Abstract Book of the 5th World Conference on Media and Communication
Year: 2025
DOI:
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Trust in YouTube: Journalistic Blindness to Social Media and Political Upheaval at the Conjuncture of South Korea’s 2024 Emergency Martial Law and Impeachment of the President Crisis
Jongmyung Lee
ABSTRACT:
The world is experiencing turmoil amid a period of political upheaval. In particular, South Korea has witnessed a series of dramatic events, including the declaration of martial law by the president in December 2024, the passage of an impeachment motion in the National Assembly, and the ongoing constitutional court proceedings for impeachment extending into March 2025. These developments constitute a critical political conjuncture, intertwined with rapid transformations in the media landscape. Having previously undergone a presidential impeachment crisis in 2016-2017, South Korea has seen the proliferation of claims regarding journalistic practices on social media platforms, particularly YouTube, along with an increasing blind faith in such platforms. As distrust in traditional journalistic media—broadcast, newspapers, and their professional journalists—has deepened, many citizens have turned to YouTube as an alternative, subscribing to and following content creators who present what they perceive as the “truth.” This group polarization during a time of political turmoil has been further exacerbated by YouTube, which has played a role in reigniting and amplifying social and political conflicts in the current political crisis. This study examines the intersection of political turbulence, emerging media platforms, and so-called journalistic practices on YouTube, focusing on the interaction between YouTubers and their politically fervent audiences. Specifically, it analyzes key events that conjuncture of the political crisis, including the declaration of martial law, the passage of the impeachment motion, the indictment and detention of the president by the Prosecutors’ Office and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, and the Constitutional Court’s impeachment trial. The study also investigates the discourse surrounding allegations raised by key political figures, such as claims of election fraud and accusations of orchestrating a coup. To achieve this, the research examines the period from December 3, 2024, when the president declared martial law, to February 25, 2025, when the Constitutional Court held its final hearing. During this time, the study identifies and analyzes the most-watched YouTube content and user comments. The top five YouTube channels with a conservative political orientation and the top five with a progressive orientation were selected, and their most-viewed videos during this period were analyzed. The transcripts and comments of these videos were collected via crawling and examined using semantic network analysis to identify the most frequently mentioned terms and their clustering patterns, revealing the discursive landscape. Comments were analyzed similarly to assess audience reactions to the content. Based on the results of this analysis, the study applies critical discourse analysis (CDA), interpreting the findings at the levels of textual practices, discursive practices, and socio-cultural practices. The results indicate that conservative-leaning YouTube channels and their viewers frequently reproduced controversial political claims such as “election fraud” and “anticommunism,” while actively encouraging and endorsing participation in protests. On the other hand, progressiveleaning YouTube channels and their viewers recurrently produced claims such as “coup instigation” and “dictatorship,” emphasizing the urgency of impeachment, regime change. This study critically examines the role of new media platforms in intensifying and spreading political conflicts, ultimately contributing to ideological polarization. By focusing on South Korea’s unique political context and crisis, the research provides an interventionist critique of the growing influence of politically charged new media worldwide, drawing comparisons to the rise of political podcasts in the United States and other global cases.
keywords: Political controversy, YouTube, semantic network analysis, discourse analysis, conjectural intervention