• Informatization Policy
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.61-79
• /
• 2010

This study focuses on the emergence of collective intelligence and its impact on the democracy in the information era. Scholars have posed very different-optimistic and pessimistic-views on the possibility of collective knowledge produced by the public. Focusing on the cases of a free online encylopedia known as wikipedia and 2008 Candlelight Demonstration against the imports of US beef in Korea, this paper analyzes the mechanism of collective intelligence and its political implications on the democracy. Specifically, this article approaches changes in new knowledge paradigm with two different variables: the degree of connectivity and the quality of deliberation. Applying two different sets of variables helps us to distinguish the possibilities of collective intelligence and anti-intelligence, which would suggest social and political implications for the democracy in a country. This study finds a critical difference in terms of the quality of deliberation, measured by the indicators such as diversity, independence, and integration mechanism for online deliberation.

• Informatization Policy
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.73-90
• /
• 2013

Rational debate and public conversation in the public sphere of social network are crucial conditions for realizing deliberative democracy. However, negative communication can occur online more frequently than in the real space, and mutually hostile messages are appearing. In the electoral process, citizens combining for particular candidates have made personal attacks against, abused and slandered the opposing candidates. Then, how and to what degree has the flaming behavior been appearing in the elections? Are there influencers to propagate the flaming behavior? And how flaming are these influencers, compared to internet users? This research focuses on the flaming behavior which occurred during the reelection for Seoul Mayor, in order to diagnose the role of social network as an online public sphere. This study analyzes the spreading degree of flaming messages depending on each issue, and the differences of messages between influencers and normal users. There was frequent flaming behaviors to distribute biased information which criticized, laughed at and maliciously attacked individual candidates. Moreover, influencers who advanced leading opinions, displayed a higher flaming degree than normal users.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.837-857
• /
• 2017

This paper examines the gap between the theoretical premises of, and the ways that public deliberative approaches to decision-making function in application to a specific instance of technological risk policy. An interrogation of a UK nationwide public deliberation case-the CoRWM program (Committee on Radioactive Waste Management)-a real-world instance of public deliberation illuminates some significant contrasts in the ways that public deliberation takes place to those characterized in theory. A public-engaged deliberation on radioactive waste management in reality does not emerge as rational reasoning for the common good. Instead, it was rather a complex mix of various forms of material, social and political interactions, and relationships.

• Korean journal of communication and information
• /
• v.45
• /
• pp.187-219
• /
• 2009

Under the pressure of the selection of topics and the presentation rules of mass media, politics in media society increasingly resort to professionalized forms of theatrical staging as a means of self-portrayal. Although these staging methods are not contradictory to what is actually going on in politics, they strongly advantage the tendency to focus exclusively on the staging of an event. Through their competition for public attention, politicians have been developing sophistication regarding placement and staging of events as well as regarding factual information. In the process of this transformation, politics that are issue-related and based on binding decisions are being gradually transformed into symbolic politics. Moreover, through their appearance on TV, politicians first of all need to possess presentational skills which are not necessarily related to their political achievements. Still, presentational skills decide over the success in politics of those politicians. The reason is that a politician who possesses presentational skills is still being perceived as being successful even if his political achievements notedly lag behind. On the other hand, political achievements are being underrated if a politician lacks the talent to present himself in front of the media. “The staging of politics, “politainment”, on the stage of mass media is evolving into a key structure which is responsible for a new coinage of politics in all different kinds of dimensions: the selection of staff, the role of action programs and their impact for the legitimation of political acting, even in relation to therole of pivotal political institutions such as parties and parliaments in the political process. The TV debates during the Bundestag elections of the year 2002 and 2005 are being analyzed and judged as “staging of politics”(politainment). Self-dramatization in media society concerning media discourses about politics and political self-portrayal has become a basic principle of political communication. Self-dramatization is a vital challenge for adequate political communication and content-based orientation in our present media democracies.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.391-406
• /
• 2024

The current distribution of digital news has the potential to produce politically biased information for users as a result of individual choices and media selection based on those choices. Consequently, this research explored the factors affecting individual news selection and the effects of opinion changes and political participation that can occur when news tailored to users' partisan preferences is recommended. The phenomenon of selective exposure has been shown to be stronger when individuals utilize more limited information processing, experience higher discussion efficacy among groups with similar political beliefs. Furthermore, When a selective exposure group was randomly provided with a one-way message news that matched their partisan leanings, it was found that opinion consolidation, opinion-reinforcing information processing, and online political participation. On the other hand, when they were randomly presented with two-way messaging news in which the media balanced two competing partisan positions, they were found to be more likely to understand the other side's views and arguments, and more willing to adjust their existing opinions. We are confirmed that the balanced use of various opinions is very important in deliberative democratic process.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
• /
• v.145
• /
• pp.351-380
• /
• 2018

In every society, citizens must decide how to punish criminals, uphold the virtue of justice, and preserve the security of the community. In doing so, the members of society must ask themselves how they will punish those who carry out the most abhorrent of crimes. Many common responses to such a question is that death is an acceptable punishment for the most severe crimes. But to draw some theoretical distinction between a crime that deserves incarceration and a crime that is so heinous that it deserves capital punishment is subject to three errors. First, what possible line could be drawn? To decide on a particular number of deaths or to employ any standard would be arbitrary. Second, the use of a line would trivialize and undermine the deaths of those whose murderers fell below the standard. Third, any and all executions still are unjust, as the State should not degrade the institution of justice and dehumanize an individual who, although he or she has no respect for other human life, is still a living person. Simply put, all murders are heinous, all are completely unacceptable, and deserve the greatest punishment of the land; however, death as punishment is inappropriate. Also, while this article arrives at the conclusion that the death penalty is an inappropriate form of punishment, I have not offered an acceptable alternative that would appease those who believe capital offenders deserve a punishment that differs in its quality and severity. This is a burden that, admittedly, I am unable to meet. I finally conclude that the death penalty is unjustified retribution. This is the only claim that can effectively shift the intellectual paradigms of the participants in the debate. The continued use of the death penalty in society can only be determined and influenced by the collective conscience of the members of that society. As stated at the outset of this article, it is this essentially moral conflict regarding what is just and degrading that forms the backdrop for the past changes in and the present operation of our system of imposing death as a punishment for crime.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.211-222
• /
• 2007

This paper aims to evaluate the new regional development policy which is entirely focused on the lagging rural regions in Korea. The new regional development, called the shin-hwal-ryuk policy is to reflect the radical change in the idea and philosophy of rural development. Although traditional rural development policies were top-down-based and physical infrastructure-centered, the new rural development policy idea is based on bottom-up and soft infrastructure which is related to the promotion of regional innovation capacities. However, it is revealed that the new rural policy involves a variety of problems in the process of establishing and making progress the policy plan in a local level. In the operating process of the policy plan, the central government has shown too quick-tempered for achieving visible outcomes, while many of local government suffer from the lacks of professional capabilities to carry out the plan. I see that as a result of the mixture of these problems the new policy is regarded as 'passively localized process' by the central government rather than 'actively localizing process' by the region for building regional innovation capacity.