Abstract

This study analyzes the perspectives of the British media on the comfort women issue. To this end, I review six daily newspapers and two weekly magazines covering the thirty years from 1990 to 2019. The perspectives of British media on the comfort women can be seen as multilateral and selective. The release of articles in the early 1990s began with articles about the sexual violence during the Yugoslav War and compensation issues surrounding British war prisoners in the Pacific War. The news features released in the 2000s and 2010s are characterized by level and cool-headed viewpoints of the third person. Accordingly, they criticize the antagonistic and nationalistic nature of KoreaJapan relations and take contrasting attitudes toward the comfort women issue as distinct from issues concerning their past mutual history. British media insist that Britain should contribute to universal human rights by criticizing the unblushing Japanese government for neglecting financial compensation to the comfort women. However, the attitudes of the British media seem to hesitate between that of guardian of human rights and bystander. An ethics embracing multidirectional memories, wherein selective viewpoints are excluded, is thus needed.