Online civic participation and its challenges in South Korea

The penetration of political forums and blogs in South Korea has been seen as positive effects of technology on politics and, in some way, democratic development for citizen participation in political issues. A number of politicians and authorities have opened their homepages and promised the public to use them to listen more voices.

However, the authorities claim that royal political participation online are often deteriorated into emotional and abusive behaviours when online political debates have been taken into the streets by active participants.

Moreover, Dr. Kim argues that “an impersonal and seemingly uncontrolled Internet-based social mobilization that casts the shadow of the effects of unmediated online activity on social and political life.” (Kim Y, 2008)

Internet political forums and blogs have encouraged the citizen to be more interested in political issues and participate to make changes. However when it came to sensitive issues such as U.S.-ROK Free Trade Agreement in 2008, online debates and activities could not function as effectively as they might be.

Some  political activists made invisible online political movement visible by the candlelight vigils on the streets in 2008 and this became main reasons for the government to regulate the internet.

Before the candlelight vigils have become an issue on mainstream media such as newspapers and television, many political discussion websites and blogs failed to listen to the public voices and ignored the public by shutting down their homepages. Politician’s blogs seem to be actively used only in election periods. In this tendency, political activities online have been gradually seen as abusive behaviours by the young and emotional left wing.

It is true that there is a flow of unreliable information online to confuse the readers. But, I believe, most web users have abilities to distinguish, read, post and download right information.

The government says that internet users can be dazed by unreliable information flowing on the internet, but there is no precedent political and social problems caused by completely fake information yet.

It is getting scary to register a website to post political opinions and private thoughts. In this tendency, the government’s explanation to regulate the free flow of information for state safety and protect the possibilities that online debates might be taken into the streets seem not enough.

References

1. Kim, Y (2008) “Digital Populism in South Korea?: Internet Culture and the Trouble with Direct Participation” in KEI’s Academic Paper Series, Vol. 3 , Num. 8.

 2. Chang, W. Y (2005) “online civic participation, and the political empowerment: online media and public opinion formation in Korea” in Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 27, No. 6, pp. 925-935.

Tags: internet regulation, Korean internet culture, Online civic participations