Nindy Naditha

1209617030 (17SasB)

Critical Discourse Analysis (EXAM)

Critical Discourse Analysis of Gender Discrimination Issue in South Korea from

International Cyber Media

1. Introduction
Gender discrimination issue is a complicated matter that many people from around the
world discuss for many years. Experts released books regarding this matter to see where
the roots are coming from, and what are the reason that shaped the mindset of gender
inequality until it’s becoming something that rooted deeply in many traditional cultures.
One of many countries that still suffered the gender discrimination is coming from the
East Asia, none other than South Korea. Many people aren’t really aware about how bad
and severe the problem is unless they really look into the news or heard about this
directly from the South Koreans. But because of the widely use of social media such as
Twitter and Instagram, we can reach into this matter a little more easily than before. One
of the famous case that closely hit the gender matter is the ‘Nth Room’ that blown up in
Twitter a few months ago after many of Koreans spread a petition for the Blue House that
demand severe punishment for the criminals.

But the ‘Nth Room’ case is only one of many gender discrimination issues in Korea, and
in this paper I’m going to talk about the gender inequality matter that is triggered from
spy camera case that triggered many South Korean women to march through the streets
of Seoul in the 2018. I will analyze this matter from two news from Human Rights Watch
titled ‘South Korean Women Are Fed Up with Inequality’ reported by Heather Barr and
CNN news titled ‘South Korea’s young men are fighting against feminism’ reported by
Jake Kwon.
 In this essay, I’m going to use one of Discourse Analysis approaches about intertextuality
approach using Fairclough 3 dimensional CDA, which are micro-structure (text), meso-
structure (discourse practice), and macro-structure (social analysis and background of the
news). I will also explain what is the base behind gender discrimination by using
Althusser’s concept of ideology to explore the cause that trigger this case especially in
South Korea.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1. Intertextuality: Three Dimensional CDA by Norman Fairclough

In recent years, many experts produced important insights in social language in order to
see how it functions in our society. They tend to put these insights in abstract ways,
without specifying the text that would be analyzed. Critical Discourse analysis help us to
explore two sides of languages; the socially shaped and the socially constitutive side
rather than only opting for one side. Fairclough created three dimensional discourse
analysis by performing a comparison analysis with some specific aspects.

The first one is Micro-structure (Texts) that is divided into three sections. The first
section is representation, and with this we are going to talk about what events/matters that
we are going to analyze, situations and also knowing about the circumstances or anything
in the text that can show us about the topic matters. We are going to see the focus of the
texts and what kind of ideology that might unconsciously or consciously embedded
within them. We can see this from how the journalist described the circumstances inside
the news, what kind of process and also vocabulary written inside. The second one is
about relation. We will talk about how is the relationship between the journalist, audience
and also the news participants that are mentioned in the text. The last one is identity, in
which we see the how the journalist inserts their identity and their readers’ in the news
text. We can use a critical linguistic method on this section.

The next section is Meso-structure (Discourse Practice). In this section we will analyze
the structure of the media organization, like how is the production of the text that
includes the company that created the text. We will also talk about the reason of the said
text to be produced, and how will the text is distributed and consumed by the readers. We
can see it through journalist individual factor, the relation between journalist and media
structure also the routines of the said media. To see this section, the method that we can
use is by looking at the depth of the interviews and the data that they journalist put inside
the text.

The last section is about Macro-structure (Social Culture Practice), and like the first type
this one is also divided into three subs. The first one is situational where we see a texts
based on the rubrics that tell us about the issue, topic, and theme inside the text that is
relevant to our society. On the second section, we are going to use a situational method to
see how much influence that the said institution or news outlet has in discourse
production. The last one is through social aspect which is influenced by the macro aspect
which are the political system, economy, or the local culture inside that we can use to
look at the social content of the said text.

2.3 Concept of Ideology by Louis Althusser

In order to understand why and how gender discrimination could become a huge thing in
South Korea, we need to understand their mindset and the ideology that shaped people
mind into believing the concept of male dominating society. In this essay, I will use the
concept of ideology from Althusser to connect the dots.

Based on Althusser, the first thing he stated about ideology is the fact that ideology is the
false representation of reality. Ideology here is representing the imaginary relationship of
individual to their real conditions of existence. The do not correspond to reality as they
constitute and illusion. To make this illusion into reality, they need to be interpreted to
discover the reality of the world behind their imaginary representation of that world. The
second one is that ideology is a wrong reflection of real consciousness of real social
relations. Althusser also stated there is no social reality in ideology, means that the
existence of people is like living inside an imaginary world. ideology “acts” or
“functions” in such a way that it “recruits” subjects among the individuals as it recruits
them all, or “transforms” the individuals into subjects as it transforms them all, by that
 very precise operation which called as interpellation or hailing, and which can be
imagined along the lines of the most commonplace every day.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1 Micro-structure (Texts)
In this section of micro-structure, I will start analyzing the text from two cyber media
from three main points which are (a) representation; (b) relation; and (c) identity. I will
start it from representation aspect by looking at the headings of the news about a same
matter before going in depth into chunking the news per-paragraph to show the intention
of the reporters. In this section I will also point out the use of process and also the
appraisal being used to see the true meaning and also the tone being used.

Table 1. News Articles from CNN, Human Rights Watch, BBC, and Independent
UK regarding Korean women protest over spy cameras.

CCN (Jake Kwon) South Korea's young men are fighting against feminism
HRW (Heater Barr) South Korean Women are Fed Up with Inequality
Independent (Harriet Tens of thousands of South Korean women protest over
Agerholm) secretly-filmed spycam porn
BBC South Korean women protest in Seoul over hidden sex
cameras

All of the news headline above are talking about the same matter that happened back then
in the 2018 where a lot of South Koreans women marching along the street of Seoul to
show their protest about the spy cameras that are hidden inside women public bathroom.
This raised their demand over the government to start introducing laws to stop voyeurs in
using spy cameras to capture their graphic pictures.

On the news article that are published by Independent and BBC gave us almost a similar
sense of understanding by looking at the words they choose for the headlines, but both
reporters has their own topic to bold in this headline statement. Independent presented us
an exact numbers of the people that most likely attended the protest and gave us readers
an image of how many people are crowding in Seoul streets.
On the other hand, BBC doesn’t exactly give us the image numbers but choose to wrote
an abstract idea by using ‘South Korean women’ in general term. They also have
different perspective about the said hidden spy cam by referring it into ‘sex’ and also
‘porn’. There is a noticeable use of appraisal in those two terms. The word ‘sex’ based
from dictionary is some activity including a sexual intercourse, meanwhile the word
‘porn’ means a sexually explicit videos/photographs/writings to produce a sexual arousal.
Both terms have a completely different meaning and could be interpreted differently by
the readers. Without reading the content, readers could assume that the spy cams vid from
BBC news will include someone doing intercourse sex while in reality it’s about women
who got their graphic photo taken without their consent.
Now moving to the other news headline from CNN and HRW, both articles are still
talking about the same hidden spy cameras but the reporters have different intention,
clearly can be seen from how they construct their ideas.

The news from CNN is talking about how Korean males react over the fact that many
women are marching on the streets, bringing their feminism concept upfront, thus the
reporter used a bold statement by directly writing it into ‘South Korea's young men are
fighting against feminism’ that clearly give us the idea that many young males are not in
the same concept of ideology in understanding the feminism. Almost similar in intention,
the headline news from HRW shows us the side of women thoughts by narrating it into
‘South Korean Women Are Fed Up with Inequality’ that we can conclude as the
reporter voice and also the reason why Korean women decided to marched up and show
their protest in Seoul street. Both headline news in fact could be translated into the
reporter’s thoughts that resonate closely with the mind of the protestant. The voice of the
reporter could be seen directly as their own opinion of the said matter. Beside of the fact
that each headlines are resonating differently in term of secondary meaning, but all of
them are still directing on the same matter; gender inequality and discrimination.

Now beside of the way each media reporters wrote their headline, we can also see their
intentions and full meaning by looking at the process of each words used.
Table 2. The process of words from news articles from CNN, Human Rights Watch,
BBC, and Independent UK regarding Korean women protest over spy cameras.

NEWS HEADLINES PROCESS

CNN South Korea's young men are fighting Material
against feminism
HRW South Korean Women are Fed Up with Mental
Inequality
BBC South Korean women protest in Seoul over Material
hidden sex cameras
I.UK Tens of thousands of South Korean women Material
protest over secretly-filmed spycam porn

From the table we can see that all of the news headline except HRW are material process,
where they are giving us readers the idea of Korean women actually marching on the
streets to voice out their protest about the whole ordeal. The reason why CNN headline
news is considered as material is soon explained on the news with a picture of Korean
men marching on the street with a different mindset about the problem. The other news
headlines also give us a same kind of approach but not with HRW. Instead of giving us a
mental image if people doing activity—in this case, marching along the street of Seoul,
HRW gave us a sentiment approach by telling us the Korean women feeling regarding the
gender discrimination that highly weight down on the spy cam case. This gives off a
different kind of perspective too for the readers because the scope that the writer could
write would be possibly give the reader more information about the reason they finally
feel fed up by the inequality. The possibility of the HRW news to be dominated by the
reporter opinion is quite high, but this doesn’t close the fact that the news will also give
us a promising facts later inside the news. To know whether the news could be called as
dependable or not, let’s take a look at table below. I will present only some of parts of the
news that could represent the reporter’s way of delivering the news.

Table 2. The opening of news articles from CNN, Human Rights Watch, BBC, and
Independent UK regarding Korean women protest over spy cameras.
 CNN On the same street corner in Seoul where 10,000 South Korean
women rallied last October to demand an end to spy
cameras and sexual violence, the leader of a new activist group
addressed a small group of angry young men.
"We are a group for legal justice, anti-hate, and true gender equality,"
Moon Sung-ho boomed into a microphone to a crowd of a few dozen
men waving placards.
HRW On June 9, about 22,000 South Korean women marched through the
streets of Seoul. The protest – reportedly the largest by women in
South Korean history – focused on the proliferation of so-called “spy
cams,” tiny cameras used to invade women’s privacy, filming them
in toilets and up skirts, with images often posted online. Activists
say the government is not taking the issue seriously – except in the
rare case where a man is the victim.
BBC Tens of thousands of women gathered in Seoul on Saturday calling
for a crackdown on spy cam pornography, in one of the country's
biggest ever female-only protests. Perpetrators film or photograph
women with hidden cameras in public spaces. Although distributing
pornography is illegal in South Korea, the videos and pictures are
shared widely online. Organizers say women live in constant fear of
being photographed or filmed without their knowledge.
I. UK Tens of thousands of women have taken to the streets of South
Korea's capital to protest against secretly filmed pornography.
Mass demonstrations by women have been a monthly occurrence in
the Seoul since May and more than 40,000 women took to the streets
of the city on Saturday - a slight decrease from the estimated 55,000
turnout for a march in July.

Each online news outlets have a different approach towards the matter by looking at how
they construct their reports. All of the reports do gave us exact numbers of people that
joined the march of protest in Seoul street, but if we look closely at their manner and tone
of putting the sentences together, we can see the intention and also the discourse of each
news by analyzing it though the chosen words. First, the news from CNN we can see that
the reporter used a lot of graduation in his adjectives. We can see how the reporter tried
to create a bigger impact by choosing words like ‘demand’, ‘angry’ and also ‘boomed’
for a dramatic purpose, it gave readers a more intense and also exaggeration at the same
time to relate closely in term of emotions. The use of graduation here turned his report
into monogloss, where it opens a possibility for readers to have another perspective over
the matter. But we can see that he assured the readers that the report could be dependable,
he quoted the protestant voice by direct quoting the sentence.

Their approach is different with HRW’s even though the structure looks similar if we
didn’t look at it thoroughly. The tone that the reporter used in their report shown by how
they used the work of graduation; soften such as ‘marched’ and force from the use of
adverbial ‘-ly’ on the word ‘seriously’. The news still providing us the exact number of
people marching but they didn’t provide any direct quoting from people that are involved
directly from the protest. Later in the news, they gave us some data that are gathered from
surveys in Korea regarding women abuse to support this opening report.

They used a different approach by reporting it in their own words by describing the
whole situation about the trigger of the protest, one thing that CNN doesn’t provide in
their opening report. However, if we look at their report from the side of discourse
appraisal, their news is considered as monogloss with bigger gap because they don’t
provide the exact source of the said report. They only mentioned ‘activist’ and
‘reportedly’ without telling us further nor putting a direct quoting like CNN. We can
assume that they will use a lot of reporter perspective in narrating the situation.

BBC news report has a very similar approach like HRW, marked at how they narrated the
whole situation without any direct quoting of people involved in the protest. Instead, they
report it in a wider view by explaining how severe the situation of illegal porn share in
South Korea. They also used the function of graduation by putting a force type of words
such as ‘biggest ever’, ‘widely’, and ‘constant fear’ to give a bigger image impact for the
reader to relate emotionally on the matter. Their tone as a whole doesn’t come out as
forceful as BBC’s but rather more informative even though they still use the reporter’s
understanding towards the case.

The last news from Independent UK gave us a different tone from the previous news.
They don’t use a lot of graduation words but instead trying to choose a more general one
with direct meaning. But even though they provide us exact numbers for more detailed
stuffs, they also didn’t mention the exact source of the said data. If we compare their style
of writing from the other news, the reporter doesn’t really input his opinion on the
opening of their report but more to providing us data while explaining about the matter in
neutral tone.

The next point that we are going to discuss about is relation. We are going to see how the
journalist of each news create a bridge to connect with the readers of their news texts.
From CNN news, their content of report consisted information from a different
perspective which is men who disagree about the feminist movement that South Korean
women strived at the Seoul street. After we look into the matter that the reporter is trying
to deliver, they are providing us many data statistics of people who agree and disagree
about the new movement to change the gender equality in South Korea.

The bridge that CNN bring here is to inform people the bigger scale of the gender
inequality, instead of only focusing on the spy camera case. In this news, we could guess
that the reporter is either leaned to the side of men or trying to be neutral by mentioning
both party thoughts and struggle over the gender discrimination. Their news is more big
in scale based on the data they provide and also the correspondent voice over the matter,
even so the opinion of the reporter is also prominent as they deliver the news to the
readers based on their understanding over the data mentioned.

The bridge to the reader that HRW offers here is to give a wide insight of why women in
South Korea are fed up with the case of discriminating women for many years. They use
the case of spy cam as one of many things that women in South Korea should endure
because of the cultural understanding about gender there. Later on, they also provide
another case about discrimination such as abortion that will considered legal only if the
victim got it from being raped. They mentioned the demand that the protestant wanted
from their president by putting up a #MeToo movement.

The bridge of their news to the reader is to give a bigger and informed the reader that
doesn’t know why would such case brought up a lot of masses of women to protest. Their
bridge over the reader is almost as similar as BBC’s news report. They also wrote down
many details about one of the spy cam case that include the use of hidden and up-skirt
cameras as one of the huge social problem in South Korea for women. They provide a lot
of data that doesn’t get mentioned by HRW about the more detailed news related to the
spy cam itself.

As I already mentioned above, Independent UK’s news report is mostly filled with
numeric reports and also direct quoted sentence from people who gather for protest in
Seoul street. They include many of their voices that worked as a bridge between us reader
and people that could be the victim or people who despise the case in their own country,
to understand about their thought better. Their approach is similar with BBC and also
HRW in this section, and they also include many pictures of people holding up banner
that indicated their protest and demand towards the government to take care about the
matter that soon get accepted by President Moon himself.

The last point in Micro-structure is identity, in which we see how the journalist of each
news inserts their identity and their reader’s in the news text. CNN news reporter seemed
to put themselves in the place of the Korean men who protest against the feminist, that
positioned their reader as people who want to see the other side of perspective. Even
though it looks like they are siding with the men voice, in fact they still provide actual
data and also mentioned the struggle that men and women should face in the society.
HRW put themselves as the contrary of CNN. As a matter of fact, their news foundation
is working to protect and spread awareness of basic human rights, that absolutely will
support the Korean women movement and placed their reader as people who believe in
same mindset with them or to know better about people side who fought about the case.
BBC and Independent UK worked as a bridge that explained to the reader about the
situation in South Korea related to the spy cameras case by providing us numeric and
statistic data, as well as the example of actual case that include recording and snapping
women and even men picture without their consent. They gave the reader an image of
how the situation was until many people rose up in anger.

3.2 Macro-structure (Social Culture Practice)

The matter about gender discrimination is something that South Korean women already
endure since many years ago, even until today. This matter derived from the fact that
patriarchal ideologies in South Korea is already rooted deeply in their cultural tradition.
Until now, the matter about gender discrimination in South Korea is counted as the
highest among other countries in the world.

Back then in 1994, South Korean women have been subjected as the sex slave of the
military. Even after the war has ended, men are expected to do male type of work, and
women are defined to be a house wife and the keeper, as well as bearing a child. Most
women did all of their work at home instead of participating in the social work outside.
Until few years back then, women still faced a harsh gender discrimination in job
recruitment, as males are judged as less emotional than females. Women should also face
a lot of violence and injustice coming from the society, and one of the case that blown up
years ago was about the case of spy cameras. South Korean women, and sometimes men
too, had been plagued by hidden cameras in a lot of public places like changing room and
toilet. There are also some serious cases of people recording women under skirt in public
places and public transportation.

This case of spy cameras caused an uproar and pushed Korean women to finally voiced
out their anger over this issues as well as other discrimination that they should face for
many years. Over ten thousand South Korean women marched through the streets of
Seoul and demand the government to punish the criminals of discrimination and also start
giving same opportunity for both women and men in job field. Over 200 thousands of
people also signed petition that demanding the band in sales of hidden cameras as well as
stronger punishment.

We can relate this case of discrimination with the concept of ideology. As I already
mentioned in point 2 above, Althusser stated that the concept of ideology is created for
the higher status people having a control over people above them, and gender inequality
is also counted as an ideology that tied people to behave the way the culture expected
them to behave. The concept of women should do certain things and men should do
certain stuffs was not determined by itself, but the cultural rules did it to them. This force
of ideology created a mindset in people mind that if they didn’t behave according to the
cultural norms then it will be considered as failed in carrying their gender roles
responsibility.

3.3 Meso-structure (Discourse Practice)

In this section of analysis, we would like to talk about the production of the text that
includes the company that produce the said news text. There are three focus points in
this discourse practice.
 Journalist Individual Factor
CNN is one of the biggest news outlet that has branches all over the world. Beside
of serving news in online outlet, they also own a television channel that provide
24 hours’ coverage. It is already well known that they often gave out a criticism
and also their efforts to be non-partisan, that led people to believe that a lot of
their news is also false in balance. In the news I choose in this paper, the
journalist which is a man, give most of his voice and view on the South Korean
male instead of the women’s even though the main factor of the protest is women
and not men.

On the contrary, HRW is a news outlet that pursue human rights before anything
and we can see it from the identity of the writer of the news which is a woman,
and their reports is completely siding with South Korean women who fights for
gender equality. BBC and also Independent UK’s journalist are more neutral in
 this matter as both of the reporters only talk about facts and data regarding the spy
cameras case, they even provide the actual footage for the reader to look into the
news better.

 Relation between Journalist and Media Structure

CNN and BBC are famous news site that work globally so people all around the
world can read about other countries news and matter without a language barrier.
They wrote news about things that happened globally in their main site, while
their branch site will talk about matters inside each one of them. Independent UK,
seen from the name itself, mostly wrote news about matters that are happening in
UK but they also wrote about news that has a wide impact internationally for their
people to be aware about the matter. Lastly, HRW is a specific media that has
their journalist to talk about human rights awareness all around the world.

 Media Routines
BBC, CNN, and Independent UK are almost similar in term of popularity in
international sight as both of them already ruled the news world from a long time
ago, starting from live reports on TV until daily update of news online about
current situation all around the world. They have branch all over the world that
doesn’t really siding with the government nor the readers, we can find a lot of
criticism coming from the reporters from both side as the advantage of not
directly linked with the government. But Independent UK work as a different site
because it carries the name of their country, so their news reports are mostly
neutral or biased unlike BBC and CNN. HRW as a site only work in online site
without TV connection, but they work as an independent site that pursue human
rights and often held a petition related to the matter.
4. Conclusion
After we analyze the case of gender discrimination in South Korea, especially about the
spy camera case that trigger the anger of many South Korean Women, a lot of
international medias took the chance to voice out either their opinion or perspective over
the case. We can see that they have their own way in talking about the matter, from trying
to look at it from a different gender perspective, narrating the story with their own words
to convey their perspective to the readers, or just simply giving out information that filled
with statistic and numeric data as well as an actual footage from the case.

Each news outlet wrote their news depending on which section they are working, and
what kind of stuffs that influenced their writing. It could be from the journalists
themselves or depending from the bias of the media itself. The case of gender
discrimination is also influenced by an ideology that already rooted deeply since
centuries ago, but now in the 20th a lot of people, especially women, are bracing up
themselves to stood up against the social inequality that happened in their society in order
to make everything equal for both genders.
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