159. From January 2012 to December 2015, a total of 14,530 articles released
by 237 media outlets were searched for keywords tracking emotion related
to “migrant laborers, alien laborers, and foreign workers.” The result shows
that words with negative connotation top the list. 22
[Table 8] Emotion Keywords for Migrant Workers
Rank
No. 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Words
Various
Illegal
Poor
Necessary
Crime
Hard
Consistent
Suspicion
Help
Safety
Pos/Neg
Neutral
Neg
Neg
Neutral
Neg
Neg
Neutral
Neg
Pos
Pos
Frequenc
y
1,218 1,178
550
515
513
376
372
321
318
305
160. Media outlets do not even seem to recognize the issue in their media reports which
instigate racism: for example, an individual foreigner’s misconduct often escalated
into wrongdoing of the whole immigrant population or distorted reports and fake
news inciting hatred for refugees.
161. As is often the case, a movie tends to have a huge social ramification. A film
released in 2017 seemed to reinforce a criminal stereotype for ethnic Koreans
from China and their residential district, which caused a relevant organization
to demand a suspension of showing and apology from its production crew.
162. The Internet should offer the freedom where everyone can express his/her own
opinion, idea, and thought in order to achieve a certain object. However, it is
necessary to monitor and rein in the abuse of racist remarks online as long as the
surveillance does not violate the freedom of speech when such remarks are
highly likely to encourage racism beyond the boundary of the freedom protected
by relevant international and domestic standards and regulations.
163. Case in point, “one-person media” and the recent surge of its popularity proves to be
highly influential as it is producing some incendiary, often sexist or racist, video
clips, spread on social network services which help reproduce stereotypes and
negative perception.
164. Therefore, the government needs to adopt active, urgent, and appropriate
22 A sentiment analysis commissioned by the Korea Economic Daily: Emotion keywords mean the list
of words reflecting attitude or perception about a certain object.
35