Agendas on Nursing in South Korea Media: Natural Language Processing and Network Analysis of News From 2005 to 2022 (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND In recent years, Korean society has increasingly recognized the importance of nurses in the context of population aging and infectious disease control. However, nurses still face difficulties with regard to policy activities that are aimed at improving the nursing workforce structure and working environment. Media coverage plays an important role in public awareness of a particular issue and can be an important strategy in policy activities. OBJECTIVE This study analyzed data from 18 years of news coverage on nursing-related issues by using the BigKinds database. The focus of this study was to examine the drivers of the agenda and the issues that were emphasized in the media by the analysis of sources and quotes. METHODS Natural language processing and semantic network analysis were applied to data collected from 2005 to 2022. This study first identified the main news sources by conducting a network analysis of news coverage on nursing issues. The study examined the overall patterns of nursing-related news coverage by analyzing the content of major sources and quotes. Finally, the common and individual interests of the main sources are analyzed through network analysis. RESULTS In total, 128,377 articles on nursing-related issues were analyzed. The findings showed that nursing-related news was mainly covered in social and local sections, whereas political and economy sections lacked comprehensive discussions. Nurses were portrayed as heroes, laborers, victims, and perpetrators in various ways, and related problems were presented from multiple perspectives. However, policy formulation processes have not been adequately reported. The economic section tends to focus on youth and women employment in relation to nurses. In the political section, conflicts between nurses and doctors, which may have caused policy confusion, were highlighted. CONCLUSIONS The study suggests that nurses, as advocates of public health, should secure policy compliance by persuading the public about their professional perspectives and resolving misunderstandings.