The forthcoming April general elections allowed availing Internet for the electioneering this month. It will have formidable power, raising public awareness about politics. If used properly, it will not only give information about political affairs, but will find out about voters’ views on critical issues. In proportion to the growing importance of the Internet and online media, portals have launched new services for the election. We readers should judge from our own frame of reference; however this means that more careful consideration is needed.

Portals are knowledgeable, responsive, and sensitive to collective needs, and this makes portals the most powerful type of media, even threatening the position of conventional ones. The enhanced media functions of Internet portals facilitated its rapid growth. Acting as a forum for Internet discussion, portals are treated not just as service providers, but channels for communication. However, another and more important reason that portals plays a crucial role in forming public opinions on elections is this: people regard portal sites as politically ‘neutral’ and ‘independent’.

Supplied by numerous other forms of media, the Internet portals do not create any of the news or verify the contents, but merely select and relay the news as it is, based on the agreed upon content supply. However, portals classify and arrange news, showing that they are not just a distributor or provider, but in fact, an editor. By putting certain news as the main headline, it draws attention to this news. So by placing this content at the top of their main page, they can catch the public’s eye and can even sway a netizen, it is one of the most influential and argumentative, yet anonymous groups in Korea.

Ahead of the general election, some argue that portals are pro-government while others say it is anti-government. Both are hard to proved, however. Readers can only make a rough guess whether their politics is conservative, progressive, or moderate and this attribute can gather a great number of online users even if they have different views on politics. For that reason, it is normal to have an enthusiastic argument about controversial issues on portal sites. This could hardly happen on the traditional media’s websites, opening their editorial policies to the public. Traditional media such as the Chosun Ilbo, Donga Ilbo, and the Hankyoreh, have columns and editorials written by the head writers of each newspaper and this reveals the tone of the press and their political point of view. Selecting news produced by almost all local newspapers, on the other hand, the Internet portals do not expose their political opinions formally. It simply means portals can conceal their opinion, not that they are impartial, or disinterested. But it makes news for the former, appeal to only certain groups of people, which proves that they have limited influence, while the latter has unlimited.

Portals may not intend to exert an influence in politics; but they can, and they have done. In the 2002 presidential election, former president Roh Moo-Hyun’s victory is a case in subject. Mr. Chung Mong-Joon, who was politically affiliated with Roh, broke his promise of his backing the night before the election day. His decision was reported and spread weightily through portals in real time, which caused an uproar. With this momentum, Mr. Chung’s behavior was loudly attacked and he lost popularity, while the approval rating for the former president Roh increased. Moreover, portals suffered discredit for rigging searching word lists last November 2011, when the Grand National Party ratified Korea-US FTA. This doubt made online users think that external political coercion was involved.

Once often seen as an quasi media, now it has become a nation’s most potent media, portals enlarge their sphere of influence, and they have seized power, whether they intended to or not.

Kim Ji-Su(Editor-in-chief)

Violette@kookmin.ac.kr