Anonymity and Ordinary Citizens in the Candlelight Protests of 2008

• In Event: 106 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 09. Mobilization and Politicization

Abstract

This paper examines four texts published by different groups that either supported or opposed the 2008 Candlelight Protests in Korea in order to unravel the meaning of ordinary citizens. In many publications that came out after the Protests in Korea, ordinary citizens whose routes of political participation and self-mobilization via digital platforms were described as distinguished from past protesters mobilized through conventional process by social movement organizations. Scholars from multiple disciplines seeking the theorization of the newness and transformative traits of digital interaction have emphasized the insulation between individual citizens equipped with a better efficient and convenient digital media and existing social movement organizations distanced from the online public sphere created by those citizens despite their resourceful experiences. I show the notion of ordinary citizens, predominantly taken on to account for who should be credited for the Candlelight Protests and to what end the Candlelight Protests were for, in relation with not only new right groups who attempted to quell them by suggesting a war on ideology for governing the state, but also progressive activist groups who positioned themselves as supporters professional, organized, and committed.

Author

• Eunkyung Song, Rutgers