Alerted via SmartMobs to this very enthusiastic article on the background to the mobilizations in Korea.

From the TechnoKimchi blog:

“How did it happen so quickly? This is the fun part. Lee is a very conservative guy, who still believes in “control”. What he did was, when numerous protests broke out around the country, he basically ordered the media companies “not to report” to the people about what’s happening. There were police at work, trying to stop the “peace candlelight” protests, or vigils now called; some police went quite violent, but none to be reported by major broadcasters, newspapers, Internet news sites, or magazines.

But we’re living in the age of Web 2.0. Now people are in control. People that were there became citizen journalists – thousands and thousands. And the force of citizen journalism has grown so immense that basically nobody can stop it now.

The first site was an online discussion forum called “Agora”, run by Daum, one of thelargest portals in Korea.
Citizens got mad at President Lee that they started an online signing of impeachment movement on Agora; within the next few days the number of votes/signs reached 1.5 million–CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT! Some of the articles written by citizens at the protest sites drew millions of views and thousands of comments, like EVERYDAY.

Bloggers were second to none in this, obviuosly. Some blogger protesters were detained at police stations. However, even from there, they kept reporting on their blogs using their cellphones. Obviously, there were new star bloggers born.

But more than anything, here’s where I think Korea is awesome! People are gadget-gods. We have ubiquitous connections everywhere in Seoul. What do citizens do? They live-videocast the protests using their devices on Wibro. Afreeca, which used to be barely top 5 video services in Korea, let its users livecast from the protest sites. Basically, it got really popular and became No.1 video site in Korea just in days. Why? Because other services were scared of the political pressure from the gov’t, while Afreeca wasn’t. So more people flocked together at Afreeca and Afreeca has been living happily ever after.”

The author’s conclusions:

– You just simply can’t stop citizens from being reporters when they’re motivated and equipped with technology;

– No matter how much control or pressure are exerted on mass media, “new media” is the new king;

– All these principles used in blog marketing, such as transparency, authenticity, and truth, are for real; if you look sketchy, you’re gonna get caught. Millions are watching you.”

More information on the power of p2p activism here.