Overcoming the Confucian psychological barrier in government cyberspace

The Confucian tradition still dictates the behavior of many people in East Asian countries such as South Korea. Even in e-mail communication, people try their best to show signs of respect which is required by the Confucian tradition. This psychological barrier can be detrimental to the development of democracy as people are educated not to challenge opinions of elders or bosses. After a long military dictatorship, South Korea has emerged as a newly democratized nation where the Confucian tradition is less emphasized. However, this tradition dies hard, and citizens are still afraid of offending government officials who have the power to affect lives of citizens. In light of creating a more democratic society, the e-government project has been implemented, and one of the features of cyber-government is to give citizens a place in cyberspace to express their concerns. Even though citizens have to use their real names, it is found that those who wrote messages in the bulletin board of the city of Seoul government's web pages tend not to use terms that are often used in e-mails for the purpose of expressing respect. A survey was conducted, and results show that people were able to overcome the Confucian psychological barrier in government cyberspace. Self-efficacy is proposed to explain this phenomenon.