AsiaMedia: The apotheosis of the American Netizen - U.S. presidential candidates are taking a page out of South Korea's playbook, writes Tom Plate

Excerpt:
"Ask almost any one of my students as to who elected the untested Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea in 2002, and they will answer that it was indeed the Netizens of that country.

The Netizens are the Internet-addicted younger generation of Koreans who rose from political obscurity like a massive mountain of technological ants and raised more campaign money for Roh in tiny little tidbits than any seasoned political fund-raiser had ever seen. In the end, as a result, Roh narrowly defeated the establishment candidate in an election widely attributed to the Netizen tsunami effect.

Something comparable is happening in America right now. Figures released by the Obama campaign report that the young politician had almost $7 million fall into his lap from more than 50,000 donors contributing via websites on the Internet. Many thousands of Internet contributions came in $25 tidbits but in whole, the tidbits turned into an amazing pile of money."

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=67197

Alex

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