Journalism, Environmental Issues, and Sport Mega-Events: A Study of South Korean Media Coverage of the Mount Gariwang Development for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games:

Few studies on sport and communication consider how environmental issues are reported on—especially in non-Western media. In this article, we report findings from a study of South Korean mainstream and alternative print media coverage of the controversial development of Mount Gariwang for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Our study focused on (1) how the decisions and events unfolding around the development of Mount Gariwang were portrayed in South Korean mainstream and alternative news coverage and (2) how the issues at play were politicized and/or depoliticized within and across these outlets. We found that differences in coverage of environmental issues were starkest between, on one side, conservative mainstream media and, on the other side, left-leaning mainstream and alternative media outlets. We also found that environmental controversies were variably politicized or depoliticized in differently positioned media outlets—with left leaning and alternative media highlighting con...