So far, existing databases have been used as tools to chronologize the list of news items and to enable users to judge topics from headlines. Their utility value as databases has been limited to classifying in broad outlines. Since, of course, databas ...
So far, existing databases have been used as tools to chronologize the list of news items and to enable users to judge topics from headlines. Their utility value as databases has been limited to classifying in broad outlines. Since, of course, database purposes were kept in mind by using Microsoft Excel in building these tools, they have certain usability to search headlines to some degree. However they don’t provide contents hidden and abstracted in headlines, which may cause inconvenience for readers and scholars. Therefore, we drew the idea to make appropriate search of information possible by renewing and standardizing search words accurately in accordance with headlines.
During the six-month research period, we gained large stock of lists from total 429,603 news items and constructed a database. In building the database, frequent search words were contained in the clauses of ‘headlines’ and ‘news contents.’ In case of difficulty in searching from these two clauses, main key words, such as name of individuals, name of groups and title of events, were also filled in the clause of ‘note.’ In addition, shortcomings of search by keyword were remedied by making search by date and page numbers accessible. Among the lists of news items, majority of topics were on policies conducted in Busan and Gyeongsangnam-do, policies of the Japanese Government-General, and mainland Japan. News topics on politics, economy and social affairs were high in proportion. This shows the characteristic of local news media Busanilbo which was published by Japanese residents in colonial Korea. In particular, items about Japanese residential communities, which were insufficient in so-called ‘national newspapers’ published by Koreans, are a large part of the whole news coverage, so that this will obviously be an important resource for historical and other disciplinary approach toward Japanese colonial era.