언론에 보도된 노인학대 기사 분석

초록

This study aims to explore how the media reports on elder abuse by employing critical discourse analysis and content analyses. To achieve this, 1,138 news articles published in 2023 with the keyword ‘elder abuse’ were retrieved from BigKINDS, and we selected 164 articles after excluding promotional articles and simple campaign reports unrelated to incidents or accidents. We classified them into episodic or thematic frames and analyzed using critical discourse analysis and content analysis methods. The key findings are as follows: First, elder abuse reporting predominantly employs episodic framing, focusing on individual incidents without generating broader social discourse on the systemic nature of elder abuse. Second, the reports disproportionately cover abuse occurring in care facilities rather than domestic settings, often attributing incidents to the deviant behavior of care staff, thus overlooking structural or systemic issues. Third, most reports reflect perspectives from court decisions, victims’ guardians, and other external sources, marginalizing elder victims as active subjects within the narrative. Fourth, the causes of elder abuse are frequently discussed at an individual or familial level, with limited exploration of broader societal dimensions. Fifth, some episodic framed reporting transitioned into thematic framed through consistent follow-up reporting, providing a more nuanced view by addressing multiple perspectives and highlighting structural issues. This study contributes to the field of welfare for older adults by extending the discussion of the media’s role in shaping public opinion and its positive functions within the domain. However, the relatively short duration of the analysis presents a limitation in terms of examining the longitudinal changes in the media coverage of elder abuse. Thus, we recommend extending the duration of articles targeted for this analysis into the early 2000s in order to track the longitudinal changes in media coverage of elder abuse.

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