Page 258 - Culture Technology Communication

Internet Discourse and the Habitus
of Korea’s New Generation

Sunny Yoon

Introduction

Many people stress the hopeful vision of the Internet as achieving a
communication revolution in the contemporary world. They believe
that the Internet will break up current structures of inequality in
twentieth century mass communication. Proponents portray the Net
as a means of expanding participatory democracy, equality, and di-
versity. By providing an interactive communication medium, they
claim, the Internet will allow people to participate in decision-making
processes and to produce messages instead of simply consuming the
offerings of mass media. Enthusiasts also say that the Internet offers
free services that will foster information-sharing with everyone in the
world, based on a communitarian spirit.
Recently, however, critical scholars have begun to point out
more dangerous possibilities of misusing the Internet. Howard
Besser (1995), for example, observes that the Internet can be led in
the wrong direction if it is conceived of as an Information Super-
highway. Besser argues that this conception, as it stresses com-
mercial uses, may suppress the development of the Internet as
supporting democratizing dialogues in an electronic public sphere.
According to Besser, commercialism on the Information Super-
highway transforms the Internet in four key ways:

1. from flat fee to pay-per use;
2. from an orientation towards the user as producer to the
user as consumer;
3. from information to entertainment; and

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