Social Science Computer Review

29(3) 288-299
ª The Author(s) 2011
Networked Politics on Cyworld: Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
The Text and Sentiment of DOI: 10.1177/0894439310382509
http://sscr.sagepub.com
Korean Political Profiles

Se Jung Park1,*, Yon Soo Lim1,*, Steven Sams1,

Sang Me Nam1, and Han Woo Park1

Abstract
Cyworld, a Korean social networking site (SNS), enables politicians to establish and maintain their
online presence and allows them to communicate with constituents through their personal profile.
This article identifies the most visible politicians on Cyworld in terms of comments posted on their
profiles between April 1, 2008 and June 14, 2009 and examines the text and sentiments reflected in
those profiles. A content analysis combining semantic network analysis and sentiment analysis
illustrates the meaning and collective sentiment of the comments. The results suggest that
progressivism dominated political discourse and that the members of the ruling party received
more negative comments than those of the opposition party. Furthermore, group-oriented terms
indicated the existence of collectivism, which is representative of Eastern culture. The results sug-
gest a significant relationship among gender, comment types, and SNS activities.

Keywords
Cyworld, South Korea, political communication, political discourse, social network site, user
comments, text analysis, sentiment analysis, collective identity

Introduction
The rapid development and proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have
facilitated the rise of highly networked societies in the political arena. The widespread view is that
online media have the potential to transform the political landscape by introducing new means to
produce, reproduce, and share information in a wide range of political contexts (Park & Jankowski,
2008; Park & Kluver, 2009a, 2009b). Since Howard Dean’s Internet-based campaign in 2004,
researchers have recognized the importance of the Internet as an effective tool in attracting the interest
and opinions of the public and engaging community members in political discourse (Westling, 2007).

1
WCU Webometrics Institute, Yeungnam University, Gyeongbuk, South Korea

Corresponding Author:
Han Woo Park, Dept of Media & Communication, YeungNam University, Gyeongbuk, South Korea
Email: hanpark@ynu.ac.kr

*Co-first authors who contributed equally to this manuscript.

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Social networking sites (SNSs) can provide political campaigns with new means to efficiently
present their election platforms and build and maintain contact with community members. Various
features on SNSs can facilitate informal political communication and induce a stronger relationship
between politicians and their constituents. Obama’s victory in 2008 clearly demonstrates how SNSs
can effectively mobilize constituents and induce volunteer participation.
Prior research on the SNS phenomenon has focused mainly on interpersonal communication
among acquaintances and their motives, not on the validity and scope of political communication.
In addition, most of the previous studies of SNSs have considered Western countries such as the
United States and the United Kingdom (Thelwall, Wilkinson, & Uppal, 2009). However, SNS usage
patterns in Eastern countries may be different from those in Western ones. For instance, in the Asia-
Pacific region, local platforms such as Mixi in Japan, Renren in China, and Cyworld in South Korea
(herein ‘‘Korea’’) dominate the SNS market, whereas global services such as Facebook and Myspace
have found limited success in the region (Hjorth, 2008). Despite vast differences in the characteris-
tics of SNSs, the lack of research on the role of the SNS in Asian countries has limited our under-
standing of the nature and function of the SNS as a new communication medium.
Korea has a distinct Internet culture based on its high-speed Internet infrastructure (Park &
Jankowski, 2008; Park & Kluver, 2009a, 2009b). Korea’s developed Internet environment has been
a direct result of the country’s rapid democratization and cultural transformation (Park & Kluver,
2009a). In fact, the success of the Korean SNS model serves as a benchmark for other Asian coun-
tries. In particular, Cyworld has the potential to reconfigure Korean politics in that it is one of the
very few platforms upon which Koreans can talk openly about politics, and politicians can commu-
nicate with their constituents and mobilize them informally. However, despite this growing impor-
tance of SNSs, few studies have examined the role of the SNS in political communication in the
context of Asian countries. To address this gap in the literature and better understand networked pol-
itics on SNSs in Asian contexts, this article examines online political communication on Cyworld.

Korea’s SNS, Cyworld

Cyworld, Korea’s most popular SNS, is the world’s first SNS (Park & Lee, 2009) and is comparable
to Facebook. Founded in 1999, Cyworld has over 25 million unique users (nearly 50% of the entire
population of Korea as of April 2010), but its membership has continued to climb (SK Communi-
cations, 2010). It has successfully expanded into international markets such as China, Japan, and a
number of countries in Southeast Asia; however, it left the United States and Europe because of cul-
tural differences between East and West, such as collectivism and individualism. By contrast, Face-
book, Myspace, and Twitter have had limited success in Korea because of Cyworld’s dominance.
Cyworld members can create a personalized profile (‘‘minihompy’’) that runs as a small window
on any ordinary Internet browser. Minihompy is generally similar to comparable features on Face-
book and Myspace, but the key difference lies in its user-friendly interface and graphic style that
appeals especially to Koreans (Hjorth, 2008). Cyworld provides users with a public diary, a photo
gallery, an avatar, a bulletin board, a guestbook, and an area for friends to comment. It categorizes
these functions into tabbed sections, which is different from the way other SNSs such as Facebook
aggregate these options (i.e., a single feed).
SNSs enable users to directly connect to and keep in touch with celebrities who have real-world
social and economic capital. Celebrities also have opportunities to become online stars with many
fans, supporters, observers, and others wishing to communicate. These constructive functions can be
applied to politics, and on popular SNSs, politicians are often widely networked with other users.
Moreover, SNSs have considerable potential to transform politics because they can facilitate bond-
ing between politicians and their constituents and allow them to communicate freely on any topics,
including those not political. One of the most important features on Cyworld is the public comment

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function that allows users to express their political opinions and feelings by posting messages on
visitor boards.
Park, Heo, and Lee (2008) suggested that Cyworld has considerable influence on Korea’s online
communication, and in many ways, it is an important part of many Koreans’ lives. The founder of
Cyworld, Young Joon Hyoung, indicated that the name was based on ‘‘people square’’ to highlight
its primary purpose: to facilitate trust-oriented information sharing among its users (Choi, 2010).
Lee (2009) found that Cyworld has facilitated the exchange of various types of information between
public and private spheres. Furthermore, Park (2010) indicated that in Korea, most political partici-
pants had an online presence and that a number of politicians were active in Cyworld. In this respect,
Cyworld can alter how politicians communicate with the public, and this can develop into new
modes of political engagement and citizen participation.

Cyworld and the General Landscape in Korea

Modern Politics in Korea
Modern politics in Korea can be broadly classified into two categories: conservatism and progressi-
vism. Conservatism emphasizes Korea’s national security by shunning communism and embracing its
alliance with the United States. Since the Korean War (1950–1953), conservatism has dominated the
political landscape in Korea. Conservatives have been deeply concerned about North Korea’s threat,
so they have formed a close alliance with the United States to maintain national security. The Grand
National Party (GNP), the ruling party, currently leads the conservative movement in Korea. By con-
trast, progressives have staunchly opposed conservative ideology. Their main focus has been on social
welfare based on humanism and egalitarianism, and they have pushed for a national reconciliation
with North Korea to alleviate tension on the Korean peninsula. Progressives have taken a skeptical
view of the political and military intervention by the United States since the end of the cold war.
The inevitable collision between conservatism and progressivism has always been observed dur-
ing times of sociopolitical upheaval or during election campaigns. The candlelight protests in 2008
clearly demonstrate this conflict between the two political regimes. The Lee administration and
members of the GNP supported U.S. beef imports as a critical part of the Free Trade Agreement
(FTA) between the United States and Korea, even though certain aspects of the imports were incon-
sistent with Korea’s sanitary standards. The Korean government indicated that the U.S.–Korea FTA
would help expand the global market share of Korean firms and strengthen its relations with the
United States. However, serious concerns about potential health threats (e.g., mad cow disease)
posed by the imports spread rapidly throughout Korean society. The public’s anxiety turned into
intense anger toward the Lee administration and the U.S. government for jeopardizing national wel-
fare. As a result, between May and July 2008, more than 3.5 million people participated in mass
demonstrations demanding measures banning U.S. beef imports. These candlelight protests repre-
sented the largest political demonstration in Korea’s history.

The Internet as a Tool for Political Communication

Bentivegna’s (2002) innovation hypothesis posits that the Internet leads to fundamental changes in
the way politics is presented to the public. Regarding the 2008 candlelight protests, Yun and Chang
(2010) suggested that the Internet played an important role in engaging and mobilizing the pubic in
favor of the progressive political regime. Recent studies have supported the validity of their argu-
ment across a wide range of countries. Kluver’s (2007) analysis of Singapore’s political blogosphere
implied that the Internet has created new opportunities for political expression within the tightly con-
trolled media ecosphere in Singapore. Di Gennaro and Dutton (2006) analyzed the political commu-
nication environment in the United Kingdom and proposed that the Internet has the power to induce

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political participation by lowering the cost of involvement, creating new mechanisms for organizing
groups, and opening up new channels of information that bypass traditional media gatekeepers.
Chang (2005) suggested the importance of the Internet as an alternative medium of communication
because it challenges the existing conservative media. He analyzed Internet news sites and online
communities and discovered that the interactive participation function of these media performed
as an epicenter of activities that resulted in the movement for political reforms against conservative
hegemony. Park, Kim, and Barnet (2004) mapped the sociocommunicational structure of Korean
politics on the Internet and found that the political network evolved into a denser, more highly inte-
grated, centralized, and interactive structure over time. Youm (2003) found that a number of Korean
political actors viewed the Internet as an influential tool with which they could take political power
away from traditionally dominant groups.
These studies imply that, particularly in Korea, the Internet plays a powerful role as an alternative
communication medium that has the potential to transform politics by diffusing information and
mobilizing the public. As social media, SNSs represent a useful means of political communication
because they allow politicians to establish their online visibility and provide them with more options
to interact with the electorate.

Korea’s Internet regulation

Korea is a highly networked country, but Internet use has been strongly regulated. Most of Korea’s
online platforms require a valid national ID number (and the real name) from potential users when
they register, which is the most common verification system in Korea. Recently, slanderous com-
ments posted on Korean SNSs have been linked to various social problems such as celebrity sui-
cides, resulting in strengthened online censorship known as the Cyber Defamation Law (Sams &
Park, 2010). This law requires users to use real names when posting content or comments on web-
sites to control slander, false rumors, and outright mendacity in online communication. The Korean
Communication Commission (KCC), which regulates the online industry, has urged online compa-
nies based in Korea to use the real-name verification system. Currently, the two biggest portals in
Korea, Naver and Daum (comparable to Google), have adopted KCC’s suggestion. Although You-
tube is a global company based in the United States, Youtube Korea has decided to enforce this sys-
tem for Korean content.
The restriction on online political communication in Korea is even tighter. The Korean National
Election Commission (NEC) strictly controls Internet use for political campaigning during preelec-
tion periods. The election law bans all online posts related to campaign activities supporting or cri-
ticizing a politician or party. Even Twitter, a micro-blogging site, is censored under NEC’s
regulation. By contrast, Cyworld is relatively free from such online censorship (even during election
periods) because it is considered a personal homepage, not a public website. Thus, Cyworld is in a
unique position as the sole interpersonal political channel facilitating communication between pol-
iticians and the public. The recently launched ‘‘fan service’’ on Cyworld allows users to publicly and
individually support certain politicians and establish links to those politicians.
For these reasons, a number of Korean politicians, like their counterparts in the United Kingdom
(Williamson, 2009) and the United States (Sweetser & Weaver-Lariscy, 2008), have maintained a
strong presence on Cyworld. The use of Cyworld enhances direct communication between the public
and politicians because of its wide range of interactive features (Cornfield, 2004). Moreover, perso-
nalized features can promote new political campaign strategies. Compared with mass media, SNSs
allow for public relations and self-presentation activities that are less constrained by journalistic
interventions and legal obligations (Schweitzer, 2008). In addition, SNSs provide an opportunity
to reach individuals who are less interested in politics (Utz, 2009). Therefore, Cyworld’s ability
to draw people together and have them participate in political networking may be beneficial for

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e-campaign strategies. In particular, the visitor board on Cyworld allows users to leave comments on
matters such as their opinions, concerns, and thoughts about political issues and lets them convey
their feelings and emotions through such comments. In this way, profiles of politicians on Cyworld
play an effective role as a political communication channel, and this provides a unique opportunity
to better understand public opinion and online political engagement patterns.

Korea’s Cultural Dimension

According to Hofstede (2001), Korean culture is highly collectivistic. People in collectivistic cul-
tures are interdependent and share the goals of their in-groups, whereas people in individualistic cul-
tures are independent and have personal goals. Kim and Yun (2007) found that Cyworld users’
communication pattern indicates a collectivistic culture with a sense of belonging. For instance, the
frequent use of the term ‘‘we-ness’’ represents collective identity in Eastern contexts in which users
have a sense of affective proximity (Snow, 2001). Such collectivistic culture results in an environ-
ment in which people become more concerned about the views and opinions of others than their own
(Cho, 2010).
Kim and Yun (2007) indicated that Cyworld users provide emotional support to others sharing the
same interest or views on social issues. In this context, it can be supposed that Koreans with group-
oriented culture are more likely to prioritize their role as a member of society sharing common val-
ues based on collective sentiments when engaging in political discourse. This unique cultural aspect
can be examined through Cyworld because Koreans tend to freely express their opinions or emotions
regarding politics through the SNS. However, few studies have examined the cultural awareness
aspects of comments on Cyworld’s political profiles, and as such the current understanding of those
aspects may be incomplete or inaccurate.

Research Objective
This study investigates online political communication in Korea by examining political profiles on
Cyworld. Cyworld presents a unique opportunity to explore not only the adoption and maintenance
of the SNS by Korean politicians but also the perceptions of constituents as they observe and com-
ment on those who represent them politically. In this regard, this study investigates public comments
on Korean politicians’ Cyworld minihompys through a content analysis combining semantic net-
work analysis (determining the frequency of occurrence of words) and sentiment analysis (mining
emotions in social network communication). The content analysis has important implications for
policy makers by identifying public opinion and sentiments regarding politicians, social issues, pol-
icies, and public services.

Method and Data Collection

Data collection
To determine the semantics and sentiments shown in political profiles on Cyworld, the URLs of
minihompys of both opposition and ruling party members were identified (as of May 21, 2009). All
of the comments posted on the visitor board of each National Assembly member between April 1,
2008 and June 14, 2009 were automatically collected and parsed using a simple program written in
Java. April 2008 was chosen as the starting date because it was when the most recent National
Assembly election was held.
Of the 292 National Assembly members, 90 had a minihompy on Cyworld as of June 2009
(approximately 30% of all members). Of these 90, 81 were successfully scraped, 8 had high-
privacy settings that restricted access to their message boards, and 1 did not have any posts within

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the specified data collection period. The successfully scraped profiles were ranked based on the
number of comments posted on their visitor boards, resulting in a list of the top 10 politicians. For
this study, 200 comments were randomly extracted for each of the top 10 politicians and used for the
semantic network analysis and the sentiment analysis.

Mapping of Public Comments on SNSs

With a vast number of SNS posts, blog posts, comments, videos, and other forms of politically focused
media on the web, there has been growing interest in the content analysis of such data. Such research
efforts have attempted to combine the semantic analysis of actual posts and comments with sentiment
analysis to identify various emotions that may be gleaned from websites. Since the 1960s, psychologists
and statisticians have used word frequency analysis for several purposes, and text analysis has been used
in many research areas for oral language, image, and sound studies. Park and Lee (2009) studied public
comments on a popular portal site in Korea using automated techniques. They found that a computer-
based text analysis approach is particularly useful when examining a large body of text.
Recently, several studies have used sentiment analysis to examine the online contents of SNS in
social science contexts. Thelwall, Wilkinson, and Uppal (2009) examined emotions in Myspace
comments and discovered that females contributed and received a greater number of positive com-
ments than males. They suggested that females are more successful in using SNSs because of their
ability to textually bind positive feelings. Prabowo and Thelwall (2009) took a combined approach
to classify sentiments in movie reviews, product reviews, and Myspace comments. They took a
semi-automatic approach and suggested that the use of multiple classifiers in a hybrid manner is
more effective than an individual classifier.

Semantic Network Analysis

The data sets were analyzed by KrKwic (Korean Key Word in Context), a content analysis software
package used in analyzing Korean words (Park & Lee, 2009). KrKwic counts the number of times a
word appears in a document and produces a list of words in the order of frequency. To analyze the
semantics of comments for each individual politician and the relationship between words in com-
ments, a word frequency analysis was conducted using KrKwic. Words appearing more than 15
times were identified for all comments, resulting in 92 words for the keyword analysis. From this,
a 92  10 matrix was developed.
CONCOR (CONvergence of iterated CORrelations) was used to identify concurrently appearing
words (i.e., words that appeared together on more than three occasions) from comments for the top
10 politicians and discover hidden subgroups and relations among groups (Park & Lee, 2009). From the
social network perspective, the semantic association between prominent words is a key element of con-
tent analysis because combining such words in a message tends to produce important meanings in a
given context (Park & Lee, 2009). For network visualization, the UCINET software package was used.

Sentiment Analysis
In the current study, 200 comments from each of the 10 politicians’ visitor boards were randomly
selected and categorized into three groups (i.e., positive, negative, and irrelevant). Positive com-
ments showed respect, support, or rapport with respect to the politicians. These types of
comments suggested policy positions and used gentle and polite words. Negative comments were
hostile, adversarial, or critical and generally slandered the politicians; some even used profanities.
Irrelevant comments had nothing to do with the politicians or their policies; they were either general
political comments or spam.

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Figure 1. Word-Network map of 10 Politicians.

The comments were labeled by three coders. Whenever there were inconsistencies among the
coders regarding the labeling, the comment in question was excluded from the analysis. Based on
the results of the sentiment analysis, an additional analysis was conducted to identify the relationship
between gender and comment type. Posters’ gender, comment type, and their level of SNS activity
(based on Cyworld’s scoring system reflecting ‘‘active,’’ ‘‘famous,’’ and ‘‘friendly’’ scores) were
analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests.

Results
Semantic Network Analysis
The word network of the politicians’ comments is visualized in Figure 1. The size of a node indicates
word frequency; bigger nodes represent terms that appeared more frequently than others. The
strength of ties represents frequently occurring words in a certain politician’s comments. This
explains the co-word occurrence between politicians and highlights frequently used terms for each
politician. Overall, the terms ‘‘the people,’’ ‘‘person,’’ ‘‘we,’’ ‘‘country,’’ and ‘‘South Korea’’
appeared frequently. The appearance of these group-oriented terms, which reflect Korea’s collecti-
vistic culture, is consistent with the cultural dimension of Hofstede (2001).
The words denoting giggling (^) and laughing (^) and the emoticon (^^; which represents smil-
ing) were often used. These types of short onomatopoeic words are key characteristics of Cyber lan-
guage in Korea. In addition, posters addressed the politicians by their names on numerous occasions.
This is consistent with the findings of Park and Jankowski’s (2008) analysis of citizen blogs in South
Korean politics, which suggested that bloggers address politicians informally. Whereas the word fre-
quency analysis determined word selection by politician, CONCOR and block modeling examined
hidden subgroups and specific relations among groups at a macro level to uncover the overall

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meaning of comments. Eight subgroups were categorized via CONCOR using a tree diagram (Due
to space limit, diagram is omitted.): ‘‘Males contributing positive comments and the Grand National
Party,’’ ‘‘politics and the nation,’’ ‘‘supportive messages,’’ ‘‘appeals for a ban on U.S. beef imports,’’
‘‘others,’’ ‘‘the public,’’ ‘‘a request to politicians,’’ and ‘‘encouragement to politicians.’’ In particu-
lar, two subgroups representing ‘‘supportive messages’’ and ‘‘appeals for a ban on U.S. beef
imports’’ were larger than other subgroups. This suggests that those individuals posting comments
on political profiles are likely to express their gratitude to politicians and convey their opinions or
suggestions on sociopolitical issues.
As subgroup analysis shows, ‘‘appeals for a ban on U.S. beef imports’’ was at the center of net-
work because it was considered the most important topic by posters. Between May and June 2008,
the issue of U.S. beef imports became highly controversial, and accordingly, posters appealed for a
ban on the imports and expressed concerns regarding mad cow disease. The subgroups ‘‘appeals for
a ban on U.S. beef imports’’ and ‘‘supportive messages’’ had the strongest connection. Moreover,
‘‘appeals for a ban on U.S. beef imports’’ and ‘‘encouragement to politicians’’ were also linked. This
suggests that posters leave supportive messages to politicians but that they also express concerns
regarding sensitive political issues or policies. The subgroups ‘‘supportive messages’’ and ‘‘politics
and the nation’’ were strongly connected, which suggests that posters support politicians who
demonstrate a clear desire for ideal politics and national welfare.

Sentiment Analysis
The total number of positive comments was 1,008 (51.3%); negative comments, 408 (20.8%), and
irrelevant comments, 548 (27.9%). As a result, most comments revealed sentiment in favor or
against certain policies or ideas on politicians’ profiles and positive comments were in the major-
ity. Regarding the politicians’ party affiliations, the ruling party members received more negative
comments (397, 20.2%) than those of the opposition party (11, 0.6%). In contrast, opposition
party members obtained more positive comments (676, 34.4%) than those of the ruling party
(332, 16.9%). The results show that Cyworld users tended to react positively to the opposition
party members and negatively toward the government and ruling party. This tendency may be
strongly related to the citizens’ attitude toward politicians on social issues, such as the candlelight
protest and U.S. beef imports.
In terms of gender-identified comments, the relationship between comment type (positive vs.
negative) and gender was investigated. The gender of the poster was determined by scraping his
or her Cyworld profile page on a timed basis to avoid undue server load. Collecting large amounts
of data using this method may result in anonymity issues, and there is no clear means by which to
determine the willingness of those whose data are being collected to participate in the process
(McKee & Porter, 2009). To address these issues, other than the poster’s comments and gender,
no further information was recorded. In some instances, privacy settings on personal profiles pre-
vented gender determination. This resulted in three sets of data for each politician: comments by
male posters, comments by female posters, and comments by posters whose gender could not be
determined. The last set of data was excluded from the analysis.
Regarding positive and negative comments, female users posted relatively high levels of positive
comments (75.5%) than male users (67.3%), whereas male users made more negative comments
(32.7%) than female users (24.5%). In addition, to identify the relationship among gender, comment
type, and user activity, posters were divided into four groups: females contributing positive com-
ments (FP), males contributing positive comments (MP), females contributing negative comments
(FN), and males contributing negative comments (MN).
A Kruskal-Wallis test was used for the analysis. There were significant differences among
the groups: the ‘‘active’’ score (w2 ¼ 22.13, df ¼ 3, n ¼ 805, p < .01), the ‘‘famous’’ score

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(w2 ¼ 27.86, df ¼ 3, n ¼ 781, p < .01), and the ‘‘friendly’’ score (w2 ¼ 42.49, df ¼ 3, n ¼ 817, p
< .01). As a follow-up analysis, Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted to determine specific
group differences. There were several significant differences. The FP group’s user activity was
significantly different from that of other groups (p < .05). The MP group’s user activity was sig-
nificantly different from that of the MN group (p < .05), whereas the MP group’s activity was not
significantly different from that of the FN group (p > .05). The FN group’s activity was not sig-
nificantly different from that of the MN group (p > .05). Thus, the FP group was the most active
group, the FN group’s activity was similar to that of male groups, and the MP group was more
active than the MN group.

Discussion
This study demonstrated the ability of a combined content analysis technique to capture a massive
amount of political communication data generated by social network sites and classified the senti-
ments in citizen comments on Korean politicians’ Cyworld profiles. The results of this study have
some preliminary implications for networked politics on SNSs.
From the semantic network analysis, the main political issues people consider as important were
found. To the expected topics of political policy and current affairs were addressed. Specifically, the
U.S. beef import and candle light protest issues were mentioned many times. Posters also discussed
personal issues such as the social background and private life of the politicians. In addition, citizens
engaging in politics on Cyworld tended to focus on the negative aspects of politicians by mentioning
their mistakes or eliciting controversial arguments related to their offline activities. This article gives
opportunity to mine public opinions and thoughts on particular social issues and collective stance
toward certain politicians.
According to the results of the CONCOR analysis to identify subject matter in comments, posters
appealed to politicians to ban U.S. beef imports for national welfare and health. Most of the sub-
groups were based on politics or specific policies, suggesting that progressivism dominates political
discourse on Cyworld. This tendency was also found in the results of the sentiment analysis. The
results indicate that Cyworld users posted many negative comments to the ruling party members
expressing their anger and concern regarding ongoing government policies. In contrast to this find-
ing, users contributed relatively high numbers of supportive messages to the members of the oppo-
sition party to request changes to controversial policy decisions in response to public opinion. These
results can be seen as evidence that Cyworld plays a significant role as a social platform where peo-
ple try to reconfigure the political landscape in opposition to government power. In that sense, the
innovation model is confirmed in Korean networked politics.
The cultural dimension in Korean politics present in Cyworld is identified through users’
comments. The collectivist identity representative of Eastern culture was discovered in the
comments on political profiles. In detail, group-oriented terms such as ‘‘we’’ and ‘‘our country’’
were frequently used. In addition, cyberterms including symbols and emoticons based on Kor-
ean linguistic characteristics were common even in political contexts. This implies that those
who engage in political profiles tend to consider a SNS as a platform of informal political
discourse.
Additionally, this study examined the characteristics of political participants. The results suggest
a significant relationship among gender, comment type, and Cyworld activity. Specifically, female
users contribute more positive comments than male users. This finding supports previous literature
that females are more likely to engage in positive emotions in socially supportive contexts (Thelwall
et al., 2009). Another finding is that levels of SNS activity are significantly related to gender and
comment types. In this study, female users who posted positive comments ranked higher in the levels
of Cyworld activity than other types of user. Similarly, Schrock (2009) reported that female

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Myspace users seem to be more active and effective communicators in SNS environments.
Similarly, active male users were more likely to leave a positive comment than other less active male
users in this study. This may indicate that people with socially supportive comments are more likely
to actively use SNS sites.
Despite the current study’s contributions to the literature, it cannot be considered as complete and
consistent in its current form. For example, responses of politicians to comments posted on their
minihompys were not captured or analyzed. In addition, aside from their gender, the attributes of
posters commenting on political minihompys, such as their physical location or political ideology,
were not determined. Incorporating such variables into the analysis should result in a better under-
standing of various trends in networked politics on Cyworld.

Conclusion
By combining semantic network analysis (quantitative) and sentiment analysis (qualitative), this
study explored a hidden and rich structure of citizens’ thoughts, concerns, and feelings. Furthermore,
the use of e-research approaches and tools served several purposes. First, they helped to collect and
parse large amounts of longitudinal data efficiently (panel data sets are critical to the evaluation of
online civic engagement). Second, combining qualitative and quantitative methods of e-research not
only maximized the insightful richness of each method but also resulted in additional advantages.
This combined method helped to focus and specify research topics. It would not be possible to trace
some important demographic information on online users (e.g., gender and location) and associate
their profiles with their communication patterns without e-research tools. Furthermore, examining
who frequently expressed what emotions led to a better understanding of various contextual factors
in Korea online politics.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of
this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship
of this article: This research was supported by WCU(World Class University) program through the
National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technol-
ogy (No. 515-82-06574). http://english-webometrics.yu.ac.kr .

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http://ssc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0894439310363255v1

Bios
Se Jung Park (madeinpsj@gmail.com) is a doctoral student in Media & Communication, Yeungnam University,
South Korea. She is a research assistant at WCU Webometrics Institute. She is interested in various computer-
mediated communication and human communication especially on social media including Twitter, Cyworld,
Facebook or blog.
Yon Soo Lim (yonsoolim@gmail.com) is a Post-doc research fellow at WCU Webometrics Institute of
Yeungnam University, South Korea. His Ph.D. was conferred in Communication, University at Buffalo
(SUNY). Currently his interests are social media research and online politics.
Steven Sams (steven.sams@brunel.ac.uk) is a doctoral candidate at the School of Information Systems,
Computing, and Mathematics at Brunel University. He is a research fellow of WCU Webometrics Institute
of Yeungnam University. Currently he focuses on data collection strategies for the analysis of political com-
munication in South Korea.
Sang Me Nam (tkdalggu@gmail.com) is a research assistant at WCU Webometrics Institute of Yeungnam
University, South Korea. Her research focus is cyber-emotion and Internet ethics.
Han Woo Park (hanpark@ynu.ac.kr) is an associate professor in Media & Communication, YeungNam
University. He is the director of WCU Webometrics Institute. Over past several years, he has contributed
important works in the area of Link Analysis (also called Webometrics) from the perspective of Social Network
Analysis.

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