Media Portrayal of Koreans in the Philippine tabloid “Tempo”

Significance of Research
By reporting about social issues such as immigration and social integration, media has the
ability to significantly affect the social majority’s perception of social minorities. Biased
coverage, e.g. by using stereotypes, by reporting in certain frames, and by marginalizing
out-groups, can accordingly cause a biased readership. The power of the media, however,
not only refers to how media presents ethnic minority groups, but also to whether media
considers these groups as vital part of society and reports about them at all (Trebbe &
Schoenhagen, 2008, p. 2f.). Tabloids can reach a particularly broad audience and initiate as
well as raise the level of public discussion on issues of immigration. The objective of this
paper is therefore to evaluate how Koreans as ethnic minority are represented in a Filipino
tabloid.

Brief Description of the Newspaper

Within the broad landscape of Philippine tabloids, Tempo is quite an exception as it is one
of only two English papers. It is published on a daily basis and belongs to the Manila
Bulletin Group. Characteristically for the yellow press, Tempo is written in a rather simple
language, contains many photographs and features primarily sensational or entertaining
stories, which is reflected in its slogan “News in a Flash”. With a retail price of ten pesos
per issue it is affordable and popular among Filipinos who speak English (Escote Haban,
2008; Philippine Central, 2011; Thompson, 2003, p. 246).

The History of Recent Korean Migration to the Philippines

The first Koreans who moved to the Philippines came during World War II, but they were
very few. In the last two decades, however, the Philippines have attracted a growing
number of Korean migrants. In the 1990s, Korean businessmen and students started to
move to the Philippines due to the country’s low cost of living and education.
Subsequently, Korean priests entered the country and established Korean churches to cater
to the needs of the growing community. Currently, there are approximately 115,000 Korean
residents in the Philippines. According to several studies, one characteristic of Korean
migrants is that they prefer to stay together. This explains the development of Mini-Korean

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communities with Korean churches, groceries, internet cafes, SPAs and alike (Korean
Embassy, 2011; Meinardus, 2005; Philippine Migration Research Network & Philippine
Social Science Council, 2007, p. 33f.).

Methodology
The following research was conducted in a qualitative approach. For a period of two weeks
(February 3- February 17 2011) each issue of the tabloid Tempo has been scanned for
articles mentioning members of the Korean ethnic minority in the Philippines. To analyze
the findings, content analysis was chosen as appropriate methodology.

Data Analysis and Discussion

For the period of the research Koreans are only mentioned in four articles. None of these
are feature stories – all four articles are rather brief news stories. Only one article actually
reports about a member of the Korean ethnic minority group in the Philippines. The story is
subsumed under local news and covers the suicide of a Korean living in Manila. Instead of
just mentioning that a resident from Quezon City committed suicide, the author
superfluously pinpoints to the nationality of the victim already in the headline “Korean
hangs self in his QC residence”. This complies with the findings of Whitehouse (2002, p.
13) and Trebbes and Schoenhagen (2008, p. 5), who claim that the media is typically only
interested in ethnic minorities in times of crisis. Bad news usually is top-selling and entices
to focus on ethnicity. In that context, media often makes use of generalizations and
stereotypes. This also applies to the article, which mentions only the ethnic identity of the
man without providing information on his personal identity and the background of the
incident.

The three remaining articles refer to Korean nationals living in Korea. Two of the latter are
sports articles on the DHL National Golf Championships, which state the progress and
eventually the victory of a Korean golfer, but they do not use any ethnic descriptors. The
third story is from the entertainment section. It reports about the struggles of two Filipino
members of the Korean K-Pop group Pointen during their one-year training in Korea.
Referring to the country’s high place value of success, Koreans are described as “really
strict when it comes to discipline”.

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Conclusions and Recommendations
In a melting-pot nation such as the Philippines, mass media can have a critical role in
shaping the dominant culture’s perception of itself and of the various ethnic minority
groups (Trebbe & Schoenhagen, 2008, p. 1). Media content has the potential and power to
prime both positive and negative attitudes associated with different ethnic subcultures
(Mastro & Kopacz, 2006, p. 306f.; Peffley & Shields, 1996, p. 316f.; Ramasubramanian,
2007, p. 259f.).

The content analysis revealed an underrepresentation of the Korean community in the

coverage of Tempo. They are treated as almost invisible group whose existence is not part
of the daily discourse. This clearly delineates the Koreans from the Filipino in-group and
leads to their marginalization. Thereby, effective intercultural communication and social
integration are impeded. The vision of the Manila Bulletin Group is to foster nation-
building and to provide unbiased information (Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation,
2011). However, promoting cultural diversity as immanent part of successful social
integration and nation-building (Trebbe & Schoenhagen, 2008, p. 1) is seemingly not part
of their agenda. Even though Tempo is a tabloid that of course does not follow the same
principles as broadsheets, the editorial department could for example develop guidelines to
overcome dysfunctions in ethnic minority coverage e.g. by doing feature stories on ethnic
subcultures, by including more context and background information in news stories, by
including follow-up stories; and lastly, by considering diversity as “core component of
accuracy” (Whitehouse, 2002, p. 21).

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