Media framing effect on Facebook engagement: Nationalism and political polarization in Korea-Japan trade dispute 2019

Abstract

While framing and framing effect studies have been conducted across various issues, time, and countries, it is less clear how the concepts work in the social media context. Drawing upon the framework of media logics, framing effect, and incivility in user comments, this thesis examines media framing effects on Facebook regarding the controversial Korea-Japan trade dispute in 2019. Quantitative content analysis was conducted on posts, articles, and user comments on Facebook pages of four Korean newspapers. The politically polarized newspapers did not show statistically significant differences on covering Korean governmental or political actors or using media frames. However, the audience on Facebook engaged in domestic political contestation, focusing on different actors and audience frames. This may be explained by media logic manifestations on Facebook indicated by different use of status messages by the newspapers. The findings suggest social media space allows for heterogeneous framing effects among the audience.