Analysis of Suicide and Its Implications in the Newspaper: Focusing on the analysis of newspaper editorials in the 1920s and 30s

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the discourse produced during the colonial period, especially suicide in the 1920s and 30s. Suicide is a concept that reflects modern social signs and cultural changes and is the starting point for interpretations from various perspectives to compete. To this end, this paper examined the suicide discourse formed during the colonial period and focused on newspaper editorials dealing with the concept of suicide as a contemporary phenomenon. This is because it is possible to grasp the phenomenon of suicide and the emotions of the people of the time behind it through the production and distribution of official statements about suicide. As a result of the analysis, the meaning of suicide revealed in the suicide discourse of modern newspapers could be largely divided into three. First, suicide as a social murder, second, suicide as a transitional phenomenon of civilization, and third, suicide as a personal/ethnic failure. Suicide discourses classified into these three types were analyzed to induce specific discourse effects by combining expressive, narrative, and value layers, respectively. Through the above work, it was confirmed that the suicide discourses produced and distributed by newspapers during the colonial period rearranged the public's perception in a specific direction.