The fragile beauty of peer-to-peer activism: The public campaign for the rights of media consumers in South Korea

Abstract

In South Korea, the oligopoly of three conservative media conglomerates, popularly dubbed Chojoongdong, has been identified as a hindrance to the country’s democratic consolidation. This issue came to the fore during the mass candlelight protests in Seoul in 2008 against the then newly elected conservative government’s resumption of American beef imports despite public concern over the credibility of US food regulation. Born out of the beef protests was a peer-to-peer (P2P) network of individual citizens who called for media reform, condemning what they saw as Chojoongdong’s biased dominance of public discourse. Based on an ethnographic study of the inception and evolution of this digitally mediated network, Eonsoju, from 2008 to 2013, this article discusses the spatial opportunities and institutional challenges of digital activism. Eonsoju initially demonstrated a considerable potential of a P2P model for activism, but it soon had to compromise its structural and operational strengths due to legal pressures.

Keywords

Advertiser boycott digital activism Eonsoju media reform peer-to-peer (P2P)South Korea spatiality

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