Photo: Students at the library of Ewha Womans University. Credit: Yonhap.
With the election of 36 year old pundit Lee Jun-seok 이준석 as the chairman of the conservative People Power Party 국민의힘, there is a renewed focus in South Korean media about what young people think. But according to a report by Journalists Who Ask Questions 질문하는 기자들 of KBS News, only a certain kind of young people appear in newspapers to express their opinion.
Approximately 10m South Koreans are between the ages of 19 and 35, and 2.3m of them live in Seoul. But according to a big data analysis of news articles appearing in South Korea’s eight largest newspapers, over 70% of the “youth” - defined as those between 19 and 35 - who appeared in an article were Seoul residents. This over-representation of Seoul residents lead to the marginalization of the youth who are lower in income and education.
