Exploratory Study of Publicness in Healthcare Sector through Text Network Analysis / 보건행정학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The publicness concept in healthcare has been built to its social consensus relying on historical context, with the result that the meaning of publicness has a great diversity and heterogeneous nature in Korea. Thus it needs to be addressed to clarify the meaning and boundary of the publicness concept in healthcare, so as to discuss its social implication. METHODS: In order to investigate whether or how the publicness concept is used in healthcare, we conducted a text network analysis in 779 news articles from 8 Korean daily newspapers over a recent 5-year period. RESULTS: The publicness concept was closely related to medicine and medical institution, and formed a conceptual network with public health, medicine, welfare, patient, government, Jin-ju city, and health. Keywords relating publicness tended to be similar between four major newspapers; however, the association with Jin-ju city, government, and society was noticeable in Kyunghyang Shinmun and Hankyoreh, and so was patient and service in Dong-A Ilbo. CONCLUSION: Publicness and medicine was closely associated, and government seemed to remain as a main actor for public interest. Publicness was related with a variety of actors and values, with its expanded boundary. The different contexts of publicness by newspapers might reflect each ideological inclination. The textual importance of publicness was relatively low in part, which suggests that publicness was used in a loose sense or as a routine.