The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate the differences in views on educational
welfare between conservative and progressive press. Recently, topics relating to educational
welfare, including free school meal and halve college tuition, are becoming important issues for
elections. In a situation where conservative and progressive camps are fighting fiercely over the
realization of educational welfare, this study is an attempt to understand the stances of press on
the welfare.
To achieve the purpose of this study, the researcher chose the A-ilbo and the B-shinmun
which represent conservative and liberal press of Korea especially, and, by using text network
analysis(TNA) method, inspected the titles of those two newspapers’ editorials which covered
educational welfare issues during Lee Myung-Bak administration. KrKwic, software for the
network analysis of Korean text, and Netminer4.0, a social network analysis program, were used
for analysis of total 74 editorials(32 from the A-ilbo and 42 from the B-shinmun).
The results of this study shows that press expressed difference stances on the voting issues.
While conservative press consistently argued to promote welfare based on the government’s
financial situation, the progressive side insisted on realization of welfare-first society.