Abstract
A longitudinal analysis (1920-2006) of “adoption” as an issue represented in the public discourse in Korea, is presented in this master thesis. Newspaper articles referring to adoption were identified in searchable electronic databases. As Korea is a major source of transnational adoption and also has the highest ratio of adoptions per 100.000 births, one would expect adoption to constitute a prominent social issue in the public discourse. Across the seven decades (1920-2006) available to analysis, the frequency of newspaper articles referring to adoption varied strongly: With exception to a few occasions during the twenties, adoption was virtually absent as an issue in the public discourse until after WWII, and in particular after the Korean War. After the huge interest created by the Korean War faded, the interest for adoption stayed at a rather low level until the late eighties/early nineties when the interest increased rapidly until present (2006) and by far surpassed even the frequency of articles referring to adoption immediately after the Korean War. Qualitative analysis of newspaper articles containing the word adoption showed that adoption was conceived of within ideologically frameworks changing over time.