The European Union (EU) had been a distant region for South Korea. Located in North East Asia, this country has traditionally been a strategic ally for the United States (US). Yet, the EU designated Korea as its Strategic Partner in 2010, and the bilateral relations between the EU and Korea have been upgraded since then. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not this ‘upgraded’ status of the relationship is recognized by and reflected in the Korean news media discourse. Our analysis points to the Korean media still prioritizing the coverage of the US. Yet, the EU has been an active interlocutor to Korea over the past years, not lastly due to the bilateral FTA that went into force since July 2011, and this new reality has been recognized and reflected by the local press. The paper focuses on the EU representations in the Korean influential opinion-making news media (analysis of the daily monitoring of the three leading newspapers in 2015). The paper argues that through framing an important Other (the EU), Korean media delivered a message about itself to its nation-wide audiences, namely Korea as a unique Strategic Partner for the EU, potentially one of few main partners of the EU.
