Media framing of North Korea : A study of the representation of North Korea in news media

Representations have a significant part in our everyday lives as they shape our understanding of the world and are related to the construction of knowledge and the formation of social relations between different cultural groups. Previous studies have questioned the objectivity of news media and representations and argued that representations are not as objective as they often claim to be. Conscious and unconscious choices such as what is to be emphasized, included, excluded, choices of words, examples, metaphors, the journalist's background and more are examples of what makes the neutrality and objectivity of news reporting questionable. This argument is further strengthened by emphasizing that news production and its consumption is neither isolated nor independent and is influenced by different levels of power. The production of news is therefore a complex interaction between different stakeholders that influence what is interesting and newsworthy to be published because in the end, news is a product to be sold. This study examines the geographical representation of North Korea in the news media with a frame perspective. Framing has in this study been interpreted as a way of representing and is understood as a framework that frames a news subject and sets the tone on how the news subject can be interpreted and understood by the receiver. The empirical data, collected from two Swedish and two South Korean digital newspapers from two time periods, April 2017 and April 2018, were analyzed using a combination of a frame analysis and a content analysis. The conclusion of this study is that there are to some extent differences on how the news media in Sweden and South Korea choose to frame North Korea. During the two time periods, the Swedish news medias makes generally a more negative representation of North Korea compared to the South Korean news medias. But overall are the frames used by the news media in both countries reflected by the situation in North Korea and the world