The Korean Presidential Election of 2007: Five Years on from the "Internet Election"

Previous studies 1 illustrated that new information and communication technologies, represented by the Internet, contributed to bringing the young and reform-minded generation to vote for a liberal underdog Roh Moo-hyun 2 in the Korean presidential election of 2002. The next logical step in identifying the potentially long-standing impact of the Internet on Korean politics was to see if a similar scenario would unfold in the following election. From this perspective, Korea's seventeenth presidential election, held in December 2007, deserves scholarly interest. The present essay provides a brief reflection on the role the Internet played during this event. We analyzed the election utilizing a multi-faceted approach. This time, the candidate of the main opposition party, Lee Myung-bak, won the presidency by a significant margin (see Table Table 1: Results of the 2007 Presidential Election South Korea