Internet Election 2.0? Culture, Institutions, and Technology in the Korean Presidential Elections of 2002 and 2007

ABSTRACT

A growing literature suggests that the effect of the Internet on politics is mediated by pre-Internet conditions, such as the levels of democratic and economic development, particular institutional dynamics, and political culture. This article first examines how the former president of South Korea, Roh Moo-Hyun, and his supporters appropriated online technology to counterbalance the effects of the existing mass media and political elite during the Korean presidential election of 2002. It then seeks to establish a cultural perspective on the Internet to reveal the significance of media discourses in framing how the medium has been perceived in Korean society. Based on results from a keyword-in-context analysis of news headlines, the article compares the 2002 election, popularly dubbed the “Internet election,” with the election of December 2007, during which the Internet played a less important role. The influence of legal regulations governing electoral campaigning is also examined. The article aims to shed light on how nontechnological variables such as popular conceptualizations and relevant institutions matter just as much as the characteristics of the technology in affecting how the Internet is used in a given political context.

KEYWORDS:

• Context
• culture
• election law
• institution
• Internet
• media discourse
• South Korea
• Web 2.0

Notes

1. In Korean, family names precede given names.

2. Due to the word limit, the corpus of the 188 news headlines is not included in this manuscript. However, the data, translated into English, are available upon request to readers who would not be able to retrieve the original articles from the KINDS.