April 16, 2020 marked the 6th anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster. The tragic event roused South Korean civilians and gave rise to numerous rumors and propaganda myths, which formed the basis for the so-called “candle revolution”. They included both a conspiracy theory about the disaster, and the thesis that the main cause of the death of children was the criminal inaction of the corrupted Park Geun-hye administration and the ex-President herself. The examination of the remains of the ferry raised in 2017 after the impeachment of Park drew a thick line under the conspiracy theories (explosion on board, collision with a US submarine, etc.). Nevertheless, the question “what went wrong?” remains unanswered despite politically committed investigations. Meanwhile, most of the rumors circulating after the tragedy that brought people to the streets were never proven. Moreover, Park Geun-hye was acquitted by the Court of the charges related to the Sewol. The facts show that the blame for a great number of victims is not on the Blue house, but on the local authorities, who were unable to effectively conduct rescue operations, and later openly practiced window-dressing and misinformed their superiors. The President therefore did not receive timely information that would require a rapid response on her part. As the case involved the province of Jeolla (a regional stronghold of the Democrats), the opposition expressing storm of abuse had the advantage of shifting the blame from them to the Central government and it succeeded in doing this. The information campaign of Park Geun-hye's opponents contributed to her wilt and the formation in the mass consciousness of the former President’s image that played its role in the later developments.

Asmolov Konstantin Valerianovich, Candidate of Sciences (History), Leading Research Fellow, Korean Studies Center, Institute of Far Eastern Studies RAS, 32, Nakhimovsky av., Moscow, 117997, Russian Federation, e-mail: asmolov@ifes-ras.ru

Asmolov K.V. Myths and Fake News about the Sewol Ferry Disaster. The Bulletin of Irkutsk State University. Series Political Science and Religion Studies, 2020, vol. 34, pp. 8-17. https://doi.org/10.26516/2073-3380.2020.34.8 (in Russian)

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