classroom at the school

The purpose of the program is to disseminate the skills of journalism more widely among Koreans, a in keeping with OhmyNews' founder Oh Yeon Ho's mantra that "every citizen is a reporter." While some classes

I first became interested in digital activism in 2004-2005 while living in Morocco. It was the fall after my graduation from Vassar College and I was working as a Programs Assistant at the National Democratic Institute in

UPDATE: See the YouTube video below

Trevor Lyman, a supporter of libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul, decided to help his preferred candidate raise money. He bought the domain ThisNovember5th.com, the purpose of which was to encourage people to make a small donation on that day. The campaign was ridiculously successful. This past Monday, the site raised $4 million for Ron Paul's presidential campaign.

Interestingly enough, the site itself did not even collect the donations, but rather sent site visitors on the the official campaign site, RonPaul2008.com, to make their donation.

I just spent the past week visiting several colleges...and I can report that the more I am around this generation of college students, the more I am both baffled and impressed....

I’ve been calling them “Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad....

But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good,

Nosamo (2000-present): This is the fan club of Korean president Roh Moo-Hyun (the group's name means "those who love Roh"). The independent volunteer organization used a website and digital organizing techniques to support the progressive campaign of Roh, who won the 2002 is a huge upset. They are like Deaniacs except they also drafted their candidate by convincing him to

Note: In June I was hired by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society to write a case study about the effect that the Korean citizen journalism site OhmyNews has had on democracy in that country. I finished the first draft of the report last week. This is the executive summary.

Ever since Tom Paine wrote "Common Sense" in 1776, citizen journalism has been strengthening democracy. By providing an alternative to mainstream media in both content and perspective, citizen journalism keeps people better informed about public issues, allowing them to more intelligently form opinions about public policy and select

Note: this is part of an on-going series of posts based on my research of the the Korean Citizen journalism site OhmyNews. Previous posts can be found here and here.

December 19, 2002, was Election Day in Korea. It was the culmination of this evolution, when the citizen media, grassroots politics, and ordinary citizens came together to shift the fate of an election. The night before, presidential candidate Roh Mo-Hyun was dealt a terrible blow. Chung Mong-Joon, a critical supporter of Roh withdrew his support for the

Another OhmyNews claim to fame is how its users created a grassroots get-out-the-vote drive which resulted in the upset victory of dark horse

OhmyNews founder Oh Yeon Ho addresses staff (credit: Kwon W.S.)

I was recently hired by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society to write a 30-page case study on the online Korean citizen journalism phenom OhmyNews. This is really good for me because usually I learn about digital citizen activism by experience (Free Alaa, Free Monem) rather than by study.

This project is forcing me to ask and answer the hard questions about how and why online citizen actions succeed. For instance: What are the particular characteristics of Korean society that has allowed online citizen journalism