Page 287 - Culture Technology Communication

270 Robert J. Fouser

NIFTY-Serve were negligent because they did not delete the mes-
sage before it was posted and ordered each institution to pay dam-
ages of 500,000 yen. In addition to bringing up serious issues of free
speech on commercial on-line services, the court’s decision reflects
the prevailing view in Japan the direct, critical comments in CMC
cause harm to the addressee.
Results from the Nomura survey, which are presented in Table
1, reveal a similar apprehension toward and, in comparison with the
three other nations surveyed, ambivalence about the Internet. Ac-
cording to the survey, 56.4% of Japanese respondents said that com-
puters and other information technologies would not increase
human communication. This figure contrasts with 25% in the
United States and 23.6% in Korea. In response to the question “Do
you worry about not being able to use a spreading new technology
that spreads in society?” 59.6% of Japanese said “yes,” whereas as
70.8% of Americans and 72.2% of Koreans said “yes.” In response to
the question “Do you want to let the world know of your existence
and ideas?” 66.8% of Japanese said “no,” whereas only 34.6% of
Americans and 41% of Koreans said “no.” In response to the question
about homepages, 71.2% of Japanese said that they did not want to
set up a personal homepage. Seventy percent of Americans did not
want to set up a homepages, whereas only 56% of Koreans said “no.”
Asked if they are interested in buying a computer for the household,
46.6% of Japanese said “no,” whereas 23.2% of Americans and 17.2%
of Koreans said “no.”
As the above findings indicate, Koreans have a greater interest in
and more positive attitude toward the Internet as a communications
tool. This enthusiasm is reflected in how the Korean media presents
the Internet in society. With the financial crisis and presidential elec-
tion in December of 1997, the Internet and CMC gained increased at-
tention from two perspectives. The first is the use of the Internet as an
economic tool to help revive the Korean economy. This includes reports
on how SOHO (small office/home office) and venture capital compa-
nies use Web sites to attract business and on Web sites containing job
placement information. Other reports show how Web sites are used ef-
fectively to promote exports or improve English-language skills, both
of which are seen as critical to Korea’s future. The second perspective
is the effect of CMC on democracy in Korea. The media often carry re-
ports of how chat rooms, BBS, and Web sites give people, usually mar-
ginalized groups in society, fora to express their views. Such reports
became more common in 1998 as labor organizations set up Web sites
to protest corporate restructuring, which threatened job security of
blue- and white-collar workers in a broad range of industries.