인구소멸 담론의 언론-소셜 프레임 격차와 과제: BERTopic과 의미연결망 분석을 중심으로

초록

Objectives This study examines the structural characteristics and temporal dynamics of the population decline discourse in South Korean news and social media. Methods BERTopic modeling and semantic network analysis were applied to 10,776 news articles (January 2020 April 2026). Simultaneously, social media data (approximately 90,080 posts) across six periods (April 2020 April 2026) were analyzed. Results Five major topics were identified in news media: Policy Response and Support (32.4%), Youth Outflow and Regional Economy (24.8%), Low Fertility and Aging (18.5%), Regional Depopulation and Community (15.2%), and Education and Culture (9.1%). The keywords "region–population–decline" dominated all centrality measures. "Crisis" and "policy" exhibited nearly identical PageRank values, indicating that crisis and policy framing operate in parallel. The Louvain algorithm detected three communities with an average Jaccard-based correspondence of 82.9% with BERTopic results (vs. random baseline 0.12, p < .001). Regional newspapers showed significantly higher policy-response framing than non-regional outlets (χ²(4) = 18.3, p < .001). Critically, the low fertility topic declined from 24.3% to 15.1% across periods, suggesting that the institutionalization of discourse has paradoxically marginalized root-cause framing. Social media analysis revealed persistent negative sentiment (40–68%), peaking at 68.0% in April 2026. Following the launch of the 5geuk-3teuk national balanced development strategy (hereafter, the 5 Poles and 3 Special Zones Strategy) in June 2025, hub city keywords (Busan, Cheongju, Asan) and life-proximate terms (elementary school, child) surged in public discourse. A clear frame gap was confirmed between news and social media (χ²(4) = 4,328, p < .001): institutional discourse foregrounds policy responses, while public discourse centers on emotional empathy and life-proximate crisis narratives. Conclusions The findings suggest public relations implications, including empathetic messaging, region-specific communication under the 5 Poles and 3 Special Zones Strategy, and reframing population decline discourse from crisis to opportunity.

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