This study examines the ways in which the Internet is utilized for progressive civic action, focusing on a detailed case study of Internet activism of South Korea. The goals of this study are to examine: the ways in which the Internet is utilized for progressive civic action; the extent to which Internet activism is differentiated from preexisting social movements; and the ways in which the Internet affects movement repertoires and organizational forms of civic action. Toward this end, this study encompasses four main areas: (1) historical background of Korean Internet activism; (2) social agents of Internet activism; (3) movement repertoires and awareness of citizenship; and (4) theoretical implications of the Korean case. This study employs multiple research methods including qualitative framing analysis, in-depth interviews, and focus-group interviews as well as quantitative methods.

The findings of this study suggest that Korean Internet activism has had a huge impact on political and cultural environments. Korea’s liberal and critical younger generations have predominantly used the Internet, constituting amorphous and hybrid groups of Internet users who are aware of citizenship—namely netizens. Positing themselves distinctly from preexisting activist groups including social movement organizations (SMOs), Korean netizens have utilized the Internet for resource mobilization, virtual struggles, and alternative knowledge production for progressive civic action. Through serial events from 2002 to 2007, Korean netizens and SMOs have collaborated on the one hand and contended on the other hand. Netizens have expedited horizontal and decentralized networks for communication and mobilization while SMOs have maintained hierarchical organizational forms and centralized leadership.

This study also found that Korean Internet activism has brought about noticeable changes in movement repertoires. Netizens have organically combined online and offline struggles, converged sub-cultural and political discourses, and constructed distributed trust and counter-hegemonic frames through interactive communications based on datgul [replies] and pumjil [copy-and-paste]. Different from Chadwick’s hybrid mobilization movement model based on Western experience, organizational innovations of civic action have mainly been led by netizens, rather than by SMOs. While many Korean SMOs have adopted new movement repertoires for resource mobilization, they have failed to internalize new values embedded in the netizens’ movement repertoires.