초록/요약

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the image of persons with disabilities appearing in the April newspaper articles from four major newspapers (Chosun, Hankyoreh, Dong-a, JoongAng) by 7 subperiods at 5-year intervals for the 30 years of 1990-2020 in Korea, to present discourses on the change in that images, and the relationship between the implementations of major disability-related laws and the image changes. Method: 25 newspaper articles were selected as one article in or near the National Disability Day(April, 20th) of the newspapers from 7 subperiods(1990,1995,2000,2005,2010,2015,2020). To analyze the image of people with disabilities, ‘an analysis scheme of 11 disability images’ developed by the researchers was used, and analyzed in the order of text practice, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice as a critical discourse analysis. Results: First, 10 disbility images were represented in the selected articles. The most frequent image was ‘incompetent dependent’, and followed by ‘a member of citizen’ image. Second, as for the change in the images over the past 30 years, negative images such as ‘object of dread or separation’ and ‘incompetent dependent’ were prevalent in the 1990s, and a positive image of ‘a member of citizen’ was first emerged in 2000. Over the past 30 years, stereotyped negative images of persons with disabilities tended to be continuously reproduced. Third, ‘a member of citizen’ image appeared in 2000 along with the disability-related laws enacted in the 1990s and changes in the international disability paradigm in the 2000s, but the negative disability images were not easily improved despite the enforcement of disability-related laws over the past 30 years. Conclusion: This study was significant in that it first examined the images of persons with disabilities in the newspaper articles in Korea and their changes over the past 30 years, and analyzed the relationship between the implementation of major disability-related laws and the image changes. Suggestions were provided on the role of newspaper articles in the creation, modification, maintenance, and reproduction of images of persons with disabilities. It also suggested ways to reduce negative perceptions of persons with disabilities, and accept persons with disabilities as equal citizens with persons without disabilities.