Fake news bargains in stakeholder perspectives and power dynamics: Equivalence framing of South Korean media

Fake news debates persist as competing evaluations of the same information problem coexist within news discourse. This study examines how fake-news response discourse is shaped by stakeholder perspectives and political dynamics in South Korean media. Using a quantitative content analysis of news coverage published between 2017 and 2024, the study analyzes pro- and anti-regulation responses and tests whether regulatory positions vary by ideological orientation, power ownership, and media partisanship. The findings show that pro-regulatory responses dominate the discourse, while stakeholder positions diverge between regulatory and nonregulatory approaches. Logistic regression results further indicate that regulatory attitudes are explained more strongly by power ownership than by ideological orientation, suggesting that shifts in ruling and opposing status shape regulatory debates more than stable ideological divisions. A slight variation, in which partisan media outlets featured politically contrasting actors actively endorsing regulatory stances, did not affect the overall outcomes, although it calls for further attention regarding media’s dual role as a press freedom safeguard and a sectarian stakeholder. These findings show how different regulatory evaluations are embedded in the complicated context of fake news discourse. By demonstrating this pattern in a long-term empirical setting, the study extends equivalence framing beyond experimental contexts and contributes to framing research by showing how enduring political conflict structures interpretations of fake news in journalism.