Media cross-ownership and threat to diversity: A discourse analysis of news coverage on the permission for cross-ownership between broadcasters and newspapers in South Korea

Media diversity is an essential policy goal in achieving democracy. This study deals with how the press covered the issue of media cross-ownership which was recently allowed in South Korea. To this end, it analysed 210 news articles from two newspapers that have contrasting political stances, using critical discourse analysis. The analysis compared news discourse between two contrasting newspapers from political, social and economic values that constitute public interest. The results reveal that Joongang, a typical commercial newspaper, advocated cross-ownership based on economic values ignoring social values. On the other hand, Hankyoreh, a representative liberal newspaper, opposed the deregulation of cross-ownership on the basis of social values instead of economic values. In addition, the present study finds that while Joongang highlighted outlet diversity, Hankyoreh deemed content diversity as more important than outlet diversity. The findings also indicate that debate on media cross-ownership can be seriously interrupted when the media put more emphasis on private interest than on public interest. The current research suggests that a desirable goal of media cross-ownership should be pursued on the basis of a solid public interest standard, which is not compromised by political intervention and is supported by political, economic and social values.