How did Chosôn Ilbo and Han’gyôre’s Editorials use Emotive Language to Frame the Government’s Handling of the MERS Crisis?

Abstract: During and after the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome crisis in 2015, the South Korean Government faced a lot of criticism for the epidemic prevention management. The crisis had a duration of four months before it was declared over, leading to an accumulation of criticism towards the security system, disease management and hospital policies. The study analysed how editorials used emotive language to criticise the government, health authorities and the Korea Centers of Disease Control and Prevention during the first two weeks of the crisis, from 20th of May to 2nd of June. The content analysis revealed that the newspapers’ political affiliation was not unambiguous. Chosôn Ilbo which is generally considered right-wing and “government-friendly” had similar opinions and used similar words as Han’gyôre in their editorials when criticising the authorities. Han’gyôre on the other hand, which is generally considered left-wing, turned out not to be critical without reason, and even choose to overlook politics to assure the readers that this was more important than politics. This study achieves to surpass previous research by not categorising the newspapers’ political beliefs beforehand but by examining the grey area between a “left-wing” and “right-wing” newspaper. This study hopes to encourage those who study media studies to combine qualitative and quantitative research strategies for a more nuanced, captivating result.