The Korean government has a bit of a problem—its own people don’t trust what it has to say. That might not seem unusual to you, but we’re not talking about the North Korean dictatorship of Kim Jong-il here; this trust problem is in South Korea, the one that’s a democracy and has a somewhat peaceful relationship with the rest of the world. South Korea was a dictatorship itself a little over twenty years ago, and its people have long memories.
The issue at hand is that the people don’t believe the official government report regarding the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan. Despite an investigation conducted by a team of experts from South Korea, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Sweden, a poll found that over half of the respondents in their twenties didn’t trust the findings, and only 57% of all the respondents, regardless of age, believed the report (margin of error ±3.7).
What is a beleaguered government to do? Well, as they’re targeting a young audience, they used a medium that young people respond to, creating a comic to be distributed to schools, libraries, and government offices. The 32-page comic is also available to read online.
Whether this effort will work, only time will tell; it may in fact increase skepticism of the government by making it appear insecure about itself. But perhaps there is hope for the South Korean government; a soon-to-be-released study by the Journal of Consumer Research found that people were more likely to divulge embarrassing or unethical behavior to an unprofessional-looking site (using Comic Sans, no less) than they would a cleanly designed “professional” site. If this is true, maybe the people of South Korea will take the word of a comic where they won’t trust an official government report.
(via Bloomberg)
