내용분석을 통해 본 사이코패스 관련 언론 보도 실태 및 추세

초록

Among the media reports regarding the murderers who show brutal Modus Operandi(M/O) such as mutilating corpse, as well as sex offenders and serial killers who are insensitive to sufferings of victims, the number of newspaper articles referring these offenders to ‘psychopaths’ and introducing the M/O and characteristics of these offenders has rapidly increased recently. However, the concept of psychopath, which pertains to only a small number of offenders, is being used indiscriminately in the crime-related news reports by applying the concept with a couple of fractional features far from the actual concept of psychopath. Consequently, media reports which deliver incorrect knowledge about psychopath are on the increase. Thus, by using a content analysis of media reports on psychopaths, this study explored how the concept of ‘psychopath’ was used in regard to offenders or type of crime, which characteristics and M/O of offenders were mentioned among the diagnostic criteria of psychopath(PCL-R), and whether accurate knowledge about antisocial personality disorder was delivered to readers. In the current study, we analyzed a total of 403 newspaper articles on '‘psychopath’ from January 1st, 2004 to 31st July, 2013. Findings of the current study can be summarized as follows. First, we found that the number of articles on the case of Kang, Ho Sun was the biggest, followed by Yoo, Young-Chul and Jeong, Nam-Kyu. In addition, the type of crime that was most frequently mentioned in the articles was homicide, followed by serial murder and sexual assault. Also, the characteristics of psychopath which were most frequently reported in the articles were ‘lack of remorse or guilt’, followed by ‘callous/lack of empathy’ and ‘failure to accept responsibility for own actions'. Furthermore, it turned out most of the articles delivered inaccurate knowledge, such that psychopath and antisocial personality disorder are identical concepts. Finally, suggestions for future research were made.