New media and democracy by professor jong

South Korea as the World’s Most Wired Nation:

Its Digital Democracy as a Real-Life Case Study

by Sang Jo Jong, Professor of Law, Seoul National University

Abstract:

Many countries, no matter developed or developing, have attempted to harness internet technologies

to generate economic growth and development while facing their enormous impact on politics at the

same time. Being one of the most wired country in the world, Korea must have benefited the most

from the internet. As is often the case in many countries, however, the Government and large

companies in Korea try to limit any political or reputational harm that might accompany the growth of

Internet economy. There have been many analyses and comments on the causal links between new

media like internet and democracy. A real-life case study on Korea, especially on its digital

democracy, may demonstrate that democracy does not come true in vaccum but only with well

balanced rules, regulations, market forces, citizens’ awareness, and so on. Korean experiments on

what is called a real name verification system, three strike rule, internet curfew, internet users exile to

foreign portals are just some of our real-life cases. The speaker hopes a case study on Korea may

provide a small starting point for a much richer and a much more scholatic discussion in the coming

conference on New Media and Democracy.

1 Thank you for your introduction.

I am honored to be with you here at School of Journalism and

Communication, University of Oregon. To be honest, I have not

taken any course on Journalism or Communications. Frankly, I am

a bit nervous to speak before some of the most distinguished

communications professors, especially Prof. Kyu ho Youm who

has been a great mentor of mine. So, it is a great privilege for me

to talk to such scholars.

Let me take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the

Center for Asian and Pacific Studies and Dr. Myung Sup Lim for

his sponsorship and Prof. Bish Sen and his team for their

enormous efforts in organizing this conference. And, also, Thank

you, to all of participants, for coming here from all over the US.

Any questions and any comments during or after my talk will be

appreciated.

Let me begin by asking you a question: It’s about coffee shops.

What city has the largest number of Starbucks coffee shops?

2 Starbucks

Starbucks was initially established in Seattle, Nonetheless, the

largest number of its coffee shops is not in the U.S. or anywhere

else but in Seoul, Korea. Do you Know WHY? Maybe because

Starbucks is an American company and Koreans are more Americanized

than any other nations including Americans themselves. Maybe because

WIFI is available at Starbucks and because Koreans love to use

WIFI there. Korean youngsters do not talk at Starbucks but simply

send text messages or email. And outside of Starbucks, Koreans

enjoy internet access even in the underground subway or metro.

Starbucks is just one of evidences that Korea is heavily wired and

Koreans are almost addicted to internet connection.

3 Impact of Internet

The impacts of the Internet have been enormous in each and

every sector of our society, not only in Korea but all over the

world: As you know, young people do not subscribe for news

papers any longer but simply click news on the internet. That’s

why and how politics and economies face sweeping changes. The

Internet provides effective tools in mobilizing a large number of

people, raising hundreds of million dollars, distributing

entertainment products, and so on. Regarding politics, it is

interesting to note that, as was the case in the Presidential

campaign for Obama here in the US and for Roh Moo Hyun in

Korea, the Democrats are more, much more active, than

Republicans in utilizing the internet. And, it is also worth noting

that Democrats are more generous and liberal to freedom of

expression even in entertainment contents. So, now Let us look at

the trilateral relations among the internet, democracy and the

entertainment industry. Let me begin with Psy’s Gangnam Style,

one of the most successful Korean popular media items or what is

called K-Pop.

4 Entertainment: Success of Gangnam Style

As you see here at Youtube, Gangnam Style received more than

2 billion views over Youtube and it turned out to be the most

watched video ever in the history of Youtube. Its singer, Psy, was

born in the 1970’s during the military dictatorship in Korea. Can

you imagine that a singer, who was raised under military

authoritarian culture, now made one of the most popular music

video? There is no doubt that his Gangnam Style could not have

been so successful without the Internet channel like Youtube. His

success clearly demonstrates the internet has established itself as

the most efficient channel of distribution of contents and

information all over the world.

5 My Love from the Star

The same is true with entertainment industry in China as well.

For example, a Korean soap drama called “My Love from the Star”

became a huge success in China and it was streamed more than

2.5 billion times on a Chinese internet platform iQiyi. iQiyi is

equivalent to Youtube in China. The Korean drama took China by

storm. In one episode of the drama, the main characters enjoyed

“beer and fried chicken.” “beer and fried chicken” or what is

called “Chimaek” in Korean suddenly became one of the most

favorite snack in China. Restaurants cashed in and started selling

“Chimaek.” Although Chinese farmers had been suffering from

Chicken Flu before, they soon got over it. One day, well aware of

the craze the drama has created in China, one committee of China’

s National People’s Congress spent a whole morning debating why

China couldn’t make a show as good as “My Love from the Star.”

Chinese officials came to the conclusion that there were too my

regulations and rigorous censoring procedure in China.

Exactly the same debates took place in Korea as well / about

three decades ago.

6 De-regulation in Korea

About 30 years ago, there were so many regulations and

censorship in Korea. In the middle of the 1980’s, during the course

of trade negotiations between the US and Korea, the Motion

Pictures Exporters Association of America filed a complaint

regarding regulations and screen quotas on films. It took several

years for the Korean government’s deregulation to take effect in

the film industry. Once the screen quota was lowered, Hollywood's

share of the Korean movie market had reached a peak of around

80 percent, and the local film industry's share fell to a low of only

16 percent. Around that time, Hollywood's film “Jurassic

Park” was extremely popular in Korea. And, many Koreans

realized that the revenue from one film like Jurassic Park was

equivalent to the revenue from selling 1.5 million automobiles. The

then President Young Sam Kim encouraged huge investment in

film industry. However, it was obvious to film makers in Korea /

that investment of money was not enough for creativity but extra

elements, more essential conditions, like freedom of expression,

were necessary. (for their creativity).

7 Constitutionality of Mandatory Review System

As you know, freedom of expression had existed under the

Constitution even long before democratization. And, yet, films,

newspapers and other media could not enjoy the freedom under

the military authoritarian governments. Only from 1987, when our

society was democratized under a new Constitution, from then,

people and the media began to try and understand and slowly

realize what freedom meant to ourselves. About 4 years later, film

makers brought a constitutional complaint to the Constitutional

Court of Korea claiming that “mandatory review” of all films by

the Korea Public Performance Ethics Committee was like a

government censorship contrary to the new Constitution. The

burning issue was whether the mandatory review by an

independent committee was equivalent to government censorship

or not. It was clear from statutory provisions of the then Films Act

that, although the Committee was defined as an independent

institute, the Committee had the power to review all films / and all

of its members were appointed by the Minister of Culture. So, the

Constitutional Court of Korea held that the mandatory review

system by the Committee was government censorship which was

prohibited under Article 21 of the Constitution of Korea. Since the

mandatory review system was invalidated as unconstitutional, the

Films Act was then revised to replace the Ethics Committee with a

Video Rating Committee. So, I can tell you that Korean people

fought for freedom and the Constitutional Court confirmed it.

What does that mean to our society?

8 Impact of Freedom on the Film Industry

Once freedom was achieved, creativity flowed in the market. So,

there were made a series of successful films. Just three years after

the Constitutional Court Decision, the film industry of Korea

turned into an industry / full of creativity and an industry

contributing to our economy as well. Do you know what elements

those successful films have in common? The film on the left,

“Shiri,” is about North Korean spies sent to South Korea and the

film on the right, “Welcome to Dong Mag,” deals with a very

dangerous friendship among soldiers of South and North Korea

and citizens in a village where there was a terrible battle between

soldiers. Such topics as spies or the Korean War were so sensitive

that domestic film makers could not make films about those topics

under the previous mandatory review systems. Now, freedom

allows for any information or any idea / to be shared not only for

democracy but for the entertainment industry and our economy

as well. So, It is fair to say that there is no government censorship

any longer in the field of films, newspapers and other traditional

media in Korea.

Do we have the same freedom over the Internet?

9 Freedom over the Internet?

Due to the internet’s unique features of connectivity and

interactivity, we may enjoy more freedom over the internet and,

theoretically, we may be closer to a participatory democracy

online. There are many good examples. E-mails played a central

role in China when Falungong members secretly planned and

organised a mass demonstration in Beijing in 1999. Although not a

primary catalyst for the Arab Spring, there was no doubt social

media and digital technologies played a crucial role. Social media

allowed Arabic people an efficient means for collective activism to

circumvent state-operated media channels.

Likewise, In Korea, Internet and text messaging also assisted in

mobilizing more than 100,000 people downtown Seoul. When there

were concern about importing US beef infected by Mad Cow

Disease, almost instantly internet users organized a huge crowd of

“Candlelight Protests.” The Internet was extremely powerful in

distributing not only facts but also false comments, scientifically

wrong information as well. I will get back to this issue later.

At this moment, I would like to ask you another question. In What

country do you enjoy the fastest internet speed?

10 The Fastest Internet Speed?

Although the internet was initially developed in the United States,

the Internet penetrated the mind of Korean people deeply and

there realized its fastest speed ever in the world. In addition,

Korea ranks number one in smartphone penetration as well. The

majority of Korean people, definitely most of young Koreans, use

their smartphone for internet access. That means Korea is the

most wired country in the world / and the Internet has become an

essential part of life in Korea.

Why and how?

First of all, Parents in Korea, who tend to place a high value on

education, see internet connection as a necessity for their

children's education. Secondly, as I mentioned, the Democrats

especially Presidents Kim and Roh benefited from the Internet and

so they were well aware of the importance of internet and very

much in favor of high-speed Internet connections all over Korea.

The government under the Democratic Party tried its best to hook

up housewives, farmers, and low-income people with broadband

internet / and taught them how to make use of the Web in their

everyday lives. Internet and Democracy have had a great synergy

effect in Korea.

Being one of the most wired countries in the world, Korea should

have benefited the most from the internet. But, at the same time,

digital democracy in Korea may have suffered very much from

new rules and regulations such as a real name verification system,

three strike rules, internet curfew. and so on. Now, Let’s see how

these rules and regulations affect portal journalism in Korea.

11 Portal Journalism in Korea

When the US and Korean Governments concluded the Free Trade

Agreement, some Koreans opposed it for a variety of reasons.

Among them, there was a concern about the possibility of

importing US beef infected by Mad Cow Disease. The US beef

protests started in May 2008 and the number of protesters

increased to more than 100,000 in an instant. During the course of

the protests, portal journalism attracted a lot of public attention.

Internet portals like Naver and Daum, which are equivalents to

Google in Korea, supplement and replace traditional media.

Internet cafe, blogs and other portal sites in Korea not simply

distributed news and information but provided the general public

with a wonderful public forum for debates as well.

12 Messages at Internet Cafe “Agora”

When you look at messages and comments which are uploaded

on internet cafe and blogs, you will be able to understand a bit

unique feature of portal journalism in Korea. You see more than

half messages at the internet cafe discuss the then President

Myung Bak Lee and the Beef Protests themselves. Given the fact

that comments on the President and the beef protests were the

most hot news items, internet portals were not so different from

traditional media. However, if you see the second largest group of

messages / dealing with newspapers and ad boycott issues, you

will be able to notice serious tension and competition between

newspapers and internet portals. Newspapers tend to address

relatively conservative old generation and take substantially

critical views against the protests. By contrast, internet portals are

heavily used by much younger generation and so naturally

internet portals reflect the young generation’s frustration with

traditional media. The young generation’s frustration grew to the

point of boycotting goods or services from a company providing

advertisement on newspapers. Although less than 10%, a

devastating blow came from messages or comments on MCD.

Actually, it was found later that a majority of those comments on

MCD had little basis in science and most of them were simply

cherry picking arguments. Unfortunately, however, ordinary

internet users have difficulty in distinguishing scientific

information from cherry picking arguments. What is the role of

portal journalism here? What are we supposed to do about false

information over the internet?

13 Responses to US Beef Protests

US Beef Protests turned out to be one of the most critical points

where internet portals and users had to decide how to respond.

Many of internet users might have thought that Internet arguably

replaced traditional media in facilitating participatory democracy.

At the same time, there were many commentators pointing out too

much politicization and too much agitation with straw man

arguments over the internet. Regrettably, these incidents became

a tipping point for additional rules and regulations to intervene.

There is no doubt that government censorship on traditional

media has almost disappeared. And, yet, we are now facing

another censorship over the internet, that is, Voluntary

censorship by ISP. Before moving to the issue of difference

between traditional censorship and internet censorship, I am

going to ask you another question: What Country is the Most

Notorious One for its Internet Censorship?

14 Internet Censorship

Surprisingly, US is also extremely busy with monitoring internet

activities. Why? As you know, the definition of censorship has

changed over centuries. But, the basic idea behind it is simple and

has gone untouched all the time: the protection of national

security, individual reputation, copyright and so on. After 911

terrorist attacks, the US government strengthened its capability to

monitor internet activities all over the world. Korean Government

has also justified its internet censorship to defend any Military

attacks from North Korea. Let me see just one of examples of

cyberwar easily raised by North Korea:

15 Threats from North Korea

You might have heard of an American political satire comedy

film “Interview” produced by Sony Pictures. In the film, two of

American journalists eventually assassinate North

Korean leader Kim Jong-un after booking an interview with him.

Just before releasing the film last year, Sony Pictures

was hacked by a group the FBI believes has ties to North Korea.

In addition to cyber hacking, the group uploaded defamatory

materials over the internet. Almost at the same time, a spokesman

for North Korea made an official statement saying that "[Mr]

Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a

tropical forest." Presumably, retaliation was made against North

Korea, that is, a total internet black out in North Korea for about

10 hours. You know what happened? All of the internet users, who

uploaded dozens of anti-government agitating messages everyday,

suddenly disappeared during the blackout period. Those heavy

uploaders, who disappeared during the black out, must have been

from North Korea.

16 Back to Internet Censorship

Traditionally, Censorship means the control or suppression by

the Government, control of broadcasting or publication of

information or ideas. Now, in the internet age, the Government

does not have to control information online by itself. When a

government, a company, or an individual has legitimate interest to

protect over the internet, like national security, reputation,

copyright and so on, then it can simply request internet service

providers to take down wrongful materials. What if there is no

such request by the victim? According to a decision of the

Supreme Court of Korea, when ISPs are presumed to know there is

any defamatory material on their websites, they are obliged to take

them down. A difficult problem here is ISPs do not know for sure

whether and where there is any defamatory material. That’s how

ISPs begin to monitor internet activities. That’s the starting point

of what is called a voluntary internet censorship.

17 Limits of Censorship by ISPs

The most common technology taken by ISPs is to filter and block

certain unlawful materials based on certain keywords. However,

keywords based technology may not distinguish right from false

information and critical from defamatory ones. As you see, there

are several million comments uploaded everyday on tens of

million blogs and several million cafe, Can you expect ISPs to take

down all of these wrongful materials? Internet censorship is not

only contrary to freedom of expression but simply inefficient and

unsatisfactory to everybody. Especially, government officials in

Korea were uncomfortable about the fact that online wrongdoers

were difficult to detect and difficult to punish. That’s how the real

name verification system was introduced and strengthened over

the years.

18 Real Name Verification System

The real name verification system was introduced initially to

identify the age of internet users. For example, when there is a

statutory provision limiting website access to adults or those who

are older than certain age, then the real name verification is

required to enforce the age limit. The age limit and real name

verification was designed to protect young children from

pornography, violent games, gambles and other illegal sites.

Soon the same system expanded its coverage to reduce false

information, defamatory comments and other wrongful materials

over the internet. For that policy goal, the Internet Promotion Act

was amended to require certain web sites and their users to verify

their identity before posting comments. Web sites with more than

100,000 visitors a day, that is, approximately 150 popular sites and

major newspaper sites, were subject to the statutory obligation to

follow the real name verification system. There had been criticism

and worries that, unlike the title of the Act, the Internet Promotion

Act might not have promoted internet use under the real name

verification system.

19 The Fight for Freedom of Expression

There were many commentators claiming unconstitutionality of

the real name verification system. Especially, the system arguably

makes internet users’ personal information more fragile and more

vulnerable to misuse and infringement. More important from a

portal journalism point of view is probably its chilling effect on

freedom of expression. So, the fight for freedom of expression

over the internet went to the Constitutional Court of Korea. The

Government defended the system as necessary to protect social

order, reputation and other legitimate interests over the internet.

However, it’s extremely difficult for the Court to compare those

conflicting interests. During the course of the court proceedings,

several interesting evidences were submitted to the Court. For

example, there was an evidence showing that internet users

moved to foreign web sites. Ironically, the Internet Promotion Act

and its real name verification system could not promote domestic

websites but helped foreign websites like Youtube or Facebook to

attract many of Korean users. The Court also found that the

system was inefficient and unnecessary to achieve its policy goal.

Eventually, the court held the system violated the constitutional

freedom of expression.

20 Back to Internet Censorship

Wrapping up my talk,

Korea, as the most wired country in the world, has clearly

demonstrated the fact that Internet is one of the most efficient

tools to generate economic growth especially in the field of

entertainment industry. We saw enormous impact of new media

like internet on democracy as well. However, portal journalism

and internet democracy may be moulded differently from country

to country. Partly they depend on rules and regulations in each

country. My real life case study on Korea reveals portal journalism

and regulations may be affected partly by community values or

constitutional values and partly by market force as well.

It would be my great honor if my talk could become a source of

discussion tomorrow. I look forward to a wonderful conference

tomorrow.

Thank you. I will be happy to take questions.