A/HRC/29/46/Add.1 57. The accessibility of the mass media in everyday life has had an effect on the awareness and value judgement of the country’s citizens. In addition, the high levels of Internet penetration and usage mean that media reports, television programmes and films are easily accessible through tablets and smartphones. That can lead to stories covered in the media sometimes being disseminated without their authenticity being verified, and that does irreparable damage and harm, even when corrections are made afterwards. 58. The Special Rapporteur also recalls that, in its 2012 concluding observations, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination noted the following with regard to the Republic of Korea (see CERD/C/KOR/CO/15-16, para. 10): Racist hate speech directed against non-citizens is becoming more widespread and explicit in the media and on the Internet. The Committee notes that the fundamental right to freedom of expression of the individuals involved does not protect the dissemination of ideas of racial superiority or incitement to racial hatred … The Committee recommends that the State party monitor the media, Internet and social network to identify those individuals or groups who disseminate ideas based on racial superiority or incite to racial hatred against foreigners [and] that the State party prosecute and adequately punish the authors of such acts. 59. The Special Rapporteur was made aware during his encounters with relevant stakeholders of the significance of the term “multicultural”, which in the society of the Republic of Korea is now a reference to a specific group of persons and is used to refer sometimes in a derogatory manner by the media to migrant men from Asia (originally migrant workers) and marriage migrant women (generally having married through religious groups or marriage brokers), and is quite different from its legal definition in the Multicultural Families Support Act, where it refers to families whose members are migrants married to citizens and children who were born to them or adopted. 60. The broadcasting industry has begun showing “multicultural” programmes in response to the increase in the number of multicultural families, such as the television programme “Love in Asia” (from KBS), the longest-running multicultural programme, and the Multicultural Hope Project (from MBC). Although those programmes show model multicultural families and how well they have adapted to the country’s society, other television programmes display multiculturalism in a derogatory and condescending manner and contribute to reinforcing stereotypes of and prejudice against multicultural families. As the perception of foreigners and migrants is largely derived from the media, these messages, either positive or negative, have a powerful impact on the collective consciousness. Similarly, advertisements broadcast on television have, on occasion, reinforced negative perceptions of foreigners, migrants and families with a multicultural background. 61. The Special Rapporteur was informed that, in 2013, NHRCK made recommendations to four public television broadcasting companies, including public channels, and four general programming cable channels to ensure that discriminatory expressions towards migrants and foreigners were not broadcast on television and that specific measures to prevent further occurrences were taken. NHRCK also called on the Korea Communication Standards Commission, when reviewing television programmes, to check for such content, in particular racial stereotypes, manifestations of prejudice and the use of discriminatory language towards migrants and foreigners, in accordance with article 6 of the Broadcasting Act and articles 29 and 312 of the broadcasting deliberation regulations, which provide criteria for assessing whether any content can be qualified as racial prejudice or xenophobia, religious prejudice or cultural, religious or ethnic intolerance. 14