Abstract

In traditional studies on North Korea, conservative media in South Korea generally report and have an attitude toward anti-North Korea. It is a similar context as South Korea’s conservatives view the U.S. and Japan more closely and positively than North Korea. This study is about how the reporting frames and information sources on North Korean science and technology in South Korea’s conservative and progressive media differ and show trends. As a result of analyzing the reporting frame on North Korean science and technology by conservative and progressive media, progressive media showed similar trends or slightly positive responses to North Korean science and technology. But the reanalyzed result after dividing it into conservative and progressive governments, the opposite result came out. In the conservative government, the progressive media dealt with very positive aspects of North Korea's science and technology, and in the progressive government, there was a clear tendency to report negative rather than positive. What can be inferred from this is that the progressive media of South Korea had at least quite different directions of the progressive government in dealing with North Korean science and technology, but rather close to anti-North Korea. It is difficult to reach a hasty conclusion because this study has not dealt with all the press and only 10 years after the Kim Jong-Un regime. Nevertheless, this study may provide implications in that it is the first study to analyze how South Korean conservative and progressive media frame North Korean science and technology.