Traditional News Media

While there are a number of major dailies in South Korea, the three top dailies—Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo and Dong-a Ilbo—are extremely influential in forming public opinion and setting the agenda for public debate. These three papers are well-known for being pro-business and supportive of the big Korean conglomerates. Joongang Ilbo in particular has close ties with Samsung.

All of the papers have English versions, but they are generally quite limited and promote a view of Korea that Koreans would like foreigners to believe about the country. One notable exception is the English version of the Korea Joongang Daily. Maeil Business newspaper, somewhat akin to WSJ or FT, also has an English publication called Pulse that’s quite informative. Furthermore, while this writer can not recommend the Korea Herald at all, The Investor, their business publication, is greatly improved and trending toward exceptional.

The major TV broadcasters (MBC, SBS and KBS) are more liberally slanted in their news. However, recent changes to laws have allowed the newspapers to open their own competing channels.

Online Influence

In addition to these traditional news sources, online influencers have also become especially important for brand exposure. These influencers tend to be on global channels like Instagram and Youtube, as well as local channels like Brunch, a Korean language competitor to Medium.

Google is not anywhere near as widely used, with Korean search portal competitor Naver enjoying a 70% market share. Naver also functions more like an information hub than Google does, with instant access to trending stories and online “cafes” where people can chat about hot issues. It is often said that in Korea, “every crisis is an online crisis.” With a population of 51 million people all interconnected on the ‘net, everyone can be a netizen, as online chat club members are commonly called. Gossip travels incredibly quickly.