Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Media framing is widely discussed in the recent literature of media effects and agenda-setting. While the political framing literature and the index hypothesis studies emphasize politician's active roles and the media's passive roles in the policy area, the media framing literature suggests that the media often plays a strong and proactive social role by shaping and leading public opinion as well as framing particular images of social reality. This impact is often limited by social members' preferences, as well as the influences of policymakers and opinion leaders. This suggests the reflective, interactive, and complex nature of media effects in society. Media framing and media effects become more complicated when focal issues are politically sensitive, unpredictable, uncertain, and ambiguous like in the issue of North Korean Nuclear weapon. Based on the media framing and political rhetoric perspectives, the authors' provide a comparative study on media effect and politics of North Korean nuclear issue that offers a thorough examination of changes in media contents, tones, and positions, as well as major political rhetoric in the first and second nuclear crises. Based on a comparative content analysis of selected media and political rhetoric in South Korea and the US, this study explores differences, similarities, and changes in political and media framings of the North Korean nuclear crises and then proposes potential solutions for narrowing the perceptual and policy gap among nations of interest. The findings of this study will offer a better understanding of the complex North Korean nuclear issue by dissecting distinctive differences in political and media framing of this selected topic among major nations of interest.