Die Entstehung des "neuen" demokratischen Medienaktivismus in Südkorea: Struktureller Kontext, Handlungsformen und Akteure

Abstract

This article deals with the rise of new democratic media activism in South Korea in the 1990s and 2000s. The concept of democratic media activism refers to pro-democratic reform movements that advocate equal access to the mass media in particular the Internet. While most studies in this field focus on the political consequences of the Internet in South Korea, this article examines the creation of new media practices by individual and collective actors from the social movement sector. The first section discusses the relationship between mass media, public sphere, and democracy from a sociological perspective. The second section provides a historical outline of the media reform movement before the democratic regime change of 1987. The third section describes the change of the media environment after democratization, the diffusion of the Internet, and the rise of new forms of collective protest in the late 1990s. Based on a correspondence and network analysis of major campaigns and protest events, the fourth section presents a social map of new democratic media activism where the leading social agents and their political orientations are identified and described.