OECDIT Wireless Internet And People Power
Technology Enables Street Journalism, but Trusting It Is Another Matter
By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
It's 11 p.m. of a breezy June night. Squatting on the sidewalk of Sejongro street, a man in his early 20s is holding a laptop computer. It has a tiny Web camera attached on the top of the screen, and a finger-sized WiMax modem plugged into its USB hole and tied by green duct tape. The man changes its battery with a fresh one out of his backpack.
``Let's go, over there to the crowd,'' the man says to his friend, holding up the laptop to his eye level so the webcam can take a good shot of what is happening ahead of them _ a clash of hundreds of anti-government protesters against as many riot police. He vanishes into the crowd.
The young man was one of the so-called ``street reporters'' _ ordinary citizens who go out and do real-time broadcasting of their own for an audience of a few hundred or even a few dozen. They are taking advantage of Seoul's ubiquitous wireless Internet network called WiMax, or WiBro as known in Korea, though the technology's inventors might not have imagined that it would be used this way.
WiMax technology has been proven to be highly efficient, powerful and affordable. Its operator KT has built the network to cover virtually every street in South Korea seamlessly, even in the subways or car tunnels. It is fast enough to send or receive live TV broadcasting. At 20,000 won ($20) per month, price is also not a hindrance.
The continuing anti-government street rallies from May are an unexpectedly good opportunity for the WiMax technology to show off its capability.
On the night of June 10 when the demonstration was at its peak, 1,357 live channels ― many of them being relays of the original ― were opened by those street reporters on Afreeca.com, the largest real-time user-generated contents site. Some 700,000 watched the street broadcasting on Afreeca that night, with the peak-time viewer rating of around 50,000.
``Street journalism couldn't be born without WiBro,'' Song Kyong-jae, a professor at Kyunghee University says. ``Seoul has a wonderful wireless connection. It is ironic that these street broadcasters have become a disturbance to the government, which is helping the WiMax industry.''
This is not the first time that this sort of grass-root journalism tried to supplement or replace traditional media such as TV and newspapers by using mobile communications.
There are many cases of ``crowdsourcing'' of journalism, where a large group of part-time, non-regular reporters publish their stories via a certain Web site. Korea's Ohmynews site is one of the best-known examples of the ``citizen reporter'' system.
And then there was the IndyMedia movement. During the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, it acted as a clearinghouse of information for independent journalists, and provided up-to-the-minute reports, photos, audio and video footage through its Web site.
^WiMax, however, has something that distinguishes Seoul's street reporters from others in the citizen journalism field.
Most of all, it is a real-time two-way communication ― they receive real-time text feedbacks on the screen from viewers. They can request the reporter to go to certain place or to meet certain people. They can praise him or criticize him. Sometimes, the reporter argues back real-time through his microphone.
The WiMax service is currently available in Seoul and its vicinities, along with some university campuses in other big cities. Song believes the street journalism will prosper in other cities and nations as the mobile Internet such as WiMax spread.
Should We Trust Them?
The WiMax reporters can give some fresh insights and perspective on the ongoing events since they are not restricted to any guidelines set by traditional media. But as they are not ashamed of the excess of freedom of speech they enjoy, street broadcasting often requires its viewers to be careful.
What is rare among these street reporters is neutrality and objectivity. As for the recent street rallies in Seoul, most street reporters favor the progressive, anti-government and anti-U.S protestors mainly because they were from the younger generation. Sometimes the broadcasting turns into political propaganda. ``Let's fight until the President resigns!'' one shouted in his channel.
``They don't like to do their reporting based on facts as ordinary reporters would do. They like to show others what they believe or what they want to believe,'' Song says. ``This may be the limit of street journalism. It is an alternative media, but cannot be mainstream, yet.''
^Things will soon balance out, Song says. As evidence, channels covering street rallies of conservative, pro-government people started to appear in June.
``Every new technology is first embraced by young, progressive people. TV was so, as well as cable, satellite and the Internet,'' Song says. ``I believe more conservative people will soon catch up with the younger generation in street journalism, too.''
This maybe true. But still, not everyone benefits from the emergence of this fancy but crude journalism. One of the most affected people are those in the old media industry.
``Life is getting tougher for our kind,'' says The Korea Times photographer Shim Hyun-cheol. He says that the amateurs and street reporters do not respect the gentlemen's agreement of professional photographers.
For example, professional photographers tend to form a rank so everyone in the row can share a clear view of an object. But street reporters do not know or do not care about these tacit rules and they like to stick out from others and block the view, Shim says.
Some traditional media try to learn from these amateurs. At the June 10 demonstration, two progressive newspapers Kyunghyang and Hankyoreh did their own version of street reporting and broadcast it on Naver.com, the dominant Web portal site in Korea.
``We don't have a plan to make it a regular feature on our site. But we will be able to discuss it for further opportunities with newspaper companies,'' said Nam Ji-woong, a spokesman for Naver.