From OhmyNews:

OhmyNews a 'Marriage of Democracy and Technology'
OMN founder Oh Yeon Ho gives a keynote speech at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society
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Oh Yeon Ho addresses attendees of the Berkman Center Internet and Society Conference at Harvard University on Dec 11.
©2004 T.Thacker
During a keynote address at Harvard University's Berkman Center Internet & Society conference last Friday, Oh Yeon Ho, the founder of Korea's liberal online newspaper OhmyNews, told a group of about 200 attendees about how Korea's netizens were able to change domestic media and politics through "a marriage of democracy and technology."

"Citizen participatory Internet journalism started first in Korea with the slogan 'every citizen is a reporter.' The slogan is not only about changing journalism, but about changing all of society," he said during a seminar titled "Affecting the Outcome I: South Korea Case Study" at the Ames Courtroom of Harvard Law School. Oh's reference to changing society refers to OhmyNews' central role in the outcome of the 2002 Korean presidential election.

"The story of Mr. Oh Yeon Ho and OhmyNews is really quite remarkable," said Berkman Center executive director and seminar chairman John Palfrey. "(It) has put in some ways the most interesting story we could find on the planet to us."

Palfrey kicked off the talk by saying the biannual conference's objective was to look at some of the best instances of Internet affecting democracy and politics. In addition to Oh, panelists Stephen Ward, from University of Salford and the Oxford Internet Institute in the UK, Rebecca MacKinnon, of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi were invited to share their experiences on web-based political communities.

Oh began his keynote by noting that after the 2004 U.S. presidential election, many of his friends asked him why Korean netizens could change the face of politics (in 2002), but American netizens couldn't.

"I believe that many American netizens who are disappointed with Mr. Bush's reelection may have asked themselves the same question," Oh said.

OhmyNews is widely credited with rallying young Korean voters in the final days of the 2002 presidential election, aiding then-underdog liberal candidate Roh Moo Hyun to get elected with its nonstop reporting of a last minute crisis in which Roh's election partner, Chung Mong Joon, suddenly withdrew his support.