Korean Society’s Perception toward Suicide: “Us” and “Them” Represented in a TV Documentary

Abstract

Korea’s high suicide rates accompany negative attitudes toward suicide and those who commit suicide. To address the problems of Korean society’s dominant perception toward suicide, we aim to critically examine media’s role in reconstructing reality. Focusing on stigma toward social minorities, we examined how those with suicide attempts were shown in a TV documentary. This study analyzed KBS 1TV’s ‘Happiness Generator: Zero Abandonment Project’ based on the Todorov and Chatman’s narrative analysis method to see the mainstream perception of suicide in Korean society. Results identified two dominant ideologies on suicide. First was the ‘individual responsibility’ argument suggesting that suicide is a personal matter in which individuals should cope with, without relying on society. The individual responsibility argument attributed the causes of suicide attempts to the individual themselves which, in turn, can be overcome by their own will. The second ideology was the ‘normal family’ argument, emphasizing that stable emotional states can be only obtained in a normal family structure. Those with suicide attempts were described as people from unhealthy, abnormal families. The normal family argument repeatedly reinforced the stereotypical perception that single parent families or torn-apart families cannot help but yield troublesome individuals.