Kyounghee Hazel Kwon

The bad guy is one of us: framing comparison between the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech shooting

This study examines cross-national and cross-media differences in framing, particularly regarding the salience of collectivistic storytelling, based on the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech campus shooting incident. Although collectivistic storytelling is a common practice of news domestication, the degree of its salience is affected by a nations orientation toward collectivism. Cross-media level of difference also exists because journalistic perspectives and the publics interpretation of those perspectives, as reflected in newspapers and blogs, are different. Findings indicate that while there are some consistent framing patterns, the degree of collectivism was different between the two nations and between the two media.

Assessing Cultural Differences in Translations: A Semantic Network Analysis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Abstract Intercultural communication, in many cases, is cross-lingual communication. Effective cross-lingual communication requires successful translation processes. Translation quality involves two factors, the technical and the linguistic. Focusing on the influence of language factor, this study demonstrates the application of semantic network analysis and spatial modeling to examine translation equivalence. The examined texts are seven different linguistic versions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (six official languages and Korean). The results suggest that translations are roughly equivalent but with subtle differences reflective of each languages cultural predispositions. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of translation and language issues for intercultural communication.