Abstract

In this paper, I examine South Korean Internet development and policy, pointing out that the Internet technology system can be seen as a product of social construction. The relevant evidence I propose to support this argument is the change the South Korean government made in its Internet policy priority, from being a leader in establishing an information society to responding to social demands on correcting Internet-related problems by designing new Internet regulations. In other words, South Korean Internet policy makers have been compelled to re-formulate a new Internet policy by adopting reactive policy strategies rather than proactive ones, which in turn has fundamentally reshaped the Internet architecture and its usage in South Korea. Through this examination, I argue that the technical structure of the Internet has been modified to team up with new government policy and regulations, which can be regarded as a 21st century case of the social construction of technology.