2006년에 예측한 이 글 South Korea: Look east to see the future of the internet

South Korea: Look east to see the future of the internet

A tech-savvy government, the highest broadband penetration rate in the world, and a nation of restless young cyber-activists make South Korea the most fascinating media laboratory on the planet. David McNeill reports from Seoul

 

Published: 20 November 2006
The Independent

Internet futurists often like to imagine a sort of democratic digital nirvana, populated by smart, politically aware "netizens", where every home has cheap broadband and where boys in bedrooms help elect presidents.

 

That cyber-pipedream is closest to being realised not in Europe or the US, but in South Korea, which leads the planet in broadband access, cyber-activism and blogging. Over three-quarters of South Korean homes have an eye-watering 3Mb broadband access at home, for which they pay just ￡10 a month.

The country boasts over 30 million 3G mobile-phone users, online newspapers with more readers than hardcopy rivals, and 20,000 internet cafes, where young people can be found, day and night, hunched in front of flickering PCs. A government survey last year found that seven out of 10 Koreans go online, making it one of the most 'net-savvy nations in the world. "Perhaps only Iceland has a higher rate," said Paek ki-hun, a spokesman for the country's Ministry of Communications. A staggering nine out of 10 Koreans aged 24 to 29 are members of a single networking site: Cyworld, a parallel universe where 19 million users - in a population of 48 million - have created virtual alter-egos.

When not discussing hobbies, games and politics with "cyberbuddies", Cyworld punters download 200 million songs a year, an online music market second only to Apple's iTunes. The Cyworld phenomenon has triggered intense foreign interest in the world's 10th largest economy, which has quietly stolen ahead of competitors, thanks to what one business magazine called one of the most far-sighted investments in business history": a 1995 government decision to build a high-speed broadband and cellular network, and subsidise millions of cheap PCs. Microsoft and other global tech giants now road test their next-generation products in the Seoul laboratory before Tokyo or London, and Cyworld recently set up shop in the US. Europe is sure to follow.

High-tech exports surely please the Seoul government, but it could hardly have foreseen that its expensive network would be used to incubate a generation of cyber-activists often deeply at odds with its policies. In February 2003, the activists - mostly young and progressive - helped elect President Roh Moo-hyun, a human rights lawyer whose dramatic political career mirrors Korea's post-1987 transition from military dictatorship to burgeoning democracy. Roh's narrow, 2.3 per cent victory was later credited to an eleventh-hour internet appeal sent to over a million mobile phones and PCs, which prompted many young people to visit polling stations for the first time in their lives.

Mr Roh showed his gratitude to what the conservative press later dubbed the "wired red devils" by snubbing the country's mainstream media and giving his first post-election interview to the online news site that had backed him: OhMy News. "We surprised everybody with that," said OhMy boss, Oh Yeon Ho. "It was a sign that the internet is a growing force."

With 700,000 repeat visitors a day, OhMy is perhaps the most striking new media organisation to have emerged from South Korea's technological and political revolution. A remarkable, world leading and profitable exponent of online journalism, OhMy claims it has 43,000 citizen reporters throughout the country and over a thousand more on its international version.

 

The reporters, who are paid a basic fee of about ￡2-￡10 per article, plus "tips" from readers, have claimed a string of scoops, including stories about US military wrongdoing and illegal government money transfers to Pyongyang. Says Mr Oh: "I think we have since showed the world a different way to cover news. Every citizen can be a reporter."

Can this Korean creation spread abroad? Some of the cream of the US and European "digerati", including Craig Newmark of Craigslist.com and Timothy Lord of Slashdot.com were in Seoul this summer to explore this question, and pay homage to an organisation that has inspired legions of copycats but as yet, no peer. "This is one of the unique things in journalism today," said Dan Gillmor, a former journalist and now director of the US-based Center for Citizen Media. "It is transforming the news model into something far more democratic and participatory and showing the world the way forward."

OhMy claims to generate $400,000 (￡264,000) in revenue a month, mainly from advertising and selling content on to other news portals. So far, its impact on television and newspapers has been small because its youthful users still can't match middle-aged consumers for the spending power. But this could be set to change. The Korea Internet Corporations Association claims that online advertising now accounts for 10 per cent of the market, and is growing by 30 per cent a year. Meanwhile, annual newspaper revenue is dropping by 3-4 per cent on average and by 7.7 per cent from 2003-4, according to Korea's largest ad agency, Cheil Communications. This underestimates the true power of the online media, says OhMy News International director, Jean K Min. "There is a lot of inertia with the big advertisers, which are still wedded to paper and TV, and haven't really yet caught up with the 'net."

More worryingly for the print media, older readers are also deserting newspapers for giant local portals like www.naver.com, which claims 13 million visitors a day; a survey last year by New York-based firm eMarketer found that over half of all Koreans use the web for news. Of course, all revolutions bring problems. With its still weak system of checks and balances, Korea's "blogopolis" has been accused of generating emotional, sometimes xenophobic campaigns against enemies. When scientist Hwang Woo-suk was recently exposed for faking his research on human cloning, millions of Koreans rushed online to blame his downfall on a foreign smear campaign.

But such stories are a blip in the Korean digital landscape. As one African delegate to the OhMy conference said, "When I was a boy, Korea was comparable in wealth with Nigeria and other poor African countries." Now it is one of the exclusive members in the club of trillion dollar economies, an internet powerhouse which is leading the world in how to create broadband economies. That's a pretty impressive story.