온라인 게시판 토론과 숙의 민주주의 = 총선 연대 사이트의 게시판 분석

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study examines how deliberative is the on-line political discussion on various issues related to the general election in 2000. Given that the internet has been diffused at a rapid rate in South Korea, and that not only political parties but also movement groups actively utilize their web-sites as instruments of political communication this study intends to develop a framework with which we can better understand the political implications of internet-based discussion or conversation for the development of deliberative democracy. A content analysis of bulletin board run by the Coalition of Movement Groups that announced a black list of corrupted politicians with substantial evidences, was conducted with a view to analyze the state of the art of the political online-discussion in South Korea.
Two research questions were raised. First, how the bulletin board has been used during the period of election campaign? This question was also followed by other related questions such as: who were the participants of one-line discussion, how often they participated, in what way they were engaged in political conversation, what types of writings were posted and so on.
The second question asks whether the online-discussion satisfied the various conditions for deliberation. As the conditions for deliberations, this study introduced notions such as interactivity, diversity of opinion, reliability and validation of argument. Highly interactive, freely exchanged, rationalistic discussion on diverse issues was seen as features of deliberation.
It was found that the bulletin board allowed many users to express freely their ideas as well as opinions. As compared other bulletin boards provided by other political web-sites, the Coalition's BBS was far more active in terms of number of postings and replies. The freedom of speaking was fully realized in the political cyberspace. This finding may be seen as satisfying some conditions of deliberation.
But it was also found that there exist a number of flamings as well as unreliable arguments. Anonymous users was found to be less hesitant in using abusive language. The BBS was used, in a sense, as a "battle field" among political supporters of candidates, in which personal attack against a particular candidate was followed by counter-attack against his or her competitors. Reply was followed specially when users mentioned either a candidate's name or his/her parties, which suggests that the BBS has been closely monitored by many campaign camps.
The empirical findings requires us to rethink about political implications of online-discussion. Despite that this case study shows a wider or higher degree of participation in online-discussion on political issues, universal participation was not guaranteed yet. Besides, the finding that very few political arguments has led to a compromise or negotiation suggests that the notion of public sphere or deliberative democracy can not be easily substantiated even in the context of cyberspace. Although we often hear optimistic messages that cyberspace will function as an alternative public sphere, a wide gap still exist between what can be done and what should be done.
It is, however, important to note that these findings not be generalized into other situations, due mainly to the bulletin board's specific nature in political and cultural context. For instance, if it is not about election which tend to be a zero-sum game between competitors, and if its participants are less anonymous and thus more responsible, we may have different results.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. 문제제기
• 2. 이론적 논의
• 3. 연구문제
• 4. 연구방법
• 5. 분석결과
• 6. 결론
• 참고문헌
• Abstract