Page 264 - Culture Technology Communication

Internet Discourse 247

private institutions. In addition to providing selected schools with
computer hardware, Joong-Ang offers to design the Internet home
pages for schools free of charge. It also provides diverse instructional
programs for IIE.
Dong-A Daily started IYC about two weeks later than Chosun
and Joong-Ang. Dong-A offers free Internet classes for universities
nationwide. It also has a program for grading the level of informati-
zation of Korean universities. In fact, it evaluates the quality of uni-
versity education primarily in terms of the level of informatization.
Relying on its power as a tool of mass communication, Korean
journalism stands out as a primary force for adopting the Internet in
education. It leads this social movement, in part, by offering fantas-
tic dreams of new possibilities to Internet users. As an indication of
the extent to which the Internet is represented in Korean journal-
ism, Table 1 shows newspaper reports regarding the Internet. One of
the most progressive papers, Hanguerae, and one in the conservative
side, Dong-A Daily, are compared in Table 1.
This table gives a general idea of how Korean journalism por-
3
trays the Internet. According to Table 1, there are 132 simple in-
formational reports on Dong-A, and 92 on Hanguerae. Simple
informational reports consist of announcing new services, URLs, In-
ternet instructional programs and so forth. Next to simple informa-
tion, Internet business is the most frequently reported issue on both

Table 1
Reports of the Internet in Korean Journalism
Title Dong-A Hanguerae
Simple informational reports 132 92
New technology 23 10
Foreign industry 39 35
Domestic industry 49 13
Foreign policy 24 10
Domestic policy 26 19
Cultural impact 13 0
Social movement 13 6
Informatization 26 13
Indecency 10 2
Internet use 12 2
Education 25 5
IYC movement 95 —
Others 51 8
TOTAL 538 215