Park Geun-Hye's Digital Mind for Presidential Dream

SEOUL--(Korea Newswire)--Han, Koo-Hyun, Former Director of the Cyber Election Camp for Gubernatorial Election

The year of 2002, in which the sixteenth presidential election was held, is memorable for the election of the first Korean president who ever understood the hypertext markup language (HTML). Foreign newspapers were busy pointing out at the “Roh Moo Hyun effect” at the emergence of the digitally expert president, and politicians in Korea began to emulate President Roh’s style. His election, however, also marked the beginning of increasing controversies over the political power and influence of the Internet. Not much progress has been made in these debates since then. The emergence of the social network services (SNS) played a decisive role in the October 26 election held in Seoul to elect a new mayor. Hannra-dang, the Korean Grand National Party which is known for its conservative positions, now finds itself faced with the crucial task of having to study and master the SNS in addition to the web portals.

During the 2002 presidential election, I was offered the job of heading the Cyber Election Camp for Lee Hoe Chang, the presidential candidate of the Grand National Party. After a day at my new job, however, I was forced out of the camp by a professional political operative (an assistant to Lee). Even the PR specialist who recommended me to the job was skeptical about the effectiveness of electronic campaigns. He relayed to me in a private meeting: “I am making the cyber camp because the higher-up guys want me to, but I doubt it will have much power over the election results. The election will be decided by the TV debates.” Afterward, I monitored the online election campaign activities of the Grand National Party and the New Millennium Democratic Party (now the Democratic Party), whose candidate was Roh. Roh’s election camp overwhelmed the GNP camp in almost all areas of web-based communication, while the GNP responded by merely employing some bloggers to leave a few comments and to copy-and-paste a few articles seemingly beneficial to them. The electronic campaign efforts of the Grand National Party were so amateurish even to the lay public. The party, however, refused to admit its inadequacies in online communication. In hindsight, it occurs to me that Lee could have won the presidential election if he or his camp was completely absent from the cyberspace.

The Grand National Party did not learn its lessons, and ended up repeating the same mistake, this time on SNS, during the 2011 mayoral election in Seoul. A part-time staffer of the GNP camp advertised the party’s candidate on SNS using multiple personae, but the same ID. Nothing could have been more amateurish and embarrassing than that. A non-expert, who had not even fully mastered how SNS work, brazenly took up SNS communication as his main tool to advertise a conservative politician, only to incur further ridicule from the progressives upon his camp and party.

During the 2006 local election, I had another chance to head the Cyber Election Camp of the Grand National Party to provide assistance in the provincial gubernatorial campaigns. Commissioner Cha Myeong-jin, who headed the whole election camp for the party at the time, knew the great power that could be wielded by the cyber election camp, and gave me all the necessary authorities. At first I was excited to start anew. The result was quite disappointing yet again, however. While the level of physical security protection at the camp site was quite high, with thoroughgoing inspections going on at both the entrance and the exit, the camp could not be more negligent of the security issues online. Its cyber camp was penetrable by even newbie hackers. While the party waged a relatively successful campaign offline, the members making up the cyber camp were not even adequately ‘literate’ in the use of computers. The first thing I had to do, therefore, was to strengthen the online security of the party’s camp and lecture party members on the importance of electronic campaigns.

Why does the Grand National Party repeat the same mistake?

The progressives in Korea suffered a setback when the Soviet Bloc was collapsed in the 1980s and 1990s, and liberal democracy spread around the world. The emergence of the cyberspace, however, has brought progressives a second spring. The Internet in Korea is overwhelmingly favorable toward the progressives, making it appear that the Internet has been entirely occupied by them. A study was already published (by Kim Eun-mi) in 2004, demonstrating the incomparable advantage progressives held over communications on the Internet. Whereas progressives’ communication was mostly concentrated in the debate forums and replies posted on such portals as Naver and Daum in the past few years, the emergency of such SNS as Twitter, Me2day, and Facebook have given progressives new wings. Now progressives effectively wield a monopoly over the Internet world.

Realizing the situation a bit too late, the conservatives began to push back, by emulating the “Roh style.” Nevertheless, it is comparable to trying to beat your enemy on the enemy’s turf. Fundamentally lacking in the sensibilities and capacities for “digital communication,” the Grand National Party continues to succeed only in harming itself on the Internet. The conservative camp suffers from an absolute shortage of digital experts and leaders adequately digital. The digital PR specialists for political campaigns must understand not only the HTML, but also possess the social and personal sensibilities and intuitions that underscore effective online communications. These specialists are overwhelmingly concentrated in the progressives’ camp and absolutely lacking in the Grand National Party. Another problem of the party is its failure to maintain digital experts and specialists on hire after elections end. That is why the party repeats the low-level, ridiculous mistakes, such as hiring amateurs to post ridiculous comments and replies to anti-conservative news articles or reports, and attempting at a DDOS attack on the opponent’s camp. Cyber election operations require advanced computer skills and effective knowledge of how voters who use the Internet think. Attempting at cyber attacks on opponents without such skills and knowledge is basically fighting the opponents in an armor that does not suit one. It is like the match between David and Goliath.

There is one strong candidate who is likely to lead the 2012 presidential election, who possesses the “digital mind” like that of the late Roh. This candidate will be formidable to any rivals, whether progressive or conservative. Ironically, this new digitally sensitive candidate is Park Geun-hye of the Grand National Party. She understands the Internet and the net users. If Roh was a self-learned digital expert capable of creating his own personal database called “Know-How” in 1997, Park majored in computer engineering at university, and therefore has a much better knowledge of the cyberspace.

It is not difficult to see nowadays how Park, the former leader of the Grand National Party, is operating her cyber election camp carefully herself, with her direct presence on SNS. Her digital mastery is what sets her apart from the rest of the party, even though she is a major figure in the party. Her careful, deliberate moves online will help increase the potential for the Grand National Party to win the next presidential election, and may even force the party to transform its online presence and move on from the current crisis that has been caused by its amateurism in the cyberspace.

Website: http://www.haanryu.com

This is a news release distributed by Korea Newswire on behalf of this company.