S.Korea's 'Sunfull Movement' improves online manners

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By Kim Ji-hyun (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-02-04 16:34

A campaign urging people to write positive online postings appears to have had a significant impact on young students, who are frequent users of the Internet, according to a recent survey conducted by the Sunfull Movement and the National Institute of the Korean Language.

"The students we surveyed appeared to have notably cut down on negative postings and adopted more commendable online habits," Sunfull Movement said in a press release.

The survey was conducted on 644 students at 25 elementary, middle and high schools between October and December last year.

Almost 97 percent of the respondents said they refrained from posting derogatory remarks online after they started participating in the Sunfull Movement's campaign.

In a survey conducted before they took part, 75 percent had said they did not tend to make such comments.

Some 25 percent of students answered that they did write negative remarks before they participated in the campaign, but this figure fell to 3.1 percent after they did, the surveys showed.

Further, more students started to post positive comments on the Internet after they experienced the Sunfull campaign.

About 46.4 percent had responded that they have not written favorable remarks before they participated, but after being exposed to the movement, more than 84 percent said they tried to put up such postings.

Mirroring the survey results, a large number of students - 78 percent - said they believed the Sunfull movement helped wipe out negative online postings.

Professor Min Byoung-chul of Chung Ang University initiated and runs the Sunfull Movement, a privately-funded organization devoted to eradicating cyber-bullying.

The campaign has been spreading nationwide, with millions of people including high-profile figures such as celebrities and lawmakers taking part.

Min said he came up with the name "Sunfull" as a play on two words "sun" and "reply" that were merged together to create "sunple" meaning good replies.

Last year, several top celebrities committed suicide allegedly due to groundless online libel. Actress Choi Jin-sil took her life in December, reportedly on rumors that she was involved in the suicide of another fellow celebrity.