Internet activism transforming street politics: South Korea’s 2008 ‘Mad Cow’ protests and new democratic sensibilities

Abstract

This article examines South Korea’s Internet-born ‘candlelight festivals’ of 2008, with a focus on online movement transforming protesters’ communicative patterns and sensibilities in the street. When the government resumed importation of US beef despite widespread concern about mad cow disease, Korea’s young Internet users criticized the government and mobilized for street protests. In the resulting protests, the festive crowd directly spoke back to authority with irreverent humor and carnivalesque defiance. This novel mode of political participation indicates new democratic sensibilities liberated from authoritarian preconceptions and limits that had dominated Korean politics. The transformation of protest modalities observed in Korea – a nation that has experienced the maturation of Internet activism – suggests that scholars should pay attention to how Internet users traverse online and offline spaces, and to how online politics reshapes local actors’ broader political experiences and expectations.