Japanese and South Korean Aging Populations in Media Narratives, 2006-2015

Abstract: Rapid aging of the societies and falling birth rates across the world are among the most significant contemporary socioeconomic problems. Meanwhile, in the era of ‘Fake News’ the construction of the media narratives has become increasingly relevant. As challenges posed by aging population are often framed from the point of view of the competitiveness of societies, years 2006-2015 before, during and after the Global Financial Crisis were chosen for study. The purpose of this thesis was to answer the question of: ‘How are the media narratives portraying the aging of Japan and South Korea?’ and related sub-questions exploring the potential differences in the aging-related media narratives between the Western and Japanese/South Korean media. By using a mixed-methods approach combining content and discourse analyses, media narratives about Japanese and South Korean aging in the Western and English-language Japanese/South Korean online newspapers between 2006-2015 were analysed from constructivist perspective. The findings of the study illustrate the typical aging narratives and focal points in the aging discussion concerning Japan and South Korea and show that except for Korean news, Japanese aging was given more coverage than South Korea’s.