At the Foot of the Candle, It is Dark: Kyunggi Province News Coverage in Korean Terrestrial Broadcasting

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Kyunggi province news reporting by the 3 major terrestrial TV stations in Korea. For this, news content analysis, audience survey, and in-depth interview were carried out. First, the content analysis shows that Kyunggi news is quantitatively insufficient compared to Seoul news. Kyunggi news was mainly composed of simple police case/accident news, lacked diversity and revealed a relatively high ratio of negative orientations. Second, the audience survey show the demand for Kyunggi news was high, but the major terrestrial broadcasting news did not correspond to it. Third, the in-depth interviews of news reporters show why the Kyunggi news came to have such problems. There are physical constraints such as coverage limits with several reporters covering a vast area, and the broadcast media characteristics of limited time slots of news. However, the more important factor is that news value decisions centered on "national-level influence" result in passive awareness of the importance of Kyunggi local news. Despite recent awareness of the importance of Kyunggi news, without enhanced manpower and allocation of news time slots, Kyunggi local news will not be able to overcome its limits.