Why South Korean Media Perform Poorly in Climate Change News Production

Abstract

A number of studies point at the low media salience of climate change in South Korea. This paper explores the reason behind the phenomenon by zooming in on the factors that lie within media organizations. Through semi-structured interviews with 11 journalists who have covered climate change issues, we identify the beat system (chul-ib-cheo je-do) as the most prominent factor contributing to the lack of climate change coverage by Korean media outlets. In this system, climate change is viewed narrowly as the issue of the Ministry of Environment, and different beats split the coverage of it; the resulting news reports often lack expertise. The top-down and rigid organizational structure as well as the lack of international news coverage (home bias) also prevent Korean media, to some degree, from adequately covering climate change.