Dynamic Nature of Agenda and Priming Effects of Media on Public Opinion Formation: Focusing on the Sewol Ferry Disaster Issue in South Korea

Abstract

Through examining the news coverage of the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry, this article investigates the inclinations of Korean newspapers toward positive, neutral, or negative reporting about sub-issues connected with this topic, analyzes the relationship between such inclinations and the formation of public opinion about this disaster, and explores the priming impacts of newspapers on the public opinion formation. We find that the presence of complementary or competitive relationships between sub-issues could cause societal changes. This study contributes to our understanding of the dynamic nature of agenda setting, Sewol Ferry disaster and its sub-issues and has implications for each government in that any government could be very negatively affected by insensitivity toward new sub-issues of an issue and inexperience dealing with new sub-issues.