Course Description
This module aims to discuss the status of digital media manipulation in contemporary networked Korea.
The issue of digital media manipulation has recently surfaced in Western societies, along with major events such as the US presidential election, Brexit, and even more recently, Cambridge Analytica.
Concerns about manipulative activities on the Net are not idiosyncratic to the West. Digital media manipulation has grown as a serious social malaise in other parts of the world, including South Korea as well. Government-led digital manipulation especially poses a serious danger to democracy.
Bradshaw and Howard (2017) define "government, military or political party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media" as "cyber troops." In South Korea, cyber troops are referred to as "comment troops."
This module traces a genealogy of comment troops in South Korea. Comment troops are one of the most obvious examples of online manipulations, with serious social and cultural ramifications for South Korea's contemporary digital culture.
The learning objectives of this module are:
- to gain global insights on the issue of cyber troops with an example of South Korean society.
- to discuss what makes media manipulation an intractable social phenomenon, particularly in the South Korean context.
- to reflect on what digital citizens should do to come close to Barlow’s vision for the self-governing Internet.