Jobs, investment were the key words in 20th presidential election

“Economic democratization,” the most often mentioned keyword during the 18th and 19th presidential elections, was replaced with more practical ones during the 20th presidential election.

The Dong-A Ilbo analyzed all articles containing at least one keyword related to businesses among the articles from 10 major daily newspapers, where two leading presidential candidates were mentioned together, for 90 days until the election day from 18th to 20th presidential elections. The 25 business-related keywords included the names of five conglomerates, including Samsung and Hyundai Motor, and their heads, business, chaebol and chairman. The 240,000 words from 12,477 articles registered in the Big Kinds database (DB) were analyzed as a result.

The word most frequently mentioned during the 20th presidential election, excluding proper nouns and area names, was “jobs.” It was the word closely related to businesses, taking second and first place, respectively, even during the 18th and 19th presidential elections. Notable keywords for the 20th presidential election were those related to stock investment, including “investors (2nd),” “KOSPI (15th),” “stock market (21st),” and “stock exchange (23rd).”

The word “economic democratization” was the most mentioned during the 18th presidential election, where former President Park Geun-hye and current President Moon Jae-in competed against each other. It was the seventh most frequently mentioned word during the 19th presidential election, where President Moon and People Power Party lawmaker Hong Joon-pyo contended. But it was nowhere to be seen among the top 30 during the 20th presidential election. The words, “temporary worker” and “permanent worker,” which came in third and fifth place, respectively, during the two previous presidential elections, received less attention this time, falling to seventh and 17th place, respectively. Another noticeable factor for the 20th presidential election was that a number of keywords related to fairness, such as “unfairness (12th),” “fairness (14th),” and “inequality (18th)” were included in the top 30. Experts believe that presidential candidates and election camps set these words as keywords for the election as being sensitive to fairness has become a social trend, especially among the MZ generation.


nuk@donga.com