Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Update on bus incident

We're now at 81 articles (mentioning the fact he was an English instructor) about the bus incident (including one which describes him as a 'native speaking [public school] teacher' - but are facts really that important?). Considering there were 112 negative articles about foreign teachers published this year up until two days ago, it's a pretty unprecedented increase.

There have been at least 120 articles or broadcasts about this story, with there being several dozen about the initial discovery of the video and the netizen response, 60+ articles about him being booked (and his nationality and job), a dozen or more subsequent articles speculating about the ‘니가 effect.’ The number of stories/broadcasts about his side of the story, his admission of being wrong and wanting to apologize? Ten. Perhaps the media suddenly became tired of the story.

To put it in perspective, though, it's probably worth mentioning that there were almost as many (or at least dozens and dozens of) articles (such as this one) about some other foreigners yesterday - in particular the teens who appeared in a video showing their reactions to this Korean web comic.

And related to teachers is this opinion piece from a few weeks ago which makes some points similar to this piece.

1 comment:

BuckyHermit said...

Okay, that comic nearly gave me a heart attack. Good lord!