Young Cheol Cheon

Communication for Life in Cyberspace: a Christian Ethical Quest in Reference to the Korean Situation Young Cheol Cheon

This book is an interdisciplinary study of communication and theology, and at the same time an integrated study of the West and Asia. This book is based on an Asian mode of thinking to explore answers to the research question: ?What is the meaning of communication for life in Cyberspace? - A Christian ethical quest in reference to the Korean situation.? This book examines the ecumenical discussion on theology of life and East Asian traditional perspectives such as Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Tonghak, on life and its relationship with communication. In this book, the author suggests three basic dimensions of communication for life: first, communication for life is to overcome anthropocentrism in communication because all living beings are communicating entities; second, communication for life is to overcome communication for death and to bring mutual life to the human society and the entire cosmos; and third, Communication for life is not fragmentary. In linking up human beings and other living beings, as well as the East and the West, it is holistic, integral communication. This book applies this value of communication for life to analyze the ethical problematics in Cyberspace communication with the economic, political and cultural dimensions. The author contends that communication for life in Cyberspace means to support people?s life together in love through Cyberspace communication. In addition, this book analyzes the positive role of Cyberspace communication through close examination of two prominent cases in South Korea: the highly successful citizen participatory journalism of ?OhmyNews? and the largest social network site in Korea ?Cyworld?.