#MeToo movement in political media era: a comparison of U.S. media and Korean media

ABSTRACT

The #MeToo movement has become a global issue. In both the U.S. and South Korea, scandals involving celebrities and politicians have stimulated the movement even further. Our study aimed to investigate how conservative and liberal media report on the #MeToo movement differently in both countries. After conducting a content analysis of 516 articles in four newspapers in the U.S. and five newspapers in South Korea, we find that liberal media report on the issue more often, while conservative media use sensationalism in their #MeToo articles more often. Limitations include generalizability issues as we only looked at newspapers and only four different cases.

KEYWORDS:

• #Metoo
• content analysis
• media partisanship
• sensationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

_1. The statute of limitations for sexual harassment was up and the Korean Supreme Court acquitted Prosecutor Ahn regarding the abuse of authority in January, 2020. Prosecutor Seo did not accept the result and insisted that her internal transfer was clearly due to the abuse of authority (Lim, 2020)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meehyun Jeon

Mee Hyun Jeon completed a Ph. D program in Sociology at Sogang University in South Korea. Currently, she is a director of the Korean Institute for Gender Equality Promotion and Education in South Korea.

Hyoung Oh Kim

Hyoung Oh Kim completed a Ph.D. program in Media Communication at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in South Korea. Currently, he is a chief reporter of MBN(Maeil Broadcasting Network) in South Korea.

Chang Wan Woo

Chang Wan Woo (Ph. D., The University of Alabama) is an associate professor in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University. He teaches and studies in the area of public relations and sports communications.