Introducing punitive damages for media reports has in recent years become a media policy agenda
that extends beyond the scope of legal debate. Prominent policy actors such as members of the
National Assembly, administrative agencies, media companies, and civic groups participated in the
policy debate and expressed their policy beliefs. The core policy values, such as relief from media
damage and freedom of expression, collided. This study aimed to analyze the structure of the media
policy debate over punitive damages for media reports in the early 2020s. Discourse network analysis
was applied to determine the structure of the policy debate and its evolution over time. This study
collected remarks on punitive damages for media reports and conducted content analysis to form
two-mode network data that connect policy actors and beliefs. Next, the policy debate was divided
into three periods, and network analysis techniques were employed to the discourse networks from
each period to examine advocacy coalition, central actors and beliefs. The results are as follows: First,
the polarization of the discourse network was remarkable. Although the size and composition of the
coalitions changed, the conflict between the coalitions continued. Rather than converging to either side, they maintained an out-of-equilibrium state. Second, policy actors expressed their policy beliefs
in a variety of ways. Lawmakers belonging to the ruling party and administrative agencies promoted
punishment compensation policies, while opposition lawmakers, media industries, and experts tended
to oppose these policies. Third, convergence of opinion occurred in a local manner. Discussions and
seminars were consistently held, in which policy actors with differing opinions participated. As a
result, media organizations, which consistently express opposing beliefs throughout the first and
second phases, expressed their conditional acceptance of punitive damages in the third phase. The
ruling party accepted the conditions and proposed a revision of the bill. However, after then, the
ruling party had attempted to forcefully push the bill without sufficient deliberation, facing much
opposition and criticism. Through research on the topography of the policy debate, this paper
confirmed that the attempt to reform the media without gaining sufficient consensus only resulted in
backlash from stakeholders and could not draw out any meaningful agreements. This implies that in
order to solve the media problem, journalistic norms and practices must be elaborated in order to
articulate what it means to regulate ‘fake news’. The discourse network analysis was suitable for
grasping the dynamics of the policy debate over awarding punitive damages for media reports. To
examine media policy debates, it is necessary to apply the framework to other policy issues as well.