Analyzing of Changes in the Discourse on Solitary Death in Aging and Aged Societies: A Textual and Network Analysis of News Articles

This study analyzes changes in the discourse surrounding solitary death as society transitions from an aging society to an aged society. For this purpose, national daily newspaper articles were collected from the BIGKINDS database, and term frequency (TF), term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF), and network analyses were conducted. The findings indicate that solitary death has emerged as a critical social issue in both aging and aged societies, with prevention and welfare services being central policy concerns. Notably, in the aged society phase, there is an increasing emphasis on personalized welfare services utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics. Furthermore, the rise in single-person households has heightened the risk of solitary death among elderly men, underscoring the need for gender-sensitive policy interventions. This study contributes to the development of policy implications for preventing solitary death in a super-aged society.