• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.79
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• pp.40-69
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• 2016

This study examines how the Korean media has covered the leukemia case of Samsung workers. The news articles on the cases, published in the three terrestrial broadcasting stations, the five major newspapers, progressive Internet news media, conservative Internet news media, and business newspapers between 2007 and 2015, were retrieved and analyzed. Four characteristics of news reports were discovered as following: First, while conservative news media and business news media have exnominated the first phase of the case in which a civil organization Sharp claimed that Samsung workers had leukemia from their workplace; they have nominated the second phase of the case in which Samsung attempted to solve the problem by compensating the victims for their disease. Second, the media generally have displayed more interests in the results than in the causes of the case. Third, the conservative press and business newspapers have reported the case in favor of Samsung rather than laborer victims. Fourth, the conservative press have deployed market-friendly discourses, rather than problematizing the state and civil society. Through an abduktive analysis, this study argues that except the Hangyore and Kyunghyang Shinmun, most of the Korean media, assuming pro-business attitude, do not question or clarify where the responsibility of the industrial disaster lies by displaying their interests in the phase of solution, not in the phase of cause.