Workshop on Asias Civil Spheres: New Media, Urban Public Space, Social Movements 29 30 September 2011

Institutional Conflicts in the Web 2.0 Era and the Evolution of Consumer Activism: Korean Candlelight Protests 2008

Yenn Lee
Centre for Criminology & Sociology, Royal Holloway, University of London yennoklee@gmail.com

Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

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ASIAS CIVIL SPHERES: NEW MEDIA, URBAN PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (29 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2011) Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

BEEF, CANDLES, AND THE CURIOUS BIRTH OF A MEDIA ACTIVIST NETWORK On 2 May 2008, a wave of candlelight demonstrations, lasting more than a hundred days, broke out in South Korea. The demonstrations levelled criticism at the newly elected president Lee Myung-Bak and his conservative government for lifting the ban on American beef imports (which had been imposed after the 2003 outbreak of mad cow disease in the US) despite public concerns over the declining credibility of US food regulation (Krugman, 2008). There arose a suspicion that the decision had been brought forward to please Washington. Sealed on 18 April, eleven hours before Lees arrival at Camp David (the country retreat of the US President in Maryland) for his first face-to-face meeting with then US President George W. Bush, the deal lowered standards for specified risk materials (SRM) for mad cow disease. Indeed, the new standards turned out to be weaker than those used by the US Department of Agriculture and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), presenting the possibility of importing bovine parts containing SRM, or in other words parts categorised as unfit for human consumption in the US, into the Korean market (The Hankyoreh, 2008). In response to this, mass protests hit the streets of Seoul and other major cities, encompassing not only the usual suspects of political participation in the country, that is, men in their 30s and 40s, but also other sectors of the population previously assumed to be apolitical, such as teenagers (popularly dubbed candlelight girls), women in their early 20s (high heels squad), young mums with their toddlers (buggy squad), and Catholic priests (see also Han, 2009; Lee, Kim & Wainwright, 2010). Besides the unprecedentedly wide appeal of the issue, the protests were also marked by participants savvy use of the Internet and digital gadgets, including high-resolution camera phones, water cannon-resistant camcorders and WiFi-enabled laptops, for coordinating and live-broadcasting themselves (Han & Rhee, 2008). Lee Myung-Baks victory with a record-high margin in the 17th presidential election in December 2007 was widely viewed as a restoration of traditional ruling conservatism after the two successive liberal governments from February 1998 to February 2008. However, the backlash against the beef deal shook the Lee administration to the point that the new prime minister and the entire cabinet offered to resign in June 2008, after barely four months in office. The overall candlelight protests represented a significant shift in the political dynamics of the country and therefore merit attention in their own right (see also Lee, Kim & Wainwright, 2010), but the present study focuses on an offshoot network born out of the protests: the Public Campaign for the Rights of Media Consumers (hereafter referred to by its Korean acronym Eonsoju). The discussion is based on ethnographic observation in and around the Eonsoju network, logging of related news, and a 3-hour faceto-face interview with 2 representatives of the network (conducted on 21 January 2011 in Seoul).

PERSONALLY COLLECTIVE, COLLECTIVELY PERSONAL As the wave of candlelight protests developed, the target of the protesters expanded to include the countrys three dominant conservative newspapers Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo, more commonly referred to by an acronym Chojoongdong for being explicitly supportive of the governments actions. Chojoongdong together hold more than 70% of the newspaper market share in South Korea. Moreover, they are now expanding to the broadcasting sector. On the basis of the new media bill passed in the midst of a brawl in the conservative-dominated National Assembly on 22 July 2009 (The BBC, 2009), the government granted Chojoongdong permission to start cable TV stations for general programming, in addition to what they already owned (Ramstad, 2011).

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ASIAS CIVIL SPHERES: NEW MEDIA, URBAN PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (29 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2011) Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

Major shareholders of Chojoongdong are closely connected, through marriage ties, with chaebols (large business conglomerates in Korea, typically owned and controlled by families) and right-wing politicians (Cho, 2005). As a result, they are known to represent the vested interests of the Korean establishment. In this context, protesters were angered by the national dailies partisan reporting of the issue, especially because they had vigorously attacked the previous liberal government over the dangers posed by resuming imports of American beef. Anti-Chojoongdong movements predate the beef issue and go far back into the 1990s (Han, 2010). However, what has to be noted here is the change in modus operandi. Media reform activists in earlier days concentrated on raising public awareness on the countrys distorted media environment and the nexus between the media troika and the power elite (see also Mills, 1956). Such efforts did not come to much fruition though because the activists could not match up to Chojoongdongs resources and circulation. In 2008, the so-called Web 2.0 Generation took a smarter approach. First, an open group was set up on 31 May on the major portal site Daum (http://cafe.daum.net/stopcjd) initially calling itself The Public Campaign for Stopping the Publication of Chojoongdong 1. Next, on the group bulletin board, a list of companies that advertised in Chojoongdong was collectively maintained and updated daily. Individual members and other non-affiliated participants then phoned those advertisers and warned that they would boycott their products unless the ads were withdrawn. Referring to this activity as homework, each decided whether, when and to whom to call as they saw fit. According to the interviewees, the group grew rapidly to around 79,000 members at its peak 2 and the ad spaces in Chosun Ilbo were reduced to a half because an increasing number of companies began to pull out as a result of the boycott threat. The following comment by Interviewee 1, then elected representative 3 of Eonsoju, encapsulates what differentiates Eonsoju from its predecessors. Interviewee 1: We appreciate [our predecessors] work. They laid a foundation for what we do now. However, their limitation was that the activity was almost exclusive for intellectuals and never for the masses. [] We are different from any other civic groups that have come before us. In the past, civic groups lacked citizens. Their typical organisation was made of a few intellectuals representing the cause and a pool of members doing nothing but pay dues. Their projects were typically initiated by a few permanent staff members, followed by a press conference. The Citizens Coalition for Democratic Media (Mineonryeon) was an example of this kind of operation. We are different. Everybody does everything. The representative is also from the within. There are no tiers. [] Members can identify with the cause because they actually do something, which is rewarding.

NEW MEDIA GROUNDED IN OLD LAW Unlike earlier endeavours, Eonsojus approach indeed proved to be effective and seemingly hit a nerve with Chojoongdong. The media troika sought legal intervention and, as a result, most of the entries on the Eonsoju bulletin board were permanently deleted on the advice of the Korea Communications Standards
1 2 3

Changed to the current name, the Public Campaign for the Rights of Media Consumers, on 24 June 2008. As of this writing in September 2011, it has approximately 67,000 members. At the time of the interview, his term was coming to a completion and a new representative was elected shortly after.

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ASIAS CIVIL SPHERES: NEW MEDIA, URBAN PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (29 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2011) Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

Commission 4. Moreover, on 29 August, 24 members holding the administrative responsibilities of the group were prosecuted. During the investigation, foreign travels bans were imposed on 22 of them (8 July) and, in some cases, their houses and offices were searched (15 July). In the initial trial in February 2009, all of the 24 were found guilty of obstruction of business and sentenced/fined, though 9 were exonerated in an appeal in December of the same year. The case is currently pending in the Supreme Court. Interviewee 2, one of the prosecuted still waiting for the Supreme Courts ruling, explained the legal conflicts in further detail. Interviewee 2: The charge the prosecution came up with was joint-principal of conspiracy (gongmo gongdong jeongbeom). Interviewee 1: As far as I know, it is something only Japan 5 and Korea have, in order to put away mafia bosses, who are usually the kingpins in their criminal enterprises but never actually do or even conspire. Interviewee 2: Let me elaborate on that. The whole thing started in Agora (one of the biggest open-to-all bulletin boards in Korean cyberspace for debates and e-petitions, operated by Daum). So, even with the joint-principal of conspiracy precedent, the prosecution could not do anything or they had to arrest all Daum users. A lot of Cafs 6 mushroomed at that time. [] Media-focused ones were later absorbed into us, but there was 82cook.com and also MLB something, which was some baseball-related Caf, et cetera. All of them were doing the same thing as we were. So, there were no instigators per se. The person who set up the [Eonsoju] Caf wasnt even the one who had come up with the [boycott] idea in the first place. The idea was addressed, or rather thrown in, on the Agora bulletin board. We dont even know who it was. He disappeared. So, to us, our Caf space was an extension from Agora. We didnt see it any differently. We set the Caf up only because posts on the Agora board were very quickly pushed down, with new posts added constantly. We just wanted to have an organised archive for easy reference. We didnt even care who called and who didnt. [] Within the Caf, there were a few volunteers who would spend their spare time in clipping relevant news articles et cetera. Those volunteers were called Caf Operators 7 and the prosecution concluded that they were the masterminds behind the boycott. How they came up with the joint-principal of conspiracy charge was also funny. Otherwise they had nothing on us, really. Obstruction of business could be applied only to those who actually made phone calls to the advertisers. The court ruled that the act of expressing ones opinion itself is not a punishable crime. Only swearing, threatening, repeated calls, and long calls are. But how were they going to single out problematic callers? They could have, but in order to prosecute the so-called leadership of the Caf instead, they did not go after any of those who might have threatened or sworn during their boycott calls anyway.

4 5 6 7

For more information on Internet filtering and censorship in Korea, see Lee (2011). See also Coulson, 2008. Online groups set up on Daum are called Daum Cafs. With a resonance to system operators, or sysops, of BBSs.

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ASIAS CIVIL SPHERES: NEW MEDIA, URBAN PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (29 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2011) Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

CYBER-EXILE AND FORCED TRANSFORMATION In response to the legal pressure, boycott supporters first created a publicly accessible Google-based document in a bid to replace the original bulletin board on Daum and circumvent the Korean restrictions. This move gave rise to the newly coined term cyber-exile in the media (see also Lee & Park, 2010). The following Figure 1 is a screenshot of the Google document (captured on 4 July 2008). The motivation to create this document was clearly articulated at the bottom of the image (in red). It goes: This is a document simply listing advertisers of a certain media house. No entities in Korea shall have a legal ground to request the global corporation Google to have it deleted or limited.

Figure 1. Database of lists of Chojoongdong advertisers (https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p_s9QsQy5_QA3sxgdNKGnbA) With the legal pressure mounting, however, Eonsoju was compelled to find a more systematic solution than circumvention. After internal deliberation, it decided to officially register as an NGO on 30 August. The rationale was, in the words of Interviewee 1, that they needed money and structure in order to fight the battles in the court. Noteworthy is that, instead of full transformation, it restructured itself into a two-pronged organisation, composed of the informal network nested on the portal Daum and the registered NGO. On the NGO front, it operates and raises funds in a more conventional manner. For a financial independence, approximately 1,000 members of the NGO pay monthly dues, the total of which amounts to 10 million KRW (around 8,990 US dollars). In return, the dues-paying members are entitled to vote or run in any internal elections. The funds raised from this, together with ad-hoc donations, have mainly been used for legal fees and court case related expenses. As mentioned in the interview excerpt above, the original network does not have a defined leadership, other than a few volunteers (i.e. a Caf Master and Caf Operators) facilitating its operation. On the other hand, the NGO has a centralised organisation; it has one elected director and a central committee consisting of regional managers.

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ASIAS CIVIL SPHERES: NEW MEDIA, URBAN PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (29 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2011) Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

Changes had to take place not only at the structural level but also at the operational level. The dilemma Eonsoju faced after the 24 members found guilty in the first trial in February 2009 was whether to ignore the courts ruling and carry on or to find another way that remained legal. They chose the latter to avoid the risk of putting participants off. As Interviewee 1 put it, in order to keep the mass appeal, [action repertoires] have to be legal, comfortable and easy. The court did not see the act of boycotting itself as an offence, but the telephone activity withered away nevertheless because of the external pressure from the prosecution and the consequent reluctance among some members. Eonsoju then decided to ally with other NGOs with similar goals and carry out the boycott in a more traditional fashion. It now selects to target one advertiser at a time, on the basis of internal deliberation led by the central members. It then publicly communicates the development of the boycott, through press conferences among other means, instead of a phone bombardment. In other words, it now more resembles the earlier models of activism. The first subject of this approach was the major pharmaceutical company Kwang Dong. Eonsoju announced its intention to boycott it on 8 June 2009, endorsed by about 600 other civic and social groups (Kim, 2009). It explained its rationale that the company focused its advertising in Chojoongdong. Within a day after this announcement was made, the pharmaceutical company offered, as a compromise solution, to buy ad spaces in other smaller and more left-leaning newspapers. Then representative of Eonsoju accepted this offer as a triumph, but it gave rise to debates over whether the outcome actually fit with the goals and objectives of the organisation. Moreover, this approach did not keep the organisation away from legal complications either. For example, the former representative who was involved in the negotiation with Kwang Dong was later charged with extortion and his case is now appealed to the Supreme Court. THE FRAGILE BEAUTY OF P2P MOVEMENTS Eonsoju is not the first but an epitomising example of Bauwens definition of peer to peer (P2P), which is a specific form of relational dynamic, [] based on the assumed equipotency of its participants [and] organized through the free cooperation of equals in view of performance of a common task, for the creation of a common good (2005: 6). He theorises that P2P is a trend going beyond computer technology (e.g. Napster-like file sharing) and occurring isomorphically across all areas of social and cultural life in contemporary society (2005: 48). In a similar but more specific vein, journalist and anti-corporate globalisation activist Klein has positively discussed a new breed of political movement that came to international attention after the protest activity surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 in Seattle. Her argument is that todays movements are not only facilitated by the Internet at the logistical level but also take a form which mirrors the organic, decentralised, interlinked pathways of the Internet itself (Klein, 2000b). To put it another way, the strength of such movements lies in the fact that they have no central leadership or command structure and are therefore multi-headed, impossible to decapitate (RAND, cited in Klein, 2000a). Since the early 2000s, Korea has seen interesting developments in the adoption of P2P for political mobilisation. Among better-known examples is Nosamo, a grassroots campaign effort key to the victory of the relatively weaker candidate Roh Moo-Hyun in the 2002 presidential election. In an interview conducted in 2006 (Lee, 2009b: 170), a member of Nosamo stated: [Some say Nosamo should have been disbanded after Rohs victory, but] what outsiders dont get is the nature of Nosamo. It is not an organisation but a peer-to-peer network. All decisions are up to each individual. It is a network of autonomous individuals. So, if you are not happy, you can simply leave the network. Lets say we agree to break up now. Anyone can resume it anytime anywhere else. [] Its meaningless to talk about disbandment. Members know better than that.
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ASIAS CIVIL SPHERES: NEW MEDIA, URBAN PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (29 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2011) Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

This certainly resonates with what the two interviewees in the present study said about Eonsoju, especially its individualised leadership, intermittent involvement/commitment, and under-politicised action repertoires. However, despite its significant political potential demonstrated, the Eonsoju case also illustrates how fragile P2P organising can be vis--vis legal and other institutional forces (see also Etling, Faris & Palfry, 2010). Potential is not something to be easily gauged, but on the basis of how boycott campaigns of a similar nature have flourished in other social contexts, one can attempt an educated guess. The interviewees, for example, pointed to the Fox News Boycott (FNB, http://foxnewsboycott.com/) running active in the US as a precedent, in order to contest the constitutionality of the charges restricting their consumer rights (see also Ahn, 2008). Another, more recent example of a boycott of the same kind with a different destiny was one organised through Facebook and Twitter in protest against the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in the UK in the summer of 2011, which is believed to have contributed to the eventual shutdown of the newspaper (Knight, 2011). Eonsoju has been quick to respond to external threats and internal demands. The legally smart mob of Eonsoju first appropriated a global service, Google Docs, to circumvent the KCSCs monitoring of the bulletin board on the domestic portal site. This informal consumer network then later transformed itself into a formal civic organisation, a decision compelled by legal pressures. In other words, its skin-changing evolution was interesting and even impressive, but giving up its inherent horizontality and flexibility was not a matter of choice but of survival. With recently leaked diplomatic cables 8 confirming the popular suspicion of the Washington Consensus on the beef deal part of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), the significance of the present study lies in the fact that it has thrown up some fundamental questions. One of them is whether horizontally networked efforts such as Eonsoju will ever be able to match up to vertically aligned institutions, especially in societies like Korea where the latter have always been more prominent (Lee, 2009a). Another question is, in a broader interpretation of Etling, Faris and Palfreys findings (2011), how then to create a system that is more responsive to the needs and opinions expressed through such networks and harness their democratising potential.

e.g. The [US] Ambassador explained that some clarifications were needed to the KORUS FTA chapters on labor and environment, but that the clarifications would in no way change the balance of the agreement. He added he hoped Korea would ratify the FTA before the December election. [GNP presidential front-runner] Lee [Myung-Bak] agreed that the FTA should be ratified, but noted that if the ratification process were too close to the December election, anti-American, anti-FTA sentiment could become an election issue. Former Mayor Lee noted he was concerned the U.S. ratification process might be delayed until 2008. Lee cautioned that while most GNP lawmakers were pro-FTA, even some conservative lawmakers from rural districts might be hard-pressed by their constituents to vote against the FTA. [] For a few beef or tangerine producers, Korea should not abandon the KORUS FTA, Lee said. The FTA will benefit all Korean consumers and create cheaper goods for all. The government has a responsibility to act in the interest of all Koreans. Lee joked that the emphasis on saving Korean beef was already water under the bridge since Korean beef was not really Korean since the cows eat U.S. feed. (A cable allegedly composed on 5 June 2007 by Alexander Vershbow the then US ambassador in Seoul. Available at < http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/06/07SEOUL1711.html>)

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ASIAS CIVIL SPHERES: NEW MEDIA, URBAN PUBLIC SPACE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (29 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2011) Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) and Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Cities Cluster, National University of Singapore

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Lee, Y. & Park, H. W. (2010). Causes, consequences and implications of cyber-exile: Article 93 of the Public Official Election Act and e-campaigning in South Korea. Paper presented at the conference Internet, politics, policy 2010: An impact assessment, 1617 September, the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK. Mills, C. W. (1956). The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Ramstad, E. (2011). South Korean newspapers get OK for TV stations. The Wall Street Journal, 2 January. < http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704543604576053150239368750.html>. The BBC (2009). S Korean politicians in mass brawl. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8162862.stm>. BBC News, 22 July. <

The Hankyoreh (2008). S. Korean govt confirms that it agreed to import bovine parts containing SRMs. The Hankyoreh, 16 May. < http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/287947.html>.

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