Soft Power Tools in the Work of the National News Agency in South Korea (on the Example of Yonhap)

In the modern realities of easy and fast accessibility of information, the level of its importance is growing rapidly. The media, as a tool for managing and guiding this information, plays an important role in shaping public opinion. Media helps to highlight a certain topic, paying more attention to it in the coverage, to form positive or negative associations with the topic via the background information, to set the tone of the publication through its visual component, etc. This paper analyzes the tools of “soft power” that the media use to promote the image and values of the country. The study focuses on the work of South Korea’s leading news agency, Yonhap. Since news agencies are generally considered objective media that adhere to a stricter form of presentation compared to other types of media, it would be interesting to see how these agencies use the tools of “soft power” in their work. In order to maintain a high level of audience trust, agencies need to sustain their image and find a balance in working with information, while maintaining a sense of objectivity. For a more detailed and in-depth study, this paper analyzes the tools of “soft power” that are used in covering topics related to Korean culture. Culture, especially the K-pop industry, plays a huge role in drawing attention to Korea. The hypothesis of the study is that the Yonhap agency’s coverage of news related to culture and K-pop, has a certain effect on the perception of South Korea in the world. The paper provides a quantitative content analysis of Yonhap publications in the culture and K-pop section in a chosen period of time. The materials are analyzed on the basis of general criteria established by the author in the codebook. The coding results are clearly demonstrated on graphs that help visually trace the specific “soft power" tools involved in the work of Yonhap. To identify the connection between the use of “soft power” tools by Yonhap agency and the level of interest in topics related to Korea, a media metric analysis based on Google Trends is carried out in the work. Analysis based on keywords helps to track how the coverage of certain topics on certain dates affects the level of the audience interest in Korea.