If Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton had a personal homepage of bubble-faced cartoon figures frolicking near a waterfall, would her approval ratings go up?

Grand National Party Chairwoman Park Geun Hye’s mini-homepage (www.cyworld.com/ghism) on the popular South Korean Web site Cyworld (which is similar to sites like Xanga or MySpace in the United States) has received more than 2.3 million hits since it was launched a year ago. Viewers leave comments after reading up on her latest post in her diary or sampling some of her music picks on the jukebox. The site also features her baby photos, pictures of her home and daily activities, with captions she wrote herself.

The idea is that providing a glimpse into politicians’ personal lives would produce a more civic-minded constituency. Voters in theirs 20s and 30s, South Korea’s most avid Internet users, will comprise nearly 50 percent of the voting populace in the 2007 presidential election, according to the National Election commission.

Kim Duk Kyu, a 40-year veteran of the Korean political scene, was resistant to adapting. But since creating his own Web site five years ago, the National Assembly vice speaker can hardly function without it. His site features a résumé of sorts, a bio, his policies and his schedule. He also monitors a discussion board.

With broadband access readily available in South Korea, new technologies like Internet-based video telephone service, which these models are demonstrating, are able to reach the nation’s telecommunications market more quickly.

Seoul Mayor Lee Myung Bak and Health and Welfare Minister Kim Geun Tae are also avid Internet network members.

The Internet is also widely used as a forum for debate between politicians, with increasingly more lawmakers and Cabinet members openly criticizing each other online. One parliamentary official cautioned: “Although debates can be activated in an open environment, the Web sites can also be used as self-promotional tools for politicians, or be abused by opponents with inappropriate postings. There is no mediating tool to screen out insulting or aggressive writing by people, or even some of the more radical political opinions.”

Internet use in South Korea has far surpassed its humble beginnings. When KT Corp. established the country’s first commercial Internet service in 1994, there was less than one Internet user per 100 persons. Now, South Korea has the world’s third-highest Internet penetration rate, with 63.3 percent of the nation’s 48 million people online, according to the International Telecommunications Union. Iceland is first at 67.5 percent and Sweden is second at 63.8 percent.

South Korea also boasts being the world leader in broadband Internet connectivity, with 84 percent of its 30 million Internet subscribers getting online via digital subscriber lines (DSL) and cable modems.

The government is trying to get the country even more wired with a recent project called the broadband convergence network (BcN), which will integrate wired and wireless communications, broadcasts and data transmission. Once finalized, BcN would allow people to connect to the Internet from a wide range of terminals. Government officials project that, if successfully implemented, BcN would provide Internet access with nationwide coverage at speeds of 50 megabits per second (Mbps) to 100 Mbps — about 50 times faster than current broadband services. BcN adaptation is slated for early 2006.