[Asia Economy Reporter Su-yeon Woo] Online big data favorability toward the pardon of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong has been rapidly increasing. At the same time, the number of mentions of the keyword 'pardon' related to Vice Chairman Lee has also risen recently, indicating growing public interest.
On the 3rd, the Global Big Data Research Institute conducted a survey on the favorability and interest of posts containing the keyword 'Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong pardon' across 220,000 sites on 12 online channels including news, communities, blogs, YouTube, and SNS. The results showed a trend of increasing positive rates and decreasing negative rates. Additionally, the 'net favorability,' calculated by subtracting the negative rate from the positive rate, rose every month.
The survey method only included results where the two keywords 'Lee Jae-yong' and 'pardon' appeared within 15 Korean characters of each other. The analysis period covered four months from February to May.
In February, immediately after the retrial sentencing of Vice Chairman Lee, the positive rate for the pardon was 11.3%, and the negative rate was 12.2%, showing slightly more negative opinions. However, public opinion reversed starting in March. In March, the positive rate was 28.7%, surpassing the negative rate of 26.1%. In April, the positive rate was 20.3%, while the negative rate dropped to 9.5%. In May, the positive rate surged to 28.1%, with the negative rate at 8.7%, showing a significant gap favoring positive opinions.
Meanwhile, the number of online posts mentioning Vice Chairman Lee's 'pardon' also increased rapidly. This indicates heightened public interest in the pardon, according to a representative from the Global Big Data Research Institute. After recording 451 related posts in February, the number decreased to 157 in March, then surged to 12,258 in April. In May, it further increased by about 30% compared to April, reaching 17,882 posts.
A representative from the Global Big Data Research Institute explained, "The positive rate regarding Vice Chairman Lee's pardon was more than three times higher than the negative rate," adding, "We can confirm from big data that opinions supporting the pardon are rapidly increasing."
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