President Lee Myung Bak, hardly in office three months, has been caught badly off-guard by the fury swirling in the world's most wired country, which began with a flurry of gripes about importing 'dangerous' US beef and turned into a blizzard of complaints against his brief rule.

'Maybe we have been experimenting with a new type of politics without even knowing it,' said sociology professor Chun Sang Chin of Sogang University.

'The Internet has appeared to many people as the only platform to achieve democracy,' he said.

When Mr Lee won the presidency in December, it was by the biggest margin in a democratic South Korean leadership election.

By the time the anger over beef had mushroomed into the biggest street protests that the capital has seen in 20 years, the former construction company boss had become the most unpopular president at the start of his term that the country has seen.

His approval rating now is barely scraping 20 per cent.

Social and political commentators said allegations that an April deal to import more US beef put society at risk of mad cow disease flooded the Internet and SMS messages before the government or mainstream media had a chance to weigh in.

One early claim, which appeared to win wide credibility in one of the world's most educated societies, was that the homogenous Korean race had a gene which made it particularly susceptible to the disease.

It was based on the paper of a South Korean scientist who later said his thesis was blown out of proportion.

By the time his rebuttal was published in the largest daily, the debate on the Internet had shifted to new fears, such as how easily Korean babies might catch bovine spongiform encephalopathy from diapers made with material from US cattle.

Students, already suspicious of Mr Lee's planned education reforms, were sending each other messages warning of a secret deal to import the supposedly diseased US beef for their school lunches.

'Mad cow madness,' wrote one leading daily, the JoongAng Ilbo, of the fear-mongering. But a growing number of South Koreans paid little heed.

'People are unhappy with the established media's coverage and have created their own,' said Mr Lee Jong Ho, a producer for OhmyTV, part of the OhmyNews and one of several Internet news sites publishing articles, opinion pieces and multimedia material from 'citizen journalists'.

As the technology has evolved, so has the nature of the Internet debate.

'The Internet has generated what can be called 'lifestyle politics'. These are soft, everyday issues that can quickly become major political topics,' said political science professor Kang Won Taek of Soongsil University.

The use of the Internet has also given a new impetus to South Korea's long tradition of mass rallies.

Now, the protesters discuss the best sort of video equipment to use - preferably resistant to hard bumps and bursts from police water cannon - and quickly post video clips and photos while detailing their experiences on blogs.

Observers said that the beef debate has seen the merger of online and offline politics.

Protesters shout slogans and also shoot pictures and videos on their top-end mobile phones that are quickly sent out on the Internet.

They send SMS messages to friends to meet at protests and warn them when the police are starting to arrest people.

REUTERS

SOUTH KOREA'S NATIONALIST REVIVAL, WORLD