Cell Phones and Broadband 'Net Win in S. Korea

McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail has an interesting column on how text messaging and the use of effective broadband internet content helped propel an obscure lawyer, Mr. Roh Moo-hyun, from a perpetual also-ran to become South Korea's new president. 'With the world's highest penetration of high-speed and mobile Internet services, South Korea is at the cutting edge of technology that is transforming the political system, making it more open and democratic. It could be a preview of the shape of Western democracy,' the article says."

Comments

OMG!

[xintegerx]

I was just thinking about how much people like you and I are played by this "Western Government". The deal is, I went to my state's web site to try to figure out how to run for Senator, Governor, etc. Yes, maybe I'm not old enough yet, but there was still no information! The best way (only way) right now is to be an intern and watch over some guy who did that too and move up.

What if you're just a simple decent qualified person who wants to run for Selectman/Mayor/Rep/Senator/Governor/President? I went to the Senate's web site, for instance (and many others using google) trying to find out HOW TO RUN! This information is just not on the internet (at least not for my state.)

Just yesterday I thought it would be sweet if there was a web site people could go to to see how to run for political leadership in their state. At least paperwork and deadlines would be greate, but procedures, rules, and regulations in addition, would be excellent!

Seriously, at least 100 million people in the USA are qualified to run for those positions I mentioned (at least by the age rule set in the constitution.)

I want to see competition, I want to see REAL people running! What would REALLY be sweet would be a law by the Senators to make States maintain a web site like I described and one that would also show WHO is running and what they DO and what they have DONE. This would be so sweet. And each candidate would have his own web site hosted (or just linked.) FAIRNESS IN EVERY WAY!

Nobody votes because theres a bunch of bums we don't know anything about who have a gazillion of ties and responsibilities, once in office, to the people who got them there!!!

This would be a pretty cheap way for equal spending that everybody keeps pushing for, good for communicating at least with voters that have access to the internet (the majority.)

Re:My experiences in Korea

[Faeton]

WTF? This guy is just copying and reposting his old stuff over again (look at his Russia/India posts) and changing names.

Not the only amazing thing...

[suchire]

What the news article fails to mention is the astounding rally that the youth made in Korea. Seven hours before the polls closed, a close supporter of Roh in his coalition withdrew his support, and so there was a real danger of him not getting elected. In about 11 minutes or so, a bunch of Roh's supporters rallied on his website, through email, IM's, messageboards, etc. and encouraged each other to go out to vote (and Roh's fan website got about 3 million hits in four hours) making a record turnout for young voters, about 60%.

Amazing...

Superstar politics = less corruption

[ites]

One interesting aspect of this kind of election is that it starts to resemble the viewer-elections we see on reality shows. We are starting to see something that looks like instant democracy. Now, what's cool about this is that it breaks the back of the traditional political system.
I've noticed that those famous and/or powerful people who are not corrupt are invariably those elected by rapid popular vote, namely superstars of pop, sports, and so on.
A long, slow election process just gives all parties time to negotiate with interest groups. Slow elections generate corrupt politicians, and the semi-permanent election process we see in certain countries just creates completely corrupt political parties.

Electing politicians like this is going to annoy the established political parties. It's also going to raise a generation of politicians who have popular support but no real political network. But it's hard to see what the impact of this will be.