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272 Robert J. Fouser

the early nineties. At times, chat-room participants suddenly agree
to meet face-to-face at a set time and place, which suggests that
chat-room interaction helps break the ice for face-to-face meetings
(Kim and Ch’oe 1996). The Korean term for this is po˘ngaet’ing, or
“lightning meeting,” consists of the po˘ngae (lightning) and the last
four letters of the English word “meeting.” It also suggests that CMC
augments, rather than supplants, face-to-face communication in
Korea. In her ethnographic study of CMC in Korea, Kim (1996)
found that most CMC users enjoy the anonymity of the medium, but
do not expect it to replace face-to-face communication. Those who
want more intimacy in the relationship try to meet face–to–face.
And, as noted above, the Korean media often refer to Web pages and
chat-room data as a gauge of economics, political, and social trends.
The Internet and CMC have a number of critics in Korea as
well. During the 1997 presidential election campaign, the govern-
ment decided to monitor domestic chat rooms for slanderous com-
ments and negative campaigning. The prosecutor’s office established
a team of investigators to watch chat rooms. Yi Yonguk (1997) has
argued that chat rooms and BBS postings encourage “cyber-sadism,”
which inhibits the development of democratic discourse in CMC. The
prospect of government monitoring of chat rooms alarms Im (1996),
who found that chat rooms air a much wider range of opinions than
traditional media print and broadcast media. He fears that govern-
ment monitoring will discourage free discussion and deprive CMC of
its democratic potential. In 1998, sexual harassment and abusive
language in chat rooms received increasing attention in the media.
Two high-profile stories—one about couples using chat rooms to
agree to swap partners and another about soliciting prostitution in
chat rooms—were reported in all major newspapers. The issue has
become serious enough to prompt the Korean government to require
users of commercial services to use their real name and address
when signing up for such services (So˘k 1998). This would make it
easier for companies and aggrieved individuals to monitor those per-
sons who habitually abuse chat rooms. Social conservatives have ar-
gued that chat rooms have a negative effect on young people because
they use bastardized slang and a variety of orthographic deviations
(Kim 1997). Like pagers, chat rooms allow young people to escape
parental supervision, which social conservatives argue encourages
illicit contact with the opposite sex. The media are less critical of the
Web, but run frequent articles on problems of teenagers accessing
pornographic sites. One ironic story mentions the opening of a
“swear room” under psychological supervision in several commercial