Two Perspectives on Spain: A Comparative Analysis of News Articles and Social Media Contents from Korean Portal Sites

• Published in: Journal of Global and Area Studies , 9(2) pp. 317 - 333
• Main Authors: 장윤지, Gilberto Javier Cabrera Trimiño, 정호윤
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 글로벌지역학연구소 30.06.2025
• Subjects: 지역학
• ISSN: 2586-0305; 2586-3797
• DOI: 10.31720/JGA.9.2.15

This study investigates how Spain is variously framed within Korean society by comparing Spain‑related news articles and blog posts published on the Naver and Daum portal sites between January 2023 and December 2024. A total of 1,385 news items and 1,155 blog posts were collected and processed with Textom; TF‑IDF weighting identified all-important keywords, and bigram N‑gram analysis captured recurrent phrase patterns. Guided by framing theory, results reveal a clear division into two parts. Mainstream news employs episodic frames that spotlight Spain as a venue for international triumphs—such as the Women’s World Cup—or crises—such as flash‑flood disasters—thus presenting a fragmented, event‑driven national image. Blogs, by contrast, adopt thematic, experience‑oriented frames: Barcelona, Seville, and Madrid anchor narratives of travel planning, high-quality restaurants, and cultural leisure, recasting Spain as a consumable tourism brand. These competing frames co‑construct a hybrid but selective Korean perception of Spain, highlighting the distinct agenda‑setting roles of institutional versus user‑generated media. The study extends nation‑image research by integrating personalized platforms into the analytical scope and demonstrates that computational text‑mining can uncover contextual as well as quantitative insights. Limitations include reliance on two domestic portals, a two‑year sampling window, and the absence of qualitative audience data. Future work should widen platform coverage, employ mixed methods, and conduct longitudinal and cross‑national comparisons to deepen understanding of how diverse media ecologies negotiate foreign‑nation frames in the digital era. KCI Citation Count: 0