혐로(嫌老)사회: 뉴스 댓글에 나타난 노인인식과 공공PR의 과제

초록

This study focused on the perceptions and dislikes of the elderly, and analyzed the content of comments on articles about the elderly from five major daily newspapers in South Korea. In particular, the topics of the comments, the image and perception of the elderly, feelings toward the elderly, and characteristics of expressing hatred were analyzed. First, comments expressing “perception of the elderly”accounted for the highest proportion of the comment topics at 30.8%. Regarding the image of the elderly, the physical image (36.2%) or the socio-economic image (34.7%) was most mentioned, and the perception of the elderly was generally negative (83.8%). Even in the comments expressing feelings for the elderly, negative emotions accounted for 84.9%, in which hatred was the highest at 21.3%. In fact, 8.7% of all comments expressed hatred toward the elderly, where 68.5% expressed hatred through hostile expressions, including slander, ignorance, or insults, and 31.6% used rejective hate expressions. Especially, comments expressing rejective hate toward the elderly regarded them as “people who would eventually die anyway”and perceived various social and economic benefits as unreasonable. Furthermore, prejudice against the elderly, such as “old fogey”and “headstrong,”was intensifying hatred toward the group. Based on these findings, this study discussed the strategic direction of public PR that can resolve generational conflicts and successfully guide the approaching era of an aging society.

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