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(News Focus) Technology-savvy protesters go live with protest footage
By Kim Young-gyo
SEOUL, June 10 (Yonhap) -- Live video streaming of protests against South Korea's resumption of the U.S. beef imports carried on a website featuring user-created contents (UCC) has attracted millions of people in just one week, the website showed Tuesday.
From May 25 to June 1, a total of four million people visited the Afreeca, a website which enables internet users to go live, posting and watching their own coverage of the protests.
The videos were posted by protesters at the park in front of the Seoul city hall, where rallies have been held almost daily since May 2, to protest President Lee Myung-bak's decision to resume U.S. beef imports.
The number of views of protest-related videos on the Afreeca has steadily increased from 400,000 on May 26 and 470,000 on May 29 to 1.2 million on June 1.
"I have been watching the protests broadcast live online, when I can not make it (to the protest itself)," said Lim Dong-woo who came to the rally late Tuesday. "By watching it, I become part of the protest."
Protesters equipped with laptops and videos cameras have been often witnessed during the rallies over a month. Some of them even donning headsets with microphones to anchor their coverage.
They sometimes work in teams of two to four, allotting each other different tasks; one in charge of gaining footage, the other sending it out via the internet.
What has made the live broadcasting easier is WiBro, a wireless broadband Internet technology being developed by the telecoms industry in South Korea, one of the world's most wired nations where more than three-quarters of homes have high-speed Internet access.
The service provides a stable and relatively cheap internet connection.
Such footage has had a large impact on the South Korean web community, with a video-clip released on the internet showing a riot policeman trampling on the face of a female student of Seoul National University on June 1 raising severe anger and criticism of a police crackdown on the protesters.
Experts said so-called Street Journalism has emerged as a new cultural form amid the one-month running protest, mainly lead by technology-savvy young people in their teens and 20s.
"Koreans always have been very involved in politics. Ordinary people have taken their opinions to the street," said Bernd Schmitt, the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business at Columbia Business School, who has also taught at Seoul's Yonsei University.
"When you look at the composition of the demonstrators, they are much younger than demonstrators you can normally see on the street of Seoul, and they are much more technology savvy. New journalists are out there with their video cameras live on the internet, shaping public opinions," Bernd said.
Suh Dong-hee, a researcher at Korea Institute for Future Strategies agreed with him.
"The public is armed with high-tech mobile phones, text messages, laptops, digital cameras, wireless modems. People and their ability to investigate and digest information is evolving at a pace faster than ever before," said Suh.
"The South Korean public have set themselves fact-delivering tasks, as they began to think the majority of the South Korean media downplay public anger and belittle their outcries," she said.
Some of the protesters admitted that they rely more on the new media than the existing media, which, they believe, edit and delay ahead of the stories' release.
"I believe the conservative media in South Korea are refusing to tell the truth. That is why I want to hear directly from my peers who are out at the spot," Lim said to Yonhap News Agency.
"I have been watching all the news on the internet, and I could not stand back any more. I came here today to raise my own voice," said Lee Su-min, a junior at a women's college and job-seeker, who took part in the protest last week.
"I am broadcasting online in order to satisfy the appetite of those who can not participate in the rally," said cultural critic Jin Jung-gwon, who is also a Chung-Ang University professor. He goes live on the website for the New Progressive Party.
The new media contents are expected to play a key role this year in the South Korean society both politically and culturally.
"It definitely shows that gone are the days when the government could have a tight leash on information. This is only the beginning of a trend that will continue to become stronger and more far-reaching," said Suh.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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