Analysis of elder abuse-related news articles using BIGKinds and topic modeling

Purpose: This study analyzed the dominant themes and media frames in Korean newspaper coverage of elder abuse to examine how such representations shape social discourse, with implications for nursing practice, education, and policy.Methods: A total of 812 articles published between January 2021 and December 2025 were collected from 12 national daily newspapers using the BIGKinds. Keyword trends, semantic networks, and related-word analyses were conducted, and latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling was applied to identify latent thematic structures.Results: Six major topics were identified: (1) violence in long-term care facilities; (2) abuse reporting and protective agency responses; (3) prevention and human rights protection; (4) criminal investigations based on video evidence; (5) operational and management issues in long-term care facilities; and (6) crimes targeting older adults. News coverage peaked in 2021~2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic and concentrated on “Elder Abuse Prevention Day” in June. Reporting remained reactive and event-driven, with limited attention being paid to structural causes and preventive approaches.Conclusion: Korean elder abuse coverage prioritizes punitive, post-incident responses over prevention, reducing complex social issues to individual deviance. A shift toward structural and preventive media framing is needed, along with integrated protection systems. Nurses, as frontline professionals in early detection and advocacy, should be supported through nursing education focused on abuse recognition, simulation-based training, and multidisciplinary collaboration.