the coverage of foreign news mirrors the national interests and cultural stereotypes of the media’s home countries (Akhavan-Majid and Ramaprasad, 1998; Entman, 1991; Lee and Yang, 1996; Norris, 1995).

Gatekeeping foreign news

Broadly speaking, the term ‘gatekeeping’ comprises ‘the overall process through which the social reality transmitted by the news media is constructed’ (Shoemaker et al., 2001, p. 233). It specifically refers to a journalist’s ‘selection of the voices, facts, and organizing ideas that might be involved in understanding a particular issue or event’ (Bennett, 2009, p. 15). This selection of news depends on the subjective judgment of events by journalists (Graber, 2010).

White (1950) investigated by what factors the newswire editors of a newspaper company are influenced in selecting news items and concluded that the editors’ decisions are mainly caused by ‘the gatekeeper’s own set of experience, attitudes and expectations’ (p. 386). Other studies have found that organizational pressure or logic is a more important factor to influence the selection of news by the gatekeeper than the independent value judgments of individual journalists (Gieber, 1956; Tuchman, 1978). Shoemaker and Reese (2013) also maintained that the bureaucratic structure of news production limits the role of individual journalists in the news selection process. Applying framing theory to news coverage, Tuchman (1978) claimed that news workers themselves are socialized into a system of attitudes and norms that identify which items are interesting or important, and the manner in which they should be covered (p. 183).

While in the last several decades gatekeeping studies have focused on exploring the factors that influence news gathering and selection, a somewhat small amount of attention was paid to explicating the forces the determine the coverage and framing of international issues by journalists in non-Western nations (Relly et al., 2015; Shin, 2012). This study aims to investigate the forces that influence local media journalists as gatekeepers of a global social movement that is taking place outside a country’s territory.

Reality and media framing

Basically, journalists and editors are the ‘gatekeepers’: they decide for their audiences what is significant and what matters. However, they are dependent on news frames, not only to organize the social world but also to underline and exclude certain parts of reality (Gitlin, 1980). Indeed, media scholars have found that news frames are shaped by a variety of influences, from a given society’s social and political ideologies to individual journalists’ values and backgrounds (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989; Norris, 1995; Shoemaker and Reese, 2013).

The Hierarchy of Influences Model by Shoemaker and Reese (2013) posited that the content of media is influenced by five distinct layers: the individual level, the media routine level, the organizational level, the extra-media level, and the ideological level. First of all, the ideological level, as ‘the outer-most ring of the model’, decisively influences the process of constructing media frames. Consequently, news is largely shaped by the socio-economic environment surrounding the creators of the news itself. This is to say that ideology is a decisive factor that influences the formation of a frame in the news discourse, and thus, such news frames are not independent of the socially and politically dominant ideologies and values, but instead tend to be a reflection of them.

Framing theory can serve as a theoretical device to clarify how journalists and news organizations highlight and/or exclude certain parts of reality (Entman, 1993; Gitlin, 1980; Nelson et al., 1997). The term ‘frame’ refers to ‘the central organizing idea for news content’ and informs us of ‘what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration’ (Tankard et al., 1991, p. 3). Therefore, journalists rely on certain frames, first to grasp the complex world, and then to package it into news stories in a way which can be easily understood by their audiences (Gitlin, 1980; Price et al., 1997). Framing exerts a powerful influence on individuals and society in general, because it serves as a potent technique for modifying the presentation of particular issues (Nelson et al., 1997).

One of the factors which influences news framing is the ideological perspective or media bias of a given news organization (Shoemaker and Reese, 2013). In this regard, the partisan orientation of news outlets can serve as an important criterion in their choice of news frames, as well as in journalists’ decisions about the newsworthiness of certain issues.

Partisanship of Korean newspapers

As in Western nations, the press system in South Korea is based on the libertarian theory that the press should promote ‘the great march of democracy’ and ‘the stupendous advancement of the well-being of humanity’ by offering a ‘free marketplace of ideas’ (Siebert et al., 1956, p. 70). Even though authoritarian regimes repressed freedom of the press in South Korea from the 1950s until the mid-1980s, South Koreans were able to install a democratic system through a popular people’s democratic movement. Thus, journalists advocate for a free press that acts as a watchdog over the government, and a champion of justice (Kang, 2005).

However, South Korean media have often been criticized for not performing their ‘proper role as the provider of information and an arena for public forums’ because of their tendency to present public issues according to their own political interests (Kang, 2005, p. 88). The South Korean media have been criticized for resisting social and political reform, ‘from the viewpoint of capital and conservatives with vested political and economic interests’ (Kang, 2005, p. 88). Competition among commercial newspapers is particularly fierce, as there are 11 national newspapers to choose from, while their clients’ advertising budgets are limited.

In the Korean newspaper market, three newspapers—The Chosun Daily, The Joongang Daily, and The Donga Daily—occupy about 50% of the market (Park, 2008). These papers are also frequently criticized for their ideological bias and for backing or disparaging certain political parties, depending upon their own ideological points of view (Kwak, 2011; Woo, 2009). For example, The Chosun Daily is often criticized for being too conservative and unresponsive to social causes, such as social justice (Lee et al., 2010). In contrast, The Hankyoreh Daily and The Kyunghyang Daily present liberal views of public issues (Lee, 2008; Min, 2000). For example, The Hankyoreh Daily has promoted democratization and social reform in South Korean society (Han, 2000; Song, 2007).

Thus, there is concern that the partisan division among Korean newspapers may lead to distortion in the coverage of public issues, depending upon the ideological perspectives of these news outlets. In this context, this study examines the difference in the levels of emphasis placed on various aspects of the Arab Spring by the liberal and conservative papers.

Research questions

By means of relying on media frames, the news media are able to either marginalize or encourage protesters who strive for a social change. To do this, journalists frequently rely on certain types of narrative strucutures to ‘assemble fact, quotes assertions and other information into a new story’ (McLeod and Hertog, 1999, p. 312). When journalists are motivated to delegitimize social protests, they sideline protesters by stressing the negative aspects, such as violence and deviance, of protesters (McLeod and Hertog, 1999). On the other hand, journalists can support social movements by stressing the political causes of it—such as a desire for freedom of expression, democracy, a just society, community, and solidarity which protesters pursue through their protests (McLeod and Hertog, 1999).

The framing of an issue entails indicating a responsible actor for fixing the problem, as well as identifying the source of the problem (Entman, 1993; Tankard et al., 1991). Therefore, determining a responsible actor for any given problem or event constitutes a main component of the media’s framing of that problem or event (Kim et al., 2011). Attributions of responsibility come in two types: causal and treatment responsibilities (Iyengar, 1989). Causal responsibility stresses the origin of the problem; treatment responsibility indicates whose responsibility it is to fix the problem (Kim et al., 2010, p. 565).

In this context, this study investigates the ways in which the media talked about the causes and the solutions that are offered concerning the Arab Spring. This is important because the manner in which an issue is characterized in news reports can influence the understanding of the audience (Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007). Thus, we propose the following research questions:

RQ1: How differently did the conservative newspapers (The Chosun Daily and The Joongang Daily) and the liberal newspapers (The Hankyoreh Daily and The Kyunghyang Daily) of South Korea present the causes of the Arab Spring?

RQ2: How differently did the conservative newspapers (The Chosun Daily and The Joongang Daily) and the liberal newspapers (The Hankyoreh Daily and The Kyunghyang Daily) of South Korea describe the actor responsible for fixing the Arab Spring?

The perspective of national interest is one of the major factors influencing the media’s framing of issues and events (Paletz and Entman, 1981; Rachlin, 1988). The reporting of news through a lens of ‘national interest’ is particularly conspicuous in the case of international reports involving a journalist’s home country (Entman, 1993; Lee and Yang, 1996; Novais, 2007). The Arab Spring is a critical issue of national security for South Korea because of the country’s strategic alliance with the U.S. as well as its critical dependency on oil from the Middle East. In addition, the possible impact of the Arab Spring on democratic reform in China is of major interest to South Korea as any movement for democracy in China could influence the North Korean regime and its citizens. Thus, it is in these areas that the Korean media are likely to reflect their national interests and concerns in their Arab Spring coverage. In order to shed light on this issue, one particular frame, national interest, was examined—focusing on how the news media put an emphasis on national interest when judging news value:

RQ3: How differently did the conservative (The Chosun Daily and The Joongang Daily) and liberal newspapers (The Hankyoreh Daily and The Kyunghyang Daily) in South Korea stress the issues of their national interests in their reporting of the Arab Spring?

Method

This study analyzed the news stories regarding the Arab Spring from 17 December 2010 to 17 May 2012. This time period was chosen because the Arab protests had been most extensively staged in many Arab nations then. 17 December 2010 was chosen as the starting date because the death of a Tunisian street vendor on that date is widely regarded to have been the incident that triggered the Arab Spring. Four newspapers in South Korea were selected: The Chosun Daily, The Joongang Daily, The Hankyoreh Daily, and The Kyunghyang Daily.

News stories in the ‘news section’ were obtained for content analysis. The news articles from The Hankyoreh Daily and The Kyunghyang Daily were collected from a database search of the Korean Integrated News Databank System. The news stories from The Chosun Daily and The Joongang Daily were obtained from each paper’s website. Korean Integrated News Databank System and the websites of newspaper in South Korea are most commonly used for analysis of news content (Kwon and Moon, 2009; Lee and Koh, 2010; Seo, 2009). The keywords of ‘Middle East’ and ‘Arab’ were used to search for relevant news stories. After excluding articles not related to the Arab Spring, a total of 1,012 news stories (The Chosun Daily, 324; The Joongang Daily, 314; The Hankyoreh Daily, 208; The Kyunghyang Daily, 166) were obtained.

For analysis, the stories from each newspaper were listed in chronological order and a skipping interval of two was used to divide the samples in half. Finally, a coin toss determined whether stories starting at one or two were included in analysis. After using this method, a sample of 506 (50% of 1,012 stories; The Chosun Daily, 162; The Joongang Daily, 157; The Hankyoreh Daily, 104; The Kyunghyang Daily, 83) was analyzed. The news story was used as the unit of analysis because the analysis of a news story can identify the journalist’s emphasis, exclusion, and omission of certain aspects, as well as the background of the issue under discussion.

Coding

Each story was examined for its presentation of the causes of and assignment of responsibility for the Arab Spring, as well as its importance to Korean national interests. The coding categories of the frames were developed in three ways. First, the investigator developed the coding categories from studies on the framing of public issues (Kim et al., 2010, 2011). Second, the editorials and columns concerning the Arab Spring were examined. Thus, a clearer idea of the major frames emphasized by South Korean newspapers in dealing with the issue of the Arab Spring could be obtained. Third, through extensive review of the news stories about the Arab Spring, the investigator obtained a clear view of the news frames present in the news sections of the newspapers. As a result, the coding categories including the sub-frames of the ‘cause’ frame, ‘responsibility’ frame, and ‘national interest’ frame were selected. The frames examined in this study were identified according to three dimensions:

Causes of the Arab Spring: The ‘cause’ frame was coded using the following six possible causes of the Arab Spring: (1) Dictatorship and repression (i.e., the lack of political freedom); (2) Economic insecurity (i.e., poverty, food price hikes, unemployment); (3) The West’s intervention (i.e., the U.S.’s support of dictators); (4) Civil war (internal conflicts among ethnic, sectarian, and religious groups); (5) Collusion between Arab rulers and authoritarian foreign countries, such as China, Russia, and the so-called rogue states (Iran and North Korea); and (6) Social/new media networks (role of the social networking services and other new media channels).

Placement of responsibility: The ‘responsibility object’ frame was coded using the following five possible objects of responsibility: (1) Ruling governments (i.e., governments or political elites); (2) Opposition parties and citizens; (3) The West; (4) Anti-Western regimes (i.e., China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea); and (5) Non-state actors (i.e., Al Qaeda, Hezbollah).

National interest frame: The ‘national interest’ frame was coded using the following six areas of national interest: (1) ‘U.S. intervention’ (highlighting how U.S. intervention into the Arab Spring may or may not serve its national interest); (2) ‘Terrorism and extremism’ (depicting the potential influence of the Arab Spring on Islamic extremism and terrorism); (3) ‘China and North Korea domino effect’ (stressing how the Arab uprisings could impact democratic movements in China and North Korea); (4) ‘Energy security and economy’ (describing the ways the Arab Spring influences the domestic economy and energy independence of South Korea); (5) ‘Iran as a rogue state’ (emphasizing not only Iran’s support of anti-U.S. terrorist groups or nations, such as Syria, but also the Arab Spring’s impact on Iran’s nuclear weapons program); and (6) ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ (examining the impact of the Arab Spring on both the security of Israel as a nation and on the relationship between Israel and Palestine).

Coding was conducted according to whether each of the news stories contained one or more of the pre-described frames (causes, responsible objects, and national interest). Each frame was coded as either 0 (not present) or 1 (present). For example, more than one frame was coded by the investigator when more than one of the causes listed was found in a single article.

Intercoder and intracoder reliability

The articles were coded by two coders after undergoing a series of training and pilot-test sessions. The author and a graduate student double-coded a random subsample (N = 76 news stories or 15%) of the data to check reliability. Intercoder reliability (Cohen’s Kappa) was obtained as follows: ‘Cause’ frames (Dictatorship, .85; Economic Insecurity, .77; Western Intervention, .77; Civil War, .73; Non-Western Nations, .85; SNS, 1.0); ‘Responsibility’ frames (Government, .90; Citizens, .88; West, .88; Anti-Western Regimes, .83; Non-state Actors, .82); and ‘National Interest’ frames (U.S. Intervention, .91; Terrorism, .82; North Korea Domino Effect, .95; Energy Security, .87; Iran as a Rogue State, 1.0; Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1.0).

Findings

RQ1 examined how the South Korean papers presented the major causes of the Arab Spring. A significant difference was found in the ways in which the conservative and liberal papers portrayed the major causes of the Arab Spring (χ² (df = 5) = 17.173, p < .05), as shown in Table 1. However, both conservative and liberal newspapers were similar in their portrayal of the Arab governments’ dictatorship as the most prominent cause (conservative papers, 51.8%; liberal papers, 48.6%). This finding was also confirmed by the Chi-square test, which showed no significant difference between the two groups in that area (χ² (df = 1) = 0.796, p = .372).

Table 1.

Major causes of the Arab Spring.^a

	Dictatorship	Economic insecurity	West’s intervention	Civil war	Non-Western circle	Social networking sites
Conservative	51.8%	12.3%	6.3%	11.4%	11.2%	6.9%
papers	(240)	(57)	(29)	(53)	(52)	(32)
Liberal	48.6%	16.6%	10.7%	7.8%	6.3%	10.0%
papers	(155)	(53)	(34)	(25)	(20)	(32)

χ² (df = 5) = 17.173, p = .04.

Note: Parentheses indicate the number of news articles mentioning or describing each cause of the Arab Spring.

As indicated in Table 1, the liberal papers presented economic insecurity as the major cause of the Arab Spring more frequently (16.6%) than did conservative newspaper (12.3%). However, this difference did not reach statistical significance (χ² (df = 1) = 2.894, p = .089).

It was also examined to what degree the conservative and liberal papers differed in presenting the West’s intervention as the major cause of the Arab Spring. The findings show that the liberal papers portrayed the West’s intervention as the major cause of the Arab Spring more often than the conservative papers (10.7% vs. 6.3%). This difference was statistically significant (χ² (df = 1) = 4.925, p < .05). In contrast, compared to the liberal papers (6.3%), the conservative papers more frequently blamed non-Western nations (e.g., such as China, Russia, and North Korea; 11.2%) as the source of the Arab chaos. This finding was supported by the Chi-square test (χ² (df = 1) = 5.562, p < .05).

RQ2 explored to whom South Korean papers ascribed the ultimate responsibility to fix the chaos in the Middle East. Overall, there was no significant difference in the attribution of responsibility between the conservative and liberal papers (χ² (df = 4) = 3.959, p = .412), as can be seen in Table 2. Similar to the results observed for the cause, both the conservative and liberal papers overwhelmingly ascribed primary accountability for fixing the problems of the Arab Spring to the ruling governments of the region: 59.8% in the conservative papers and 60.6% in the liberal papers. Chi-square test confirmed the absence of significant difference between the two groups (χ² (df = 1) = .051, p = .822).

Table 2.

Assigning responsibility for the Arab Spring.^a

	Ruling governments	Citizens and opposition	The West	Non-Western regimes	Non-state actors
Conservative	59.8%	8.7%	13.5%	14.0%	4.1%
papers	(248)	(36)	(56)	(58)	(17)
Liberal	60.6%	7.6%	17.7%	10.0%	4.0%
papers	(151)	(19)	(44)	(25)	(10)

χ² (df = 4) = 3.959, p = .412.

Note: Parentheses indicate the number of news articles that assigned responsibility for the Arab Spring to each group.

It should be noted that the liberal papers blamed the West, including the U.S., as being responsible actors for the Arab chaos more often than did the conservative papers (liberal papers, 17.7%; conservative papers, 13.5%). This difference was statistically significant (χ² (df = 1) = 4.254, p < .05). In contrast, the conservative papers described anti-Western regimes (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) as responsible for the chaos more often than did the liberal papers (conservative papers, 14.0%; liberal papers, 10.0%). However, this difference did not reach statistical significance (χ² (df = 1) = 2.204, p = .138).

RQ3 examined the degree to which South Korean papers emphasized their country’s national interests. Significant differences were found in the presentation of national interests by the conservative and liberal newspapers (χ² (df = 5) = 13.163, p < .05), as shown in Table 3. As can be seen in the table, the conservative papers highlighted the ‘China and North Korea domino effect’ frame (26.2%) more frequently than did the liberal papers (17.1%). However, this difference did not quite reach statistical significance (χ² (df = 1) = 3.510, p = .061). Another difference between the two groups is that the liberal papers put more emphasis on the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ frame (17.1%) than did the conservative papers (6.9%). Chi-square test indicated the statistical significance of this difference (χ² (df = 1) = 8.037, p < .01).

Table 3.

The relative frequency of issues of national interest.^a

	U.S. intervention	Terrorism	North Korea and China	Energy	Iran	Israel
Conservative	18.8%	26.2%	26.2%	9.4%	12.4%	6.9%
papers	(38)	(53)	(53)	(19)	(25)	(14)
Liberal	17.1%	19.7%	17.1%	11.1%	17.9%	17.1%
papers	(20)	(23)	(20)	(13)	(21)	(20)

χ² (df = 5) = 13.163, p = .022.

Note: Parentheses show the number of news articles mentioning or describing particular issues of national interest in relation to the Arab Spring.

Discussion

This study explored the ways in which the coverage of the Arab Spring was influenced by the general ideological perspectives of South Korean newspapers. Overall, the news organizations’ partisanship was found to serve as one of the major factors influencing the news framing of the Arab Spring. This study found several interesting differences between the two groups concerning how South Korean newspapers described both the causes of and the responsible actor for the Arab uprisings. Portrayal of South Korea’s national interests was also found to critically influence the South Korean papers’ reporting of the Arab Spring. In general, democracy and freedom, as the dominant ideologies in South Korea, were prominently reflected in South Korean coverage. In particular, each newspaper’s editorial ideology determined the differences in news coverage between the conservative and liberal papers.

Presenting origins of the Arab Spring

Regarding RQ1, understandably, it was shown that all South Korean papers most prominently blamed the ruling governments’ dictatorships as the main cause of the Arab Spring, citing this cause in about half of their stories. This is consistent with The Joongang Daily’s editorial that stated, ‘He [former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak] ruthlessly oppressed the masses by using police force at will. He frequently violated the human rights of the people and suppressed their freedoms’ (2011, April 5). These findings are somewhat expected considering that South Korea has cherished liberal democracy as one of its dominant ideologies. It also should be pointed out that South Korea has developed its current democratic system through the citizens’ unrelenting resistance to authoritarian regimes from the1960s through the1980s.

For example, General Jung-Hee Park led a military coup in South Korea in 1961 and suppressed democratic and human rights movements from then up until the moment he was assassinated on 26 October 1979. The death of President Park provided the Korean people with the hope that democratic reforms would finally be approaching. Thus, the spring of 1980 began to be referred to as the ‘Seoul Spring’. However, the public’s aspirations for democracy were crushed by another military coup, led by General Doo-Hwan Chun in 1980. As part of the resistance to Chun’s grip on power, the ‘Kwangju’ uprising erupted in May of 1980, during which about three hundred civilians died at the hands of government repression. As a result, democracy became one of the major principles held in great esteem throughout South Korea. In this regard, the Arab Spring is seen as being consonant with the dominant ideologies of democracy and freedom. This may have induced South Korean journalists to frame it as being caused by the harsh suppression of Arab dictators.

Aside from the prominent cause, significant differences were also found in the placement of causal responsibility for the Arab Spring between the conservative and liberal papers. The liberal papers stressed the West’s intervention into Middle Eastern affairs as the background behind the Arab uprisings. Specifically, compared to the conservative papers, they more often blamed not only the West’s (e.g., the U.S.’s) external interventions as infringing on the sovereignty of Arab nations but also cited the U.S.’s continued support of authoritarian Arab rulers. It is in this context that The Kyunghyang Daily maintained in its editorial, ‘Military intervention to protect civilians was a two-sided blade in that it connotes both protecting human rights and violating national sovereignty’ (2011, August 24).

Ultimately, the liberal papers described the U.S.’s assistance to such authoritarian rulers as being both problematic and unjust. In contrast, the conservative papers more often portrayed non-Western nations, such as North Korea, China and Russia, as instigating the Arab chaos than did the liberal papers.

In South Korea, the attitude toward the U.S. is one of the major issues which may be used to judge the ideological orientations of politicians or news outlets. The U.S. and South Korea have maintained a strategic alliance since the end of the Korean War in 1950. This bilateral relationship has deepened economic, cultural, and military cooperation. For example, as of March 2012, there were 28,500 American soldiers stationed in South Korea (Landler, 2012). Consequently, most South Koreans have a positive view of the role of the U.S. in the Korean peninsula, and accept the U.S. as the key ally of the country. Thus, there is a general pro-American sentiment within South Korea. In this regard, Kim et al. (2006) claimed, ‘There are South Koreans who even regarded the USA as a big brother, filling a role formerly occupied by China, which had taken care of Korea during periods of crisis, applying the traditional Confucian point of view’ (p. 428). Nevertheless, many South Koreans have blamed U.S. administrations for supporting South Korea’s authoritarian rulers over the decades (Kim et al., 2006).

In this regard, the discrepancy in coverage between the conservative and liberal newspapers might have been caused by the difference of editorial ideology between the two groups. In their editorials and columns, the conservative papers have generally disapproved of North Korea and Russia, while the liberal papers have largely been skeptical of the U.S.’s supposed role as a promoter of democracy. It is in this context that the liberal news media have been less favorable toward the U.S.’s role within and beyond South Korea than have the conservative media. Indeed, the liberal papers stressed the frame which depicts the West’s intervention into Middle Eastern affairs as an essential background element behind the Arab uprising.

The liberal papers also viewed the Arab Spring as being caused by factors related to economic insecurity, such as poverty, unemployment, and income inequality, more often than did the conservative papers. These papers highlighted the economic hardships of the Arab people, choosing to discuss hikes in food prices, rising housing prices, the high costs of living, and widespread governmental corruption. This coverage can be understood by considering that the liberal papers in South Korea have generally stressed issues of social justice. These papers have represented the liberal viewpoint in South Korea by championing economic equality and social reform as one of the major political agendas in the country.

Accusing responsible actors for Arab Spring

The findings showed that both the liberal and conservative newspapers similarly criticized the Arab governments as needing to be held responsible for fixing the chaos (in about 60% of the total news stories). However, the liberal papers more frequently portrayed the West as being accountable for resolving the Arab chaos. For example, Sin-mo You, Washington correspondent for the liberal Kyunghyang Daily, emphasized in his newspaper column, ‘the U.S. has stifled democracy in the Arab world, while pronouncing democracy in its official policies’ (2011, February 15). Similarly, The Hankyoreh Daily also stated, ‘The U.S. speaks out for democracy. However, it is doubtful whether it really wants democracy’ (2011, February 14).

These findings should be taken in light of the placement of causal responsibility examined in RQ1, in which the liberal papers accused the West of being accountable for suppressing democracy in the Middle East more frequently than did the conservative papers. This framing might have also been triggered by the liberal media’s inclination to highlight U.S. history in the region, which has constantly maintained its national interests through facilitating the dictatorships in Arab countries. The liberal papers were willing to criticize U.S. policies which have lauded Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain as the best U.S. allies, while labeling Iran and Syria, which are hostile to the U.S., as ‘rogue states’.

In contrast, the conservative papers blamed anti-Western governments as to be held responsible for resolving the Arab chaos more often than did the conservative papers. These anti-Western nations included Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, all of which objected to the intervention of the West and the UN in the Arab uprisings. South Korea’s conservative media have generally preserved pro-U.S. attitudes and have been favorable to the U.S.’s foreign policies. This might have led the conservative papers to echo the U.S.’s definition of the Arab Spring.

National interest perspectives

This study also found that South Korean coverage emphasized the ‘U.S. intervention’ and ‘terrorism and extremism’ frames, which are crucial to the national interests of the U.S. As a major player in the geo-politics of the Middle East, the U.S. has the power to influence the Arab Spring. In addition, the U.S. and South Korea share similar national interests (oil, trade, and terrorism) in the Middle East. Thus, these circumstances may have induced the South Korean papers to highlight those fames consistent with U.S. national interests.

More importantly, the findings also showed that the South Korean papers put a stronger emphasis on the possibility that the Arab Spring might inspire democratic movements in North Korea or China. Overall, the possible impact of the Arab Spring on democratic reform in China was of major interest to South Korea, since a movement for democracy in China could influence the political conditions in North Korea. This media framing appeared more often in the conservative newspapers. For example, In-sun Kang, a reporter for The Chosun Daily, stated in her column, ‘the “virus of change” which promoted the Middle East uprisings will also attack the weak points of dynastic hereditary rule in North Korea’ (2011, February 25).

This tendency might be explained because the confrontation with North Korea is one of the most important factors in the formation of the dominant ideologies in South Korea. One million North Korean and 600,000 South Korean soldiers are deployed, facing each other across a demilitarized zone 151 miles (248 km) wide between the North and South (Havely, 2003). Despite the end of the Cold War, the military, political, and ideological divisions between South and North Korea have remained deep. Thus, anti-socialism or anti-communism has remained the prevailing ideology in South Korea. These circumstances may have stimulated the conservative papers to stress the ‘China and North Korea domino effect’ frame more often in their coverage.

In contrast, the liberal newspapers more frequently highlighted the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ frame, stressing the impact of the Arab Spring on the security of Israel as a nation. When discussing those issues related to Israel, the liberal papers often criticized successive U.S. administrations for putting less emphasis on the sovereignty of Arab nations in general. These papers might have presented the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an issue to criticize the U.S.: ‘[t]he United States remains trapped by petroleum hegemony and the Israel lobby’ (The Hankyoreh Daily, 2011, September 26); ‘[T]he Middle East problem grew even worse as the international community minded the United States, which unilaterally took the side of Israel’ (The Kyunghyang Daily, 2011, November 2). In order to criticize the intentions and sincerity of the U.S. in dealing with the Arab upheavals, the liberal papers sometimes stressed the U.S.’s history in the Middle East, particularly its assistance to dictatorships and its denigration of so-called ‘rogue states’ such as Iran or Syria.

Conclusion

Through analysis of coverage on the Arab Spring, this study explored how news framing by South Korean newspapers is influenced by several factors, such as the partisanship of news organizations, South Korea’s dominant ideologies, the geo-political circumstances of South Korea, and South Korea’s particular democratization history. The findings show that South Korea’s newspapers highlighted their own national security concerns in their coverage. The discrepancies in the framing between the conservative and liberal papers were substantially affected by the partisanship of the newspapers and by their viewpoints regarding public issues.

There were several notable characteristics of the Arab Spring coverage by South Korean newspapers. First, concerning the issue of whether the Arab Spring should be defined as a ‘democratic movement’ or not, no major differences were seen between the liberal and conservative newspapers. Generally, both liberal and conservative papers not only described the Arab Spring as a fight against dictatorships and repression but also held those sorts of rulers in the Arab region accountable for resolving the Arab chaos. These descriptions of the Arab Spring seemed to be reflective of South Korea’s reverence for ‘democracy’ as the dominant political and cultural ideology. In South Korean history, the ‘Seoul spring’ in 1980 also seemed to help the South Koran papers to interpret the Arab Spring through the lens of democracy.

Second, the Arab Spring coverage was significantly influenced by the newspapers’ own viewpoints regarding general public issues, as well as the partisanship of the news outlets. News framing is generally exercised by ‘a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation’ (Entman, 1993, p. 52). When describing the causes of the Arab uprisings the liberal newspapers highlighted the economic hardships and high unemployment among the Arab people, both of which the liberal papers considered to be negative consequences of neo-liberal policies like free markets and privatization. These liberal papers were somewhat critical of the role of the U.S. in the Middle East, pointing out that successive U.S. governments have acquiesced to or even facilitated multiple Arab dictatorships in order to ensure the U.S.’s continued dominance in the region and to secure its national interests—above all, its access to oil.

In contrast, the conservative papers tended to exclude or omit those news frames which viewed the Arab Spring as being primarily an issue of economic insecurity and which criticized the double standard of U.S. policies in the Middle East. Overall, this study indicated that the partisan division between the liberal and conservative papers resulted in the discrepancies in the reported causal and treatment responsibility of the Arab uprisings.

Third, the Arab Spring is a social movement in an area which is far from South Korea. Thus, it may seem to be a less relevant issue for Korea’s national interest. Nevertheless, the coverage by South Korean papers was largely shaped by South Korea’s national interests, which can be seen particularly when considering that the Korean papers focused on the possible impact of the Arab Spring on North Korea, stressing the ‘North Korean and China Spring’ frame. It is noteworthy that the ‘North Korean and China Spring’ frame was more prominent in conservative papers, which have generally supported hardline and confrontational foreign policies toward North Korea. However, since North Korea is an extremely closed society virtually cut off from the outside world, the news frame stressing the impact of the Arab Spring on North Korea could be considered as a kind of speculation, one which is reflective of South Korean journalists’ expectations and hopes.

Overall, the difference in news framing between the liberal and conservative papers may have reflected the South Korean media’s tendency to interpret public issues according to their own editorial ideology. More important is that, even in the case of foreign affairs, news framing may be skewed according to the ideological orientation of news outlets. The findings of this study indicate that the ideological orientation of news outlets affects the news framing of foreign affairs. In this context, this study contributes to elaborating upon the ‘hierarchy of influence’, in which ideology is a variable at the environmental level, while the partisanship of news outlets is a variable at the organizational level. The findings in this study imply that the impact of an ideology on media frames is paramount. In particular, the dual ‘ideology–partisanship’ relationship, found in this study, can provide media scholars with a good framework to examine the coverage of an international social movement occurring outside a country’s territory

In addition, the Arab Spring was staged in a very remote area from South Korean territory. Therefore, even though it is an important issue in South Korea’s national interests, it is less likely that South Korean people regard it as their personal issue. Thus, South Korean citizens’ involvement in journalists’ gatekeeping regarding the Arab Spring is largely restricted. Thus, it is likely that in the case of the Arab Spring the possibility of networked gatekeeping between citizens and journalists is intrinsically reduced.

By contrast, socio-political factors such as South Korea’s modern history, the geo-political circumstances of the Korean peninsula, and the ideological rivalry within South Korea were likely to determine South Korean media’s portrayal of the Arab Spring. However, it should be acknowledged that this study did not conduct any interviews or surveys of journalists. Thus, we did not exclude the possibility that South Korea’s journalists might actively develop the media frames of the Arab Spring protests using their own judgments and discretion.

Although it cannot be denied that a news organization’s partisanship and bias make it possible to create various perspectives on any issue, this partisanship can hinder the objective and accurate reporting of events or issues by journalists. In particular, most foreign affairs events happen by their nature in distant parts of the globe. This allows the local coverage of foreign affairs to be influenced by the reports coming from news wires and major news organizations based in other nations, rather than those which reflect the direct experience and reporting of the journalists working in local media outlets. However, the results of the present study suggest that due to the ideological viewpoints of news organizations, South Korea’s Arab Spring coverage was considerably influenced by the aspirations of its local journalists and editors.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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