외국인 범죄에 대한 언론보도와 문화계발효과

Abstract

한국 사회는 이주 외국인의 증가로 다문화 사회에 진입하였으나, 이주 외국인에 대한 내국인의 우범자 인식과 배타적 태도가 존재한다. 하지만, 실제 범죄자 수와 인구 수를 근거로 내/외국인의 범죄율을 확인한 결과, 외국인의 범죄율은 전체범죄와 강력범죄에서 모두 내국인의 범죄율보다 최근 5년간 일관되게 낮다는 사실을 검증하였다. 따라서 본 연구는 외국인에 대한 우범자 인식이 실제 범죄 발생비율이라는 객관적인 사실에 근거하는 것이 아니라, 외국인 범죄에 대한 국내 언론보도의 문화계발효과에 기인한다는 것을 검증하고자 한다.

이를 위해, 내/외국인의 실제 범죄자 수와 내/외국인 범죄자에 대한 언론의 범죄 기사건수를 비교 분석하고, 설문 조사를 바탕으로 미디어 이용량 변수가 외국인 범죄 발생 인식에 미치는 영향에 대하여 분석하였다. 분석 기간은 최근2011년부터 2012년까지, 분석 범죄 종류는 살인, 강간・강제추행, 절도, 사기를 설정하였다. 경찰청 경찰범죄통계에서 내/외국인 범죄자 수의 자료를 확보하였고, 한국언론진흥재단 기사검색시스템(KINDS)에서 총 76,444건의 범죄 관련 기사(10개 전국종합일간 및 4개 텔레비전 뉴스)를 수집하는 전수조사를 실시하였고, 이 중에서 21,866건의 순수한 사건기사를 확보하고, 이를 범죄자의 국적에 따라 분류하였다. 또한, 설문업체에 의뢰하여 성별과 연령이 균등한 비율로 분포된 성인 198명을 대상으로 미디어 이용량과 외국인 범죄 발생 인식에 대한 설문조사 결과를 확보하였다.

연구 결과, 실제 범죄자 수에 비교하여, 외국인 범죄자에 대한 범죄 기사건수는 내국인 범죄자에 대한 범죄 기사건수보다 월등히 높고, 외국인 국적별로는 중국인과 미국인(주한 미군)의 경우 다른 국적의 외국인에 비교하여, 실제 범죄자 수보다 범죄 기사건수가 월등히 높게 나타났다.

또한 위계적 다중회귀분석 결과, 미디어 이용이 사람들의 외국인 범죄 발생 인식에 영향을 미치는 주요한 변수로 확인되었으며, 외국인의 국적별로, 개별 외국인 집단의 범죄 발생에 대한 사람들의 인식이 실제 범죄 발생비율이 아니라 언론에서 보도하는 기사의 비율과 더욱 높은 양(+)의 상관관계를 갖는 것으로 나타났다. 무엇보다 이러한 모든 연구 결과는 살인과 강간 ・강제추행의 강력범죄에서 강하게 나타나며, 절도와 사기의 비강력범죄에서는 약하게 나타나거나, 나타나지 않았다.

따라서 한국 사회의 이주 외국인에 대한 우범자 인식은 실제 범죄 발생비율이라는 객관적인 사실(the objective reality)에 근거한 것이 아니라, 외국인 범죄에 대한 국내 언론보도라는 미디어 현실(the media reality)에 의해 형성되고 계발되는 주관적 현실(the subjective reality)임을 확인하였다. 논의에서는 이러한 현상이 제기하는 물음과 이에 대한 해석, 연구의 한계에 대하여 서술하고, 후속 연구를 제안하였다.

Objectives South Korea has changed from its ethnic homogeneity into a multi-cultural society with a mounting number of immigrants. However, there exists the perception that immigrants are high-crime prone, associated with the exclusive attitude toward them. The actual crime statistics reveal that that perception is not fact-based

the percentage of criminals among foreigners in South Korea has consistently been much lower than that of native Koreans from 2008 to 2012. This paper aims to examine whether the media coverage on crime by foreigners in South Korea has cultivated the native Koreans perception that the foreigners in South Korea are high-crime prone.

Research Questions For message system analysis, first, the percentage of foreigners among criminals in South Korea was compared with the percentage of news reports on foreign-offender crimes among all news reports on crime in South Korea, and second, reporting rates of crimes committed by foreigners and native Koreans, which is the number of news reports on crime divided by the actual number of criminals, were compared. For cultivation analysis, the association between news media consumption and the respondents estimates of percentage of foreigner-offended cases among all crime cases was examined.

Methods Murder, Rape & Sexual Assault and Burglary, Fraud were selected as representative types of violent crime and non-violent crime respectively. Concerning data collection, first, the number of criminals with their nationalities from 2011 to 2012 was collected from the crime statistics of Korean National Police Agency through a request for information disclosure in September, 2014. Second, all of the 76,444 crime-related news stories from ten national daily newspapers and four television news stations in South Korea, between 2011 and 2012, were collected, and then 21,866 news reports specifically on crimes among them were identified, and these were finally classified according to the offenders nationalities. Third, through a survey conducted by an on-line research company Macromillembrain in September, 2014, 198 respondents with almost equal distribution of gender and age were asked questions measuring their news media consumption and their perception of crime by foreigners in South Korea.

Results Even though the percentage of foreigners among criminals was 0.9 % (N = 6,508), the percentage of news reports on foreign-offender crimes among all news reports on crime was 7.7 % (N = 1,690). On the other hand, the percentage of native Korean criminals was lower in the news reports (92.3%, N =20,176) than in the criminal statistics (99.1%, N =680,121). The overrepresentation of foreign-offender crime was consistent in 2011 and, 2012 respectively, was much higher in the violent crime category, much lower in the non-violent crime category, and was especially higher for Chinese and U.S criminals than for any of the other eight categories of foreigners in South Korea. Consistent with these findings, examining the reporting rate showed the existence of overrepresentation of foreign-offender in news reports.

The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that the total viewing hours of news media had a positive effect on the viewers estimation of the percentage of the crimes committed by the foreigners, specifically in regard to Murder (△R² = .048, β = .228, p < .01), and Rape & Sexual Assault (△R² = .100, β = .326, p < .001), but less in regard to Burglary (△R² = .033, β = .189, p < .01), and not at all in regard to Fraud (△R² = .017, β = .133, p < .10). The results of Pearson correlation analysis and Fishers z-test showed that respondents estimation of the percentage of crimes by each foreigner group had a higher positive correlation with the percentage of news reports than the actual crime statistics, specifically in Murder, Rape & Sexual Assault.

Conclusion The perception that foreigners in South Korea are high-crime prone is a subjective reality that was cultivated by the media reality - the news coverage on foreigners crime -, and is inconsistent with the objective reality. These findings imply that the newsworthiness - unusualness, novelty, exceptionality - of foreign-offender crime might lead to overrepresentation, but it also cultivates native Koreans unreasonable stereotypes of foreigners in South Korea. These stereotypes may be related to the concept of social exclusion, which is associated with ethnic homogeneity in South Korea, and can ultimately lead to a xenophobic attitude and discrimination toward immigrants.