The communication adaptiveness and power dynamics of the state, the market, and civil society in the information age: the case of Korea

Abstract

The authority of the state and the market, the duumvirate of the industrial society, has been challenged in various ways in the current information era advanced by the rapid development of information and communication technology. By comparison, the weight of civil organizations has increased sharply, and netizens equipped with information technology have emerged as a major player in civil society. This article experientially examines the changes in power dynamics of the state, the market, and civil society in the Korean context, based on a survey of people's perception of the communication adaptiveness of these spheres, that is, their openness and exclusiveness internally and externally. The survey results suggest that the state sphere tends to be perceived as less communicative and open than the market and civil society. By contrast, civil society is perceived to be the most open and communicative sphere. This may reflect some change in power dynamics of these spheres, which can be characterized as the rise of civil society and the relative decline of the state. In terms of the power dynamics of the three spheres, the results challenge the conventional trichotomous model assuming somewhat clear boundaries between the state, the market, and civil society. Given that the findings of this article derive from the Korean situation and, thus, are valid mainly in the Korean context, this article shows an important socio-political change in the information age: that is, mutually interactive and overlapping processes among the spheres can accelerate by the rise of ‘digital citizens’ and civil society's increasing power.

Keywords:

• state
• market
• civil society
• communication
• information
• power dynamics

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI). We thank Prof. Mun-Cho Kim for his support and advice for this research. We are also grateful to anonymous reviewers for their helpful and thoughtful comments.

Notes on contributors

Jongkil Kim is Professor in the Department of Sociology at Duksung Women's University, Seoul. He received his PhD from the University of Götingen, Germany. His specialty areas include information sociology, environmental sociology, and social theory. His publications include ‘The Change of the Labor World and New Labor Culture in the Age of Mobile Network (in Korean; Society and Theory, 2011), Cyber Trend 2.0 (in Korean; Jibmundang, 2008), and The Analysis of Internet Power (in Korean; Hanul Academy, 2008). [email: [email protected]]

Jongtae Kim is a Humanities Korea (HK) Research Professor in the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University, Seoul. He earned his PhD in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, United States. His research interests include global sociology, cultural studies, development studies, historical sociology, and international relations, with a regional focus on Korea and East Asia. Before beginning his academic career, he worked as a journalist for The Hankyoreh, a leading progressive Korean daily newspaper based in Seoul. His recent publications include Globalization and Development in East Asia (co-edited with Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Routledge, 2012) and ‘The Origins of Korea's Eurocentrism: A Study of Discourses on Gaehwa and Munmyeong’ (Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, 2012). [email: [email protected]]

Andrew Ho Kim is a Graduate Student in the Department of Sociology at Korea University, Seoul. His research interests include information sociology, social movements, and social theory. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. The power of the market varies across countries in relation to the state, depending on the main features of their economic systems. The market in a planned economy, for instance, is dominated by the state and its autonomy is incomparable to that in a free market economy. Civil society in a planned economy is also relatively weak as it is more likely to be organized and controlled by the state. Thus, this study's discussion about the power dynamics of the state, the market, and civil society is relevant mainly to countries with free market economies.

2. According to a 2011 survey of Internet use, 78.0% of all Koreans above the age of three used the Internet, representing a total of 37,180,000 users (KISA, 2011). In terms of age groups, young individuals in their teens to thirties accounted for more than 99% of all users. In addition, 42.9% of all Korean households had at least one smart device such as smartphones or smartpads as of 2011, reflecting a nine-fold increase from the previous year. This result may be attributed to the rapid increase in smartphone users. Further, because of the expansion of 4G wireless Internet services such as LTE and Wibro and the penetration of smart home electronics such as smart TV, the ‘smartization’ of the Internet environment has been accelerating in Korea (KISA, 2011).

3. The technical parts of the survey were managed by Hankook Research, a reputational survey institute in Korea. The random sample was drawn by Hankook Research with its expertise.

4. The concept of ‘openness’ in the questionnaire was defined as ‘a domain's degree of willingness to respond to others’ opinions or interests’.

5. The concept of ‘closedness’ in the questionnaire was defined as ‘a domain's degree of tendency to stick to internal opinions or interests’.

6. The word ‘netizen’ combines the words ‘network’ and ‘citizen’ and refers to a collective of people using communication networks such as the Internet or (in a narrow sense) those actively facilitating cultures and communities of communication networks. This study employs the former definition.

7. Each pair of domains actually has two points (two sets of the expected and experienced values) depending on which domain comes first. This study uses the average of two points for each pair of domains.

8. The ‘Hope Bus’, operated five times by citizens, carried people from various backgrounds to the scene of strikes to demonstrate their support. Twitter played an important role in organizing Hope Bus participants by spreading related information on a real-time basis.

9. Since its first broadcast in 2011, the podcast ‘Nakkomsu’ has led ‘progressive’ issues and discussions in cyberspace, with over two million downloads and six million views per broadcast. In a recent survey of Nakkomsu's popularity, the respondents pointed out that it relieved of the stuffiness caused by political circles and provided important information ignored by traditional media (Lee, 2012). In this survey, more than 40% of the respondents trusted Nakkomsu, whereas 17.2%, major newspapers such as the Chosun Ilbo, the Dong-a Ilbo, and the Joong-ang Ilbo.