The Discourse on the Korean Peninsula in the 1990s through Digital Humanities : Focusing on the Japanese General–Interest Magazine Sekai (世界)

This study conducts a quantitative and qualitative analysis of articles related to the Korean Peninsula published between 1990 to 1999, employing digital humanities methodologies. The analysis combines topic modeling using BERTopic and KMeans with keyword analysis based on SudachiPy to track thematic shifts by topic and by year, and to extract representative articles for an in–depth examination of each topic. The quantitative findings indicate that, in the 1990s, Sekai's discourse on the Korean Peninsula shifted from a focus on historical issues toward themes of economy, diplomacy, and the international order, reflecting the broader geopolitical realignments in East Asia during the post–Cold War era. Keyword analysis revealed that “economy” ranked highest in frequency, followed by “world,” “society,” “North–South,” and “politics.” As the democratic government came into power, democracy–related keywords emblematic of the 1980s—such as “democratization,” “students,” and “people”—either disappeared or diminished in prominence. Meanwhile, diplomacy–related keywords such as “unification,” “diplomacy,” “negotiation,” and “cooperation,” as well as optimistic terms such as “possibility,” “peace,” “freedom,” and “cooperation,” occupied the upper ranks, reflecting both expectations for unification and peace after democratization as well as a critical reflection on Japan's colonial rule. Qualitative analysis based on representative articles showed that Topic 0 centered on historical issues, war responsibility, and the restoration of international relations; Topic 1 concretized visions of a North– South reconciliation and unification through economic engagement; Topic 2 linked historical issues —including the “comfort women” issue—with reparations as well as international relations; Topic 3 addressed grassroots exchanges, North Korea–Japan relations, and economic democratization; finally Topic 4 highlighted the legal validity of the Japan–Korea Annexation and its connection to the 1965 Japan–Korea Treaty. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that Sekai not only examined the Korean Peninsula in the 1990s from the perspectives of both North and South Korea, but also intertwined historical issues with contemporary international affairs in a complex narrative. This study offers a foundation for a comprehensive understanding of Japan's perceptions of the Korean Peninsula during the globally transformative decade of the 1990s, and, by integrating digital humanities–based quantitative analysis with qualitative interpretation, elucidates how Japanese discourse on the Korean Peninsula interacted with the post–Cold War East Asian international order.