“Keeping South Korea Bound to the US”

Our country’s press also has played a key role in keeping our country “bound to the US” (Uhm, 2011, p. 3). Research by Choi and Kim (2021) shows how South Korean press since 2001 has written about North Korea following the “rogue state doctrine of the US government” and has described the North as “the threat to the national security of the South” or “an unstable party that breaks trust” in the tone from which the US speaks (pp. 31-70). The bondage between our country’s press and the US, as found in 2011, is one reason in the South Korean press showing hostility against North Korea, just as the US does. Another reason lies in seeing the American press as superior to ours. Jung Junhee (2023) describes South Korea still considering American press most credible and our local press overly using direct quotes from American journal articles make it difficult for our country’s public to differentiate our perspective from the one of the US. How South Korean press prioritizes the US over any other countries is also shown through the amount of news coverage. Throughout the 30 days, the international news sections on both Naver and Daum portals – which are the main sources South Korean public access news, according to Korea Press Foundation– mainly focusing on America’s political or economic moves, showed South Korea’s high dependency on the US (see Appendix B, graphs 3 & 4). I also noticed how our country’s press shown on the portals focuses on the narratives of the states - our country’s alliance with the US and the structure of the new Cold War - but leaves out opinions or stories of the South Korean public on such matters.