One of my primary areas of skepticism around the idea of Smart Mobs is that they seem to lack the follow-through and sustained attention necessary to participate in the civil polity. Smart Mobs may have orchestrated the ouster of a corrupt regime in the Phillipines, but they failed to create a sustained reform movement and consequently, one dictator was quickly replaced by another. (credit where due: This is an objection that Sterling brought to me when I raised this with him, and I haven’t been able to come up with an answer until now.)
Korean net activists slashdotted the most recent election, filling IM and email with messages to get the vote out for a progressive candidate who supported continuing South Korea’s thawing relations with North Korea, and defeated the favored hard-liner candidate, who seemed bent on renewing hostilities.
The Saturday, the Hangyore newspaper in Seoul Korea carried a front-page article entitled, “Youth Politics of the IT Generation Won,” on the role of network connectivity in the recent election. Young supporters of No Mu-hyon flooded the internet with e-mails and saturated text messaging services with calls to get out the vote for No Mu-hyon. The article noted claims by information technology columnist Sin Tong-nyo’k’: that information and power in the mass media and representative democracy were in the past vested in a minority, but have been conferred on the majority by the internet.
(Thanks, Howard!)