The influence of ideational contests of social policy on government welfare efforts

There has been limited empirical research on the interaction between media influence and governments' decision-making in the social policy field. Drawing on a wider study of the ideation of poverty in South Korea, this research tests if policy ideas represented in the media have bottom-up framing effects on policymaking and can be a reliable indicator of the government's social policy efforts. This study analysed the editorials of major Korean daily newspapers, over the period of a decade from 2000 to 2009. The analysis outcomes identified a significant correlation between the extent of poverty discussions in the media and government welfare spending.