研究班番号【 57 】

Japanese Attitudes Toward South Korea
Rin Inada, Mizuki Nobutoki, Marin Nishihara

1. Introduction
Japan-South Korea relations are said to be worse due to the decline in the number ofvisitors to South Korea.
The people who actually visited Korea felt there was a difference between what recent
news reported and the experiences and heard from people around them. Tourists wereconnected about traveling to Korea on hearing that there was a boycott of Japanese
products and demonstrations against the Japanese government.
If the younger generation does not have bad feelings toward South Korea, and if they
become friendly on a personal level, it is hypothesized that these relationships wouldimprove. To test this hypothesis, a survey of people who have never visited Korea wasconducted to determine these subject’s attitudes toward South Korea and what media
sources influences those attitudes, and what sources of information they are interested in.

2. Method
Students in the same school were surveyed to find out what the young people who willlead the next generation think about South Korea. Eighty-one Kozu High School students
answered the question, "What is your image of Korea and where did you find that image?”
Depending on the information sources indicated by the students, it is believed that somesources may lead to a biased or inaccurate perception of South Korea. From the answer, weexamined whether there is a correlation between the images and the content used.

3. Results
The image of South Korea was broadly divided into cultural or political categories. There
were many positive opinions on the cultural side and many negative images on the politicalside. The charts below show the aggregated media sources by percentage for each category.
（Figure 1）

Figure 1：Positive and Negative impressions of South Korea

CulturePolitical・Spicy food・Café・K-pop・beauty surgery

・Anti-Japan・Brain washing education
・North Korea
・Meritocracy

・Drama・Boom maker・Art・kind・Disparity society
・Scared Impression
・Boycott

TV is mainly television news broadcast in Japan, SNS is Japanese social media news
which includes Twitter and Instagram accounts operated by Japanese people, Hearing
includes stories from family or friends who have visited South Korea, Actual Experience is
not only from visiting South Korea, but also information originating from Social Network
Services used by Korean entertainers. It is assumed that there accounts share authenticexperiences from South Korea.
Many of the sources of information that have a positive cultural image are based on Korea
entertainers' SNS posts and real experiences. In particular the SNS category accounts for
61% of all positive responses. On the other hand, most of the opinions with a negative
political image is due to SNS or TV operated by Japanese media outlets.

Figure1: Positive and Negative impression of South Korea
Title:CulturalTVTitle : Political
HEARING

9%EXPERIENCE

11%

19%

HEARLI

SNSNG

11%

11%

SNS61%TV

SNSHEARLING

EXPERIENCE

TV
78%

4. Discussion
From these results, there appears to be a positive correlation between the images of SouthKorea held by the Japanese and information sources that they view most often.
Information presented on TV is edited and directed by Japanese nationals. Often headlines
are used to manipulate news in a way that allows the media outlet to be critical of others toincrease their viewership. As a result, the news does not objectively report what really
happens in South Korea. There is no way for Japanese people who watch TV news to notdevelop the impression that 'Korea is anti-Japanese' because of this manipulation ofinformation. It can be said that TV is creating our image.
Both Korean and Japanese media report extreme information in a sensationalist way to
improve their ratings. Alternatively, people should distinguish between the government andthe people, rather than believing and thinking that the news is the objective truth. It is
important for each of us to be interested and to respond flexibly to other cultures without
being tied to a biased view from the media.
In order to improve Japan-South Korea relations, the truth should be reported regardlessof the audience rating or the degree of audience engagement. Currently, only negative
information is reported in the Japanese press, so positive news stories may improve people's
impressions of other countries.

5. References
中村均『直接接触による日本人の対韓イメージの変化について』 1985
アジア研究所紀要

91 250－272

東洋経済 online https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/260086
朝日新聞 digital

https://www.asahi.com/articles/DA3S14179020.html

キャノングローバル戦略研究所
https://www.canon-igs.org/column/macroeconomics/20191010_6025.html
観光経済新聞https://www.kankokeizai.com/%E9%9F%93%E5%9B%BD%E3%81%8C66%EF%BC%85%E6%B8%9B%E3%80%802
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