Studies in Informatics and Control Journal (SIC) December 1998
Volume 7 Number 4 (Bucharest).

     Review of Netizens
     NETIZENS: On the History
     and Impact Of Usenet
     and the Internet
     by Boldur Barbat

Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben 
IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, 1997, XVI p. + 346 p.
ISBN 0-8186-7706-6

The book aims at presenting the development and significance of
the participatory global computer network evolving into "an
ambitious look at the social aspects of computer networking. It
examines the present and the turbulent future, and especially it
explores the technical and social roots of the Net". The
readership aimed at, is comprised not only of those who are
already Netizens but - maybe notably - of those who strive
towards getting this status, within the perspective of passing
from the latter condition to the former. So, before moving
forward, let us see where such a gratifying title comes from -
according to Michael Hauben: "My research demonstrated that there
were people active as members of the network, which the words net
citizen do not precisely represent. The word citizen suggests a
geographic or national definition of social membership. The word
Netizen reflects the non-geographically based social membership. 
So I contracted net.citizen to Netizen." Anyhow, the book makes
it evident that the word - as well as its denotation and
ramifications - are here to stay.

The volume is divided into four Parts; each part comprises
between three and six Chapters ordinarily consisting of articles
written over a four-year period (1993-1996) and set up to be read
individually.

The first Part, The Present: What Has Been Created and How, has
four Chapters providing an introduction to the net world: the
effect it has on peoples lives (now, after the moment when the
critical mass of people and interests has been reached), Usenet
(its evolution and goal as "poor mans ARPAnet"), the social
forces behind its development, and the description of the Usenet
(including the conceivable antithetical features of structure
anarchy and the system of rules known as "Netiquette"),
emphasising the advantages of this new world as well as the
possibility of a "more democratic government".

The second Part, The Past: Where Has It All Come From, is the
largest one, being composed of six chapters, and starts with the
"vision of interactive computing and the future" originated by
Licklider and proceeds on describing the foundations of the
cybernetic revolution, time sharing, man-computer symbiosis and
their implications. Chapter 7 looks "behind the Net",
introducing "the untold story of the ARPAnet and computer
science" highlighting the new way of viewing the computer: a
communication device rather than (only) an arithmetic one,
whereas the next Chapter is a comprehensive narrative of the
birth and development of the ARPAnet. The last two Chapters
bring into focus the early history and impact of Unix, and the
roots of the "co-operative online culture", respectively. In one
of its Appendices are listed two Newsgroups appearing in Usenet
in 1982.

The third Part, And the Future?, comprises five Chapters. In
Chapter 11, the National Telecommunications Information
Administration virtual conference on the future of the Net (held
in November 1994) is described as a very significant event,
attempting to create a prototype for a democratic decision-making
process. The next Chapter, with the inciting title "Imminent
Death of the Net Predicted!" - a phrase often used in the past,
by Usenet pioneers, when problems seemed insurmountable -
explains the new problems ensued by the envisaged changes in the
nature, ownership, and oversight of the Net, defending the
principles that place its development into the hands of the
public, educational, and scientific sectors of society (i.e.
considering the privatisation harmful). Chapter 13 investigates
the effect of the Net on the professional news media, under the
metaphor of "Will this kill that?"; its conclusion is rather
optimistic: the user masses becoming "netizen reporters" will
force the acknowledged news media - to avoid being increasingly
marginalized - to evolve a new role, challenging the premise that
authoritative professional reporters (almost always biased,
consciously or not) are the only possible ones. Chapter 14
scrutinises the effect of the Net upon the future of politics,
forecasting the "ascendancy of the Commons" by reason of the new
technologies presenting "the chance to overcome the obstacles
preventing the implementation of direct democracy". The last
Chapter of this part departing from the changes on a world scale,
explores the New York City's online community, showing a snapshot
of "nyc.general", and concluding that, in spite of being problems
online, the advantages are "more important and outweigh the
disadvantages".

The fourth Part, Contributions Toward Developing a Theoretical
Framework, consists of three Chapters. Two of them address
characteristic areas: "The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning"
and "'Arte': An Economic Perspective", respectively. As regards
the first issue, "making a contribution is an integral part of
Netizen behavior" and "both the printing revolution and the Net
revolution have been a catalyst for increased intellectual
activity". With respect to the second question, after
accentuating the role of "Arte" in the production of social
wealth, the authors defend Humes observation that "arte" leads to
intellectual ferment, and, in turn, this ferment "is the needed
support for the development of technology". The last Chapter
merges the consequences of the former ones into a whole,
synthesising them in its title - perhaps the bannerol of the
entire book: "The Computer as a Democratizer", one main idea
being that the "step toward universally available and affordable
access" and "uncensored accessible press" demonstrate that "it is
now possible to meet more of Mills requirements for democracy".

At the end, before the substantial and numerous references, the
Glossary of Acronyms is, particularly for readers outside the
American cultural milieu, an invaluable asset.

Maybe, this condensed passing through the content can give you an
idea about this book, but it could be inconclusive, because the
mesmerising force is originated by - or, better, in - the
multitude of quotations from known, and mostly unknown,
"co-authors", the conventional ones remaining in the background,
as unpretentious editors, devoting themselves to the chore of
task-building. Consequently, "Netizens" becomes rather an
aggregate of articles, than an orchestrated ensemble with its
unbroken composition and, in turn, the articles become a kind of
syncretic and chaotical, but very enthusiastic and, first of all,
very fertile opinion pool. Though, the whole might be seen in
the optimistic view of the Net, as well as the cyberspace it
embodies, as a "meritocratic" environment; the book suggests us a
micro-snapshot of such an ambience. The feeling - intended or
not - is that the book has been written by Netizens for
themselves, as an entreaty, a summons to all readers - whatever
and where ever they are - to join them in the extraordinary world
they live in. Thus, the book employs, at its much smaller scale,
the "large-scale customization" made workable by the Internet it
fights for. By the way, have you seen many books with Foreword,
Preface and Introduction? Yes, the book is full of redundancy and
heterogeneity - just like the Net, just like life itself
(fortunately, some of the redundancies are quite pleasant,
covering most crucial historical moments of the marvelous
phenomenon they depict). Reading it, you will find a very rich
authentication, a host of peoples with a lot of ideas, comments,
proposals and - sometimes - displeasure, rising their voices; you
will discover rather the atmosphere of a "multimodal chat" than
that of a conference with invited papers. So, if you imagined
that you could learn from this book about network programming,
forget it. Yes, the Internet is in there, but as an actor - in
all interpretations of this polysemantic word - not as a
computerised tomography. Thus, paradoxically, the book is
net-centred because it is human-centred, or, pure and simple,
human.

If you read it again - it is in no way a chore - and all seems
all right, nothing is amazing or frightening, then you are
prepared for full Netizenship (of course, you need a computer,
too!). Moreover, from the wording as well as from some rare
photographs, you may scent the flavour of old battles (with
legendary heroes like Wiener, Shannon, McCarthy, Licklider,
Thompson, Ritchie ...), fought for forwarding not only the Net,
but the Computer Science itself. Such a flavour acts in the age
of Netizens as a catalyst for the Information Technology. Thus,
the book can be seen - and used - as a kind of second-degree
catalyst: the written catalyst for the living one...