The Amateur
Computerist
Spring 2009 Netizens and New Forms of Journalism Volume 17 No. 1
Table of Contents
Editorial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1
Internet, Netizens, and Journalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2
Candlelight 2008. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4
China: Netizen Impact.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13
Citizen Journalism Organizational Context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 22
Democratizing Innovation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 30
Report on IR9.0 Netizen Session. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 42
Report from Copenhagen IR9.0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 46
One Decade of the Net Citizen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 52
Honoring Ronda Hauben. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 63
Homo Neticus not Homo Economicus
The occasion for this issue is a panel that was part of the Ninth
Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers which
took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from October 15 to 18, 2008. This
issue of the Amateur Computerist documents the presentations made at
that panel, “The Internet, Netizens, and Journalism: Do Netizens Make
Possible New Forms of Journalism?”
Besides contributions from each of the panelists, the issue includes
reports about the panel in an online newspaper and a blog. Also we
include an interview of Ronda Hauben by Guenter Hack, the editor of
Radio Austria International website site for technical computer users,
about the publication of the book Netizens. Ronda also was honored to
be one of those nominated for the Ada Lovelace award for women in
Webpage: http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/
Page 1
technology. The nomination article is included as well.
Along with the presentations on netizen journalism in China and
South Korea made as part of the panel, was Ulla Rannikko’s presenta-
tion on citizen journalism, and Anders Ekeland’s presentation on
participatory technical design. In his presentation, Ekeland introduced
the concept of homo neticus as the alternative to the more traditional
economic concept of homo economicus. While homo economicus is
traditionally the paradigm of the egoistic, short sighted economic
individual, homo neticus presents the world with the active, innovative,
collaborative alternative of the netizen.
[The following Abstract describes the panel that was presented at the 9th
Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. The titles
of the four papers and the biographies of the four presenters follow the
Abstract.]
The Internet, Netizens, and
Journalism: Do Netizens Make
Possible New Forms of Journalism?
Abstract
In his pioneering research about the impact of the Internet, Michael
Hauben recognized that the participatory nature of the Net made
possible a new form of citizenship, a non geographic form. He called the
people who were developing this new form of citizenship, netizens.
1
What would be the impact of this new phenomenon? Hauben
investigated several areas where the impact of this phenomenon was
particularly striking. One of these areas was journalism. What impact
would this new form of non geographic citizenship, would netizens have
on the news media? Would netizens make possible a new form of
journalism? The Net “gives the power of the reporter to the Netizen”
Hauben wrote.
2
Page 2
The papers in this panel explored what the nature of this power is.
One paper considered the long desired goal of the press to act as a
watchdog to challenge the abuse of power. Are netizens making such a
press possible? Another paper looked at events in China where netizen
online activity has led to changes in media practice and government
policy. The paper explored whether the Internet and netizens are helping
to expose social and political problems in
China and helping to clarify what is needed for their solution.
Another paper looked at the participatory nature of the Internet
through the perspective of the South Korean OhmyNews International
(this is the English edition of the Korean OhmyNews) and Indymedia in
Finland. The paper addressed, by examining citizen reporters’ practices,
the possibilities and constraints of participation online. While the
participatory nature of the Net makes possible these experiments in the
field of journalism, it also facilitates other forms of interactive explora-
tion. A paper in our panel explored how interactive participation impacts
economic development, especially in the field of innovative design.
The panel discussed internet related developments in four countries.
The panel focused on how the concept and role of netizens and the
Internet are contributing to a different more participatory model of
democracy. It raised the question of how this crosses national boundaries
and geographic limitations.
Titles and Brief Biographies
1. Netizen Journalism as Watchdog Journalism (Ronda Hauben)
Ronda Hauben, is co-author of Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the
Internet, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, 1997. She is a researcher and
writer. Currently she is a featured writer for OhmyNews International and is a
correspondent covering the U.N.
2. China: Netizen impact on Government Policy and Media Practice (Jay Hauben)
Jay Hauben is an internet historian and editor of the Amateur Computerist. His
published writings include biographies and historical articles especially about the
Internet and communications technology. He has worked for the last 14 years in the
Libraries of Columbia University.
3. The Relation Between Citizen Journalism and Its Organizational Context: The Cases
of Indymedia in Finland and OhmyNews International (Ulla Rannikko)
Page 3
Ulla Rannikko is a Ph.D. candidate in Media and Communications at the London
School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests include alternative
media, journalism, social aspects of the Internet and media activism.
4. Democratizing Innovation through the Internet? (Anders Ekeland)
Anders Ekeland, Economist from University of Oslo, also studied Computer Science,
History and Czech Language. As the head of the department for innovation indicators
and statistics at The Norwegian Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and
Education (NIFU STTEP), Ekeland has done research on innovation in various fields,
especially ICT related. His research includes evaluation of Norwegian Broadband
policy, use of Internet in political parties and issues related to semantic Web.
Notes:
1. See for example, Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, 1997
and online:
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
2. Michael Hauben, “The Effect of the Net on the Professional News Media,” in
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, and online at:
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x13
[This is a slightly edited version of a talk given in Copenhagen on Oct
17, 2008 at the 9
th
annual conference of the Association of Internet
Researchers (The tag for the conference is IR9)]
Candlelight 2008 and the 15
th
Anniversary of ‘The Net and Netizens’
by Ronda Hauben
This year, 2008 is the 15
th
anniversary of the publication of “The
Net and Netizens” by Michael Hauben on the Internet in the summer of
1993. Michael posted this paper in four parts because it was fairly long.
It was based on research he had done about the Internet by asking people
questions about how they were using the Net in that period of the early
1990s. Also at the time there was some use of the term net.citizen on the
net. Michael contracted the term net.citizen into the term netizen. Based
on the responses and his analysis of them, Michael wrote a paper
Page 4
defining what he called the netizen.
His paper was spread around the Net by the Usenet software
network and by people forwarding it to each other via e-mail. People
embraced the concept of netizen to describe the social and political
phenomenon that Michael had identified in his paper. To be a netizen is
not a passive identity. Rather a netizen is an active participant in the
affairs of the Net and ultimately of the world.
Often when people online were acting in a manner socially
empowered by the Net, they would call themselves netizens.
1
Identifying
as a netizen has become an identity some people have embraced. They
consider themselves to be netizens.
In a recent book,
2
netizen is described as a political concept. The
impression is given that the concept showed up on the net more or less
spontaneously. That is not accurate. Before Michael’s work, the word
netizen was rarely, if ever used. After his paper “The Net and Netizens”
circulated widely, the use of the concept netizen became increasingly
common. It was a whole process of research, of summarizing the
research and analyzing it, and then putting the research back online and
people embracing it. This was the process by which the foundation for
the concept of a netizen identity was first established on the Internet in
the early and mid 1990s.
The early 1990s was also a time when the privatization of the
Internet was being actively promoted by commercial interests and U.S.
government officials. Spreading the consciousness of oneself as a
netizen became part of the fight defending the public essence of the Net
from the attack by commercial interests. The result was that an under-
standing of the origin and development of the concept of netizens has in
various ways been suppressed by those forces who wanted to promote
the commercial domination of the Internet.
3
In “The Net and Netizens,” Michael wrote that the Net represents
a significant new development. “We are seeing a revitalization of
society,” he explained. “The frameworks are being redesigned from the
bottom up. A new, more democratic world is becoming possible.” This
new world had a number of characteristics that he outlined. He described
a situation where “the old model of distribution of information from the
central Network Broadcasting Company is being questioned and
Page 5
challenged. The top-down model of information being distributed by a
few for mass consumption is no longer the only news.”
4
Michael explained how “people now have the ability to broadcast
their observations or questions around the world and have other people
respond.”
The computer networks, he wrote, “form a new grassroots connec-
tion that allows excluded sections of society to have a voice. This new
medium is unprecedented. Previous grassroots media have existed for
much smaller groups of people….”
The Net, Michael argued, was providing netizens with the ability to
create the content and to set the agenda for what is to be discussed. Thus
netizens had the power to not only determine the content for discussion
forums but also to design the forms that online discussions take.
Michael wrote elsewhere that in its simplest form this characterizes
democracy, making ‘The Net and Netizens’ a significant model for a
democratic society. It is not elections that is the essence of democracy,
where certain candidates are put forward once every 4 or 5 years so you
can vote for them. But democracy is where you can be active participat-
ing and where what you say has some effect on what happens. The
netizen is a participant in this continuous exercise of democracy. That
is what I understand to be more appropriately considered a model of
democracy.
Another one of the earliest pieces Michael wrote was looking at an
article James Mill, who was the father of John Stuart Mill, wrote in 1825
about Freedom of the Press. Mill wrote that government officials are
going to be corrupt. They cannot help it because they are put in a
situation where they have power. Therefore a means is needed to
monitor the actions of those with power. Mill argued that society needs
a press that is a watchdog. The Net, Michael wrote, makes such a
watchdog possible now.
Remember that “The Net and Netizens” was first posted online in
1993. The conceptual understanding it proposed when the article was
posted was something new. The question to be raised is how much of
this is possible to fulfill? How accurate was what Michael understood of
the potential of the Net and of the netizen to make a more democratic
world possible?
Page 6
I want to come back to our current times. What is happening now?
I have found that it is very important to follow South Korea if one
is interested in the development of the netizen.
In 2003 I read an article in the Financial Times that said that the
new South Korean President had been elected by netizens.
What happened was that in 2002, netizens in South Korea made it
possible to elect as the president someone from outside of the main-
stream political establishment. Roh Moo-hyun was elected for a five
year term as the President of South Korea.
In 2004 the National Assembly tried to impeach him and netizens
again took up the fight this time against the impeachment. One of the
means of fighting for democracy in South Korea are candlelight
demonstrations. An activist in South Korea told us that they had taken
inspiration from the candlelight demonstrations in Leipzig, Germany
that helped to reunite Germany.
In 2008, there were over 100 days of candlelight demonstrations in
South Korea, which started on May 2.
On May 2, 2008 I was in Seoul. I left on May 3. (I had been in
South Korea for 9 days). On May 2, a new set of candlelight demonstra-
tions began.
I did not go to the demonstration on May 2. But I do have a sense
what was happening at the time from talking to people I know while in
South Korea in April and early May. It was obvious that something was
going to happen, just not when. And so I was not surprised. But I think
what did happen is very important and if you look at this poster what
you see is Candlelight Girl and her army.
The first candlelight demon-
stration on May 2 was called by
middle school girls and high
school students using their cell
phones and a fan website on the
Internet to announce that there
was going to be a candlelight
demonstration.
The demonstration was part
of an effort to impeach the new
Page 7
president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak who had won the election in
December 2007. (Internet posts about the election by netizens had been
the object of censorship by the South Korean government from June -
December 2007.) In April 2008, Lee Myung-bak, came to the U.S. and
signed an agreement with George Bush to give the beef lobby in the U.S.
Congress what they wanted. The agreement ended the former restric-
tions on the export of U.S. beef to South Korea. It eliminated the
regulations that existed to provide precautions with regard to the danger
of mad cow disease or other worries about unhealthy beef. Virtually all
the restrictions were to be removed.
There were articles and a TV investigation program about this
development in the news in Korea. Middle school and high school
students who were already upset about the quality of the school lunches
they get, felt this was only going to add to their problem of poor quality
food in school. Also there was already an impeachment petition being
circulated online as the new president and the program he was promot-
ing led many in South Korea to fear that he would be taking South Korea
backwards to its autocratic past. The candlelight demonstrations were a
sign that many in South Korea saw the actions of the new president as
a difficult problem for their country.
The Role of OhmyNews
In August 2008, Oh Yeon-ho who is the CEO and the founder of
OhmyNews gave a talk in the U.S. about the candlelight 2008 demon-
strations. OhmyNews is mainly an online newspaper that has committed
itself to be a 21
st
century newspaper.
The Korean edition of OhmyNews combines articles submitted by
its regular staff with those submitted by people from around the world,
from the Korean-speaking population and then decides which will be put
on its front pages. The Korean edition has a substantial regular staff, as
opposed to the smaller English edition which is mainly based on
contributions of articles by non-staff voluntary journalists from around
the world. The Korean edition of OhmyNews is a major newspaper in
South Korea.
There has been a very proud tradition of protest and sacrifice in
South Korea. In 1987 the South Korean people got rid of the military
Page 8
dictatorship. And it has been a hard fight since then. But it’s only in the
last 10 years that people have felt that they’ve had some minimal level
of democracy. In his talk, Oh Yeon-ho explained that people had
committed themselves to using the internet to try to guarantee and
spread that democracy.
OhmyNews played an important role in the 2008 candlelight
demonstrations. It started OhmyTV. Because of OhmyTV I was able to
watch the candlelight demonstrations in my kitchen in the Bronx in New
York City. I don’t speak Korean but I could have a good idea of what
was happening. I could chat using the Internet to talk to a former editor
of OhmyNews who is in London. She and I would write back and forth
to each other about what was happening in the demonstrations.
OhmyNews had 24 hour coverage at times and they provided not only
coverage on OhmyTV of the demonstrations, but also articles and photos
on their web pages about the demonstrations. Also they had articles in
English on the English edition of OhmyNews about the demonstrations.
I found the coverage helpful and inspiring.
Though netizen is not a Korean word, it has been adopted in Korea.
People use the word netizen to describe when they are active defending
democracy using the Internet. Netizens in South Korea took on to
broadcast whatever was going on. They would use text messages sent
via their cell phones or their laptops. They would discuss what was
happening online.
A report about the demonstrations by France24 was particularly
helpful. The reporter recognized what was happening. France24
presented a netizen with his laptop. Even when the police were using
water cannons attacking the demonstrators you could often see someone
with plastic over his laptop trying to film what was going on. People
took their cameras, their cell phones and their laptops however they
could, they would broadcast on the Internet what was happening. They
would get broadcasts back from other people at other areas of the
demonstrations. Along with the OhmyTV broadcasts, there were many
other sources of broadcasts, as for example via the Korean online video
portal Afreeca or via “YouTube.” People who weren’t at the demonstra-
tion would discuss what they saw and interact with the demonstrators via
their computers or cell phones. As one person explained to me, netizens
Page 9
would go with their laptops to the demonstration. They could be at the
demonstration and online at the same time. So online and offline reality
came together in a lot of ways for a number of people during these
demonstrations.
I was told that the demonstrations were different from the prior
tradition of demonstrations. In South Korea, there is a tradition of
militant demonstrations in the struggle for democracy. The demonstra-
tions in 2008, however, were festivals. There were people of all ages,
men, women, and children at the demonstrations. People would bring
their instruments. For example, in one situation, in the middle of the
police attacking demonstrators, some people began to play their
accordions. At other times, there would be singing, there would be
dancing. There was debating. There was something called a free speech
stage that developed. People would line up for a chance to speak. Others
would listen and react to the speakers. And the demonstrators became
the press, so they were no longer dependent on how their demonstrations
were reported in the traditional media.
These were an important set of activities. But in order to understand
what happened it is crucial to recognize that South Korea is advanced in
terms of the Internet.
South Korea is among the most advanced nations in having the
highest number of people connected with broadband access. So it’s my
sense that what happens in South Korea represents a glimpse into the
future in terms of what’s possible when a large number of people in a
country have access to high speed broadband connectivity.
If the Internet can spread and spread widely and if there’s inexpen-
sive wireless available, that is very helpful because if people have the
internet and can write, film and carry on discussions about what is
happening in the world, this can function as a watchdog over what is
happening. At times during the candlelight demonstrations, the
widespread media coverage proved to be a protection for people from
the arbitrary actions of the police.
One such example is demonstrated by events that took place in
Seoul on June 10 and 11. A very big demonstration was planned for June
10 to celebrate the victory over the military government in South Korea
in June 1987. Some estimate as many as 600,000 to 700,00 people were
Page 10
expected and actually participated in the demonstration in Seoul. What
the government did to prepare for the demonstration was to try to
blockade the president’s house, which is called the Blue House, to keep
the demonstrators from marching to the Blue House. The police put up
barriers. They put out a number of shipping containers and filled them
with sand which was reported to have weighed 40 tons each. The police
put grease on the barriers so people would not be able to climb over
them.
The netizens named this structure “Myung-bak’s castle.” They even
made a wikipedia entry for “Myung-bak’s castle” as a landmark of
Seoul.
They decorated this new landmark of Seoul.
Below is a photo of what hap-
pened later, after the June 10
demonstration, from 12 midnight
on June 11 until 5:30 a.m. On
one side of the barrier is the
crowd of people discussing what
should they do about the barri-
ers. On the other side of the ship-
ping containers, there are buses
filled with police and police out-
side the buses guarding the
President’s house.
The photo shows how peo-
ple had brought blocks of Styro-
foam to be able to go over the
police barricade. But there was a
5-1/2 hour debate over what to
do at the site of the demonstra-
tion with people lining up on
both sides of the debate. Through the discussion people decided not to
go over the barricade for a number of reasons. People felt it was too
dangerous to go over it. Instead several people with their banners went
up on the barricade.
The people who went up on the barrier did so to show that they
Page 11
could have gone over it if they wanted to but that they had decided not
to.
The last photo presents
the contrast between
WHAT IS SUPPOSED to
be democracy, which is the
side of the barricade pro-
tecting the President from
communicating with the
people.
And WHAT IS democ-
racy, which is the people
communicating with each
other to determine what
action is in the interest of
the people on the other side
of the blockade. People on-
line wrote about how im-
portant this all was to them,
to see that there could be a
discussion especially where people had real differences. This was
significant in two ways:
First, the discussion made it possible to decide how to resolve the
differences to come to a decision among all of them.
Second, they cooperatively determined how to construct a structure
that would enable them to carry out their decision. They took the kind
of plastic, cooperative process possible online and utilized it to construct
an offline structure and action.
The discussion and decisions carried out on June 11 were by a
combination of people acting as netizens and as citizens. What they did,
I want to propose, represents an important achievement and serves as a
fitting celebration of the 15
th
anniversary of the publication online of
“The Net and Netizens.”
Page 12
Notes:
1. I say ‘socially’ because the concept of netizen refers to having a concern for the well
being of others, not only for one’s own concerns and interests.
2. Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines, Mark
Poster, Durham, NC, 2006, p. 78.
3. For example, we had difficulty getting the book Netizens published and distributed
widely.
4. “The Net and Netizens” is the first chapter of the book “Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet.” There is an online version of the book at:
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
China: Netizen Impact on Government
Policy and Media Practice
by Jay Hauben
In this talk, I present two examples where the activity of netizens
has had an impact on Chinese society. I hope to illustrate that active
participation by a critical mass of net users in online discussions can
influence national public opinion, activate the mainstream media, check
actions of the authorities and set some of the political agenda of China.
I submit this as evidence that netizens are beginning to exercise some
political power and contributing to developing Chinese society in the
direction of greater citizen participation.
I. Introduction
Internet adoption in China is still rapidly increasing. It was reported
in July 2008 that there were more than 253 million online users in
China,
1
forty three million more than a year earlier. Over 100 million of
current users read online forums. A still smaller set of net users, less
than 60 million are active contributors to forum and chat room discus-
sions. It is among these users that I would locate net users who are
“netizens.”
1.
Page 13
Netizen as a concept of scholarly interest was first analyzed in the
research of Michael Hauben at Columbia University starting in 1992.
Hauben had participated in the 1980s on local hobbyist run bulletin
board systems (BBS) and in global Usenet newsgroups. He wrote about
“a new social institution, an electronic commons developing.”
2
He
undertook research to explore how and why these communications
forums served as an electronic commons. He posted questions on
newsgroups, mailing lists and portals and found a very high level “of
mutual respect and sharing of research and ideas fostering a sense of
community and participation.”
3
Hauben found there were people online
who actively use and take up to defend public communication, who
oppose censorship and disruptive online behavior. Hauben recognized
this as a form of network citizenship. He contracted “net.citizen” into
“netizen” to express the new online non-geographically based social
identity and net citizenship he attributed to these people.
The self-identity and practice of netizenship spread around the
world. Especially in analyzing the net in China, it is necessary to
distinguish between all net users (wang min) and those users who
participate constructively concerning social and political issues in
forums and chat rooms.
4
This second category comes online for public
rather than simply for personal and entertainment purposes. They act as
citizens of the net (wang luo gong min) and are the netizens of this talk.
The distinction must be emphasized because the Chinese characters for
network people wang min are very often translated into English as
“netizens.” In the examples I will now read, I strictly adopt the second
usage. Netizens are net citizens, not all net users.
5
II. Examples
6
My first example is the case of The Death of Sun Zhigang
7
(2003)
To help control migration of rural people to the cities, the Chinese
government had in place for more than 20 years, “Measures for
Internment and Deportation of Urban Vagrants.”
8
On March 17, 2003,
a college graduate from the city of Wuhan working away from home in
the city of Guangzhou was stopped for an identity check. He was
detained under these measures because he did not have the temporary
residence card he was asked to show. In the police station he contacted
Page 14
two friends who came quickly to vouch for him and his employed status.
The police would not release him. Three days later his friends tried to
contact him and were notified that he died from a heart attack. After
learning of Mr. Sun’s death, his relatives and friends contacted the local
police for an explanation but received no definite answer as to what
happened.
With financial help from Mr. Sun’s former classmates, his family
was able to have an autopsy performed which indicated that Mr. Sun
was brutally beaten before his death. One of the classmates who was
studying media in Beijing posted an appeal for help concerning Mr.
Sun’s death on a cyber forum for discussion among media professionals
from all over China. A journalist working for the South Metropolitan
Daily took the post as a lead and decided to initiate interviews of the
family and authorities involved.
9
About one month after the death, a
detailed report about it appeared in the South Metropolitan Daily with
the headline, “University graduate detained and cruelly beaten to death
for not showing temporary residence card.”
10
On the same day, the
journalist also made the report available online on the Southern Net
news site.
11
Following the reports, the news was picked up by editors of other
online news portals. The net was quickly flooded with anger at the death
and appeals for justice. Major national forums
12
featured extensive
discussions of the detention system, the death of Mr. Sun and its
implications. Other netizens commented about the obvious injustice and
denial of his constitutional rights. Portal sites made the case a Hot Topic
where links to related stories were gathered. Chinese language forums
outside of China were also used for discussions and analysis of the case.
A memorial page was launched by a software engineer. It eventually
received over 200,000 visits, many visitors leaving comments, messages
of sadness and some money donations to the family. Some comments
gave examples of other cases of police brutality. Others went further,
demanding an end to the official policy that treated migrants as lower
class citizens.
The intense online reaction influenced further reporting first by big
non-governmental media and then by the mainstream national media,
feeding more online ferment. A special committee was formed by the
Page 15
Guangzhou government to investigate Sun’s death. The subsequent blunt
denial by the police of responsibility enraged many netizens. Their
reaction was critical comments now focusing on the weakness of the
investigation procedures.
Contributions of articles, responses, comments and calls for action
appeared online from activists, lawyers, and academics all of whom had
no other option where to publish their critical analysis. Online news
articles typically received tens of thousands of responses. Live chat
discussions formulated demands for a thorough investigation, punish-
ment for those involved, change or abolition of vagrancy measures, and
an immediate end to deportations. The combination of online outrage
and mainstream media coverage made the case a topic of household
conversation everywhere in China. People’s Daily began to publish
selected netizen comments in its online news site. Pressure from online
communities, social groups and the central government gave the local
officials no choice but to initiate a more serious investigation. The
investigators acknowledged that netizen pressure added to their
determination, resulting in thirteen arrests reported. An open trial from
June 5 to 9 ended with 12 convictions of guards at the detention center
and some of the detainees. There was one death sentence. Twenty-three
governmental officials and police officers were disciplined for their
roles in the death and lack of action after it.
Even after the arrest, online petitions were circulated and online
protest letters were addressed to the National People’s Congress calling
for abolition of the current custody and repatriation system. Such letters
virtually never appear in Chinese off line media. On May 15, a netizen
posted an article, “On the Violation of ‘Legislation Law’ by the Holding
System: The Case of Sun Zhigang” on a site maintained by the govern-
ment which was followed by an online examination of the existing anti-
vagrancy laws. On June 18, after over 20 years of enforcement, the State
Council decide to abolished the 1982 Measures under which Mr. Sun
had been detained. New measures were initiated which did not allow for
detention but required a system of help for homeless people be available
on a voluntary basis.
The collaboration of netizen and traditional media set the news
agenda and helped public opinion to form so that the death of Sun
Page 16
Zhigang, an ordinary person, was given extensive national coverage.
This led to the relatively quick end of a long standing oppressive and
discriminatory law. One scholar described this as “one of the first cases
of popular opinion overriding and resetting official agendas and the first
demonstration of the sociopolitical power of Chinese netizenship.”
13
Another event in 2003 was the BMW Incident (2003)
On Oct 16, 2003, two farmers, Liu Zhongxia and her husband, rode
their tractor loaded with onions through a narrow street in Harbin,
capital city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China. The tractor
accidentally scrapped the rearview mirror of a car parked on the side of
the street. The car was a BMW owned by Su Xiuwen’s businessman
husband. Ms. Su caused a commotion haranguing the two farmers
because of the damage to her husband’s expensive car. Then she got
back into the car and drove it into the crowd which had gathered because
of the commotion. Ms. Liu was killed and 12 bystanders were injured.
Ms. Su was tried in a Harbin court on Dec. 20. None of the
bystanders testified. They had each received money from Ms. Su’s
husband. After two hours, the court ruled Ms. Su had not been properly
handling her car. The death of Ms. Liu was judged accidental. Ms. Su
was given a two year sentence which was suspended. There was brief
local media coverage of the trial and it seemed it would pass as a fatal
traffic accident, one of many every day in every country.
But two days after the trial, a post about the case appeared on the
Strong Nation Forum, “Attention: The BMW killed a farmer.” The
person posting made three main points: 1) Ms. Su was related to a high
ranking official. 2) Ms. Su had killed Ms. Liu deliberately. 3) The trial
did not follow legal procedures. The post unleashed a wide spread
questioning and discussion of the case throughout Chinese language
cyberspace. Soon there were over 70,000 comments and opinions
relating to the case on one portal alone. Many netizens saw in the
incident a posing of the questions of rich versus poor in China, and
justice versus corruption.
Within two weeks the BMW incident became the online hottest
topic in the China. Journalists from out side the province who followed
the online commotion went to Harbin to investigate and report for their
newspapers. After January 8, China’s mainstream national media began
Page 17
intensive coverage. After all this attention, local authorities and legal
organs began a reinvestigation.
The online uproar over the case put it on the national news agenda
and offered an alternative framing to that of the court and the local
media. Almost half of the early posts looked for “behind the scenes”
reasons for Ms. Su’s light sentence. Less than ten percent accepted the
court’s decision. Other netizens sought to understand the underlying
causes. Some suggested remedies like greater government accountability
to public opinion.
There was a growing call for the authorities to open a new investi-
gation and hold a new trial. When it was reported in the press that
province officials promised “a satisfactory solution to the ‘BMW case’
will be offered to the public,” a post on the Strong Nation Forum titled
“Why should we trust you?” precipitated a cynical thread casting doubt
on the credibility of the officials.
14
More and more the question raised
was what kind of China do we want? A netizen with the alias stellyshi
commented that history shows that “…justice originates with the truth.
But now in the world, or in China, the truth means nothing. In modern
China, with power and money, you can say anything as you like. Even
you can kill one person as you want. So, what is this? Is this fare (sic)?
Is this so-called socialist country? I don’t think so. Never!!!…”
15
The hundreds of thousands of online posts took many forms
including analysis, argumentation, poems, novels, dramas, letters,
animations, and jokes. Most posts were sympathetic to Ms. Liu and
hostile to Ms. Su. For many netizens, Ms. Su and Ms. Liu, the BMW and
the onion cart became symbols of the growing gap and the character
differences between the rich and the poor in China. While much
coverage in the mainstream media called for government transparency
and social improvement, a major direction taken in netizen posts was to
raise the question of the direction in which China should be going. The
mainstream media called for step-by-step social improvement, the online
discussion raised deeper systemic questions.
The off line media and the government in response to the massive
netizen activity took more action then they would have. A new investi-
gation was promised and a retrial of Ms. Su. But by mid January the
government forbad the mainstream media from any further coverage. It
Page 18
also required the deletion of some and finally all old posts and any new
netizen contributions on the major forums and portals. At the new trial
there was no greater penalty for Ms. Su and the monitoring and deleting
of BMW related posts caused online attention to shift to other incidents
and issues including net censorship.
In this incident all the netizen activity did not lead to a different
legal outcome. But it was another example that ferment around a not
very uncommon event can lead to examination of contradictions buried
in society. It is arguable that this netizen uprising had an effect on
Chinese society regardless of the legal outcome or the deletion of
hundreds of thousands of netizen comments. And in September 2004,
the Fourth Session of the Sixteenth CCP Central Committee rejected the
long standing policy orientation “efficiency first” which had been
criticized by some netizens who in the course of their uprisings traced
the specific problem to this systemic root.
16
Discussion
Every year since 2003, there has been dozens of such national
netizen uprisings and commotions around social and political issues,
sometimes exposing fraud or corruption or questioning government
actions or explanations, sometimes discussing foreign events like
disruption of the Olympic touch relay. They have become a normal
aspect of Chinese society.
The Chinese government has signaled its support for active posting
on forums.
17
Government officials at all levels are encouraged to take
part in forums or on blogs. Government related news sites tolerate very
active and often highly critical forum discussions. President Hu Jintao
and Premier Wen Jaibao both said publicly that netizen activity at the
time of SARS was helpful. Summaries of each day’s hottest netizen
activity are made for the State Council. The dominant stress of censor-
ship reported by media outside of China misses this level of support and
the rapidly expanding new use for social and political discussion and
debate.
Often ahead of the mainstream media, netizen up risings set the
news agenda. Local events are given by netizen activity national or
international attention. In alliance with more independent journalists and
Page 19
editors, online issues can spread to the main stream national media and
to the whole Chinese people. Netizen critical framing of issues differs
from government and mainstream media framing. When popular opinion
is formed about these issues it often follows the netizen rather than the
government or media framing. The fight around censorship is creative
and spirited. A possible result is that the percent of net users who view
forums is increasing.
Some journalists come online for their leads and to find contacts to
interview. Some are emboldened by netizen exposures and numbers to
dig deeper and take on more controversial topics. The result is the media
environment in China is livelier than in societies with less netizen
activity even if those societies have less media supervision and
guidance.
Setting the agenda, framing issues and arousing public opinion are
all aspects of political power in modern society. That the netizens in
China are able occasionally to play these roles suggests a political
dynamism in Chinese society that is often denied by critics of China.
Netizen activity in China is relatively recent. It has many obstacles
including a trend toward nationalism and a contest over supervision and
control. But it is fertile soil for scholarly attention. My intention with my
examples was to attract such attention. One precaution is the need for
collaborations that include Chinese speaking colleagues. I look forward
to the results.
Thank you.
Notes
1.
http://www.cnnic.com.cn/html/Dir/2008/07/31/5247.htm
2. “Preface: What is a netizen” in Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and
the Internet, Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los
Alamitos, CA, 1997, p. ix. Also, an earlier version is online at:
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.xpr
3. Ibid.
4. Forum software hosted on internet accessible servers allows for sequential and
threaded online text discussions which can be monitored and moderated. Similarly
hosted chat room software allows for simultaneous multiple participant real time text
conversations. In China, most forums allow alias registration and are often archived.
Page 20
Chat room sessions are ephemeral and are not easily monitored.
5. My usage is similar to that of Haiqing Yu who writes, “I use ‘netizen’ in a narrow
sense to mean ‘Net plus citizen.’ or ‘citizen on the net.’ Netizens are those who use the
Internet as a venue for exercising citizenship through rational public debates on social
and political issues of common concern.” (Haiqing Yu, “From Active Audience to
Media Citizenship: The Case of Post-Mao China,” Social Semiotics, 16 (2), June 2006.
http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/10350330600664888 (access restricted))
I add, however, that netizens are not only ‘citizens on the net’ but also ‘citizens of the
net’ signifying those who actively contribute to the development and defense of the net
as a global communications platform.
6. There are approximately 34 million Chinese speaking people living outside of
mainland China, many take a keen interest in social and political issues in China. Those
online often participate in forums, chat rooms and blogs hosted on servers in China and
outside. In the examples that follow it is likely netizens outside of China have
participated.
7. This case is well covered in the scholarly literature. See for example, Ibid, Tai, pp.
259-268 and other references in the following notes.
8. Ibid, p. 260.
9. Shaoguag Wang,”Changing Models of China’s Policy Agenda Setting,” Modern
China, 2008, 34 p. 79.
http://mcx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/1/56 (access
restricted)
10.
http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2003-04-25/09501015845.shtml. See also, Haiqing Yu,
“From Active Audience to Media Citizenship: The Case of Post-Mao China”, Social
Semiotics, 16 (2), June 2006.
11.
http://news.21cn.com/social/shixiang/2003-04-25/1021755.html
12. Like Strong Nation Forum (qiangguo luntan), Development Forum (fazhan luntan)
and China Youth Forum (zhongqing suntan)
13. Haiqing Yu, “Talking, Linking, Clicking: The Politics of AIDS and SARS in Urban
China,” positions: east asia cultures critique, 15 (1) Spring 2007:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/positions/v015/15/lyu.html (access restricted)
14. Christina Yuqiong Zhuo and Patricia Moy, “Frame Building and Frame Setting:
The Interplay Between Online Public Opinion and Media Coverage,” paper presented
at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Dresden, June
16, 2006:
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p91118_index.html
15. Comment #11 at: http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/redirect.php?tid=39672&goto=lastpost&highlight=
16. Ibid, Shaoguang Wang, note 9, p. 80
17. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been officially promoted
for the last 15 or 20 years as one of the most important driving forces of China’s
economic development. The government and party publicly support the spread of the
Internet and its use by people within China. The result is the rapid spread of the Internet
and its active use, averaging for net users in China almost three hours per day. A
foreign journalist working in Beijing commented that users in China “are usually too
busy enjoying the Internet they have to lament the Internet they do not have.” (Quoted
Page 21
in OhmyNews International,
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=3810
87&rel_no=1). But also, enthusiastic netizens have found ways to minimize the effect
of the censorship. And many of them are using it with the purpose of rational public
debates on social and political issues.
[The following is a script of the presentation made by Ulla Rannikko at
the Netizens panel at IR9.0. Rannikko is a Ph.D. candidate at the London
School of Economics and Political Science. The slides which accompa-
nied her presentation can be seen at:
The Relation Between Citizen
Journalism and Its Organizational
Context: The Cases of Indymedia in
Finland and OhmyNews International
by Ulla Rannikko
Slide 1
I am going to talk about how participatory media organizations,
more specifically Indymedia in Finland and OhmyNews International,
act as social resources for citizen journalists. My paper draws on
face-to-face interviews that I have conducted with citizen reporters and
people facilitating these two websites for my ongoing doctoral research
on citizen journalism. I will call these two organizations by their
abbreviations, hence Indymedia in Finland is VAI and OhmyNews
International is OMNI.
Slide 2
As a general background for my paper, I want to note a few
developments in media in recent years that seem to relate to citizen
journalism.
It has been argued that democratic journalism is in crisis and that
Page 22
people are not always getting the kind of information from the media
they need as citizens. The mainstream media have been criticized for
being misleading and profit oriented. At the same time, media are
struggling to maintain their profit margins. Media are also trying to
adjust to the so-called digital revolution, part of which is that media
content and original sources of information are increasingly available
online and often for free, and the ordinary people are becoming involved
in creating media content. There has been a rise in media activism, the
idea being that it is our democratic right to express ourselves in the
media, or as Hackett and Carroll (2006) have noted, that media activism
is about democratization of the media, not through the media.
But what is citizen journalism, which for some appears to offer at
least a partial solution to what the mainstream media are perceived to be
doing wrong? Citizen journalism tends to be understood to include
blogs, user-created content in the mainstream media and various
participatory media. Not all citizen journalism is online, as, for example,
newspapers publish people’s photos in print format.
Slide 3
I will use as a starting point here a definition by Bowman and Willis
(2003). Their definition of participatory journalism, their preferred term
for citizen journalism is:
“The act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in
the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news
and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independ-
ent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a
democracy requires.” (Ibid, 9)
I am not going to discuss in this presentation what this information
that a democracy needs might be or how citizenship should be under-
stood; instead, what is relevant here is the long list of adjectives that
Bowman and Willis (2003) use to describe the type of information that
citizen journalism should offer.
It seems to me that they have a great many expectations of citizen
journalism. I wonder how often journalism in general succeeds in
offering “independent” – one could ask independent of what – “reliable,
accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information,” yet citizen journalism
Page 23
is expected to be able to do that. Interestingly, in discussions about
citizen journalism, particularly in the mainstream media, it has been
criticized for failing to meet these expectations. Instead, some have
claimed that citizen journalism equates to poor quality and lack of
accountability.
Now we have an idea of what citizen journalism is expected to
provide, but what have media commentators said about how it is
supposed to work? I am going to show you two quotes; the first is by
Dan Gillmor (2006), who is one of the foremost advocates of citizen
journalism. The second is by Andrew Keen (2007), who is not a
proponent of the phenomenon.
Slide 4
“When people can express themselves, they will. When they can do
so with powerful yet inexpensive tools, they take to the new-media
realm quickly. When they can reach a potentially global audience, they
literally can change the world” (Gillmor, 2006, p. xv).
“The simple ownership of a computer and an Internet connection
doesn’t transform one into a serious journalist any more than having
access to a kitchen makes one into a serious cook” (Keen, 2007, 47).
Gillmor (2006, xv) suggests that if people are given the tools, in
turn they “can change the world,” whereas Keen (2007, 47) argues that
not just anyone with a PC and Internet access can be a proper journalist.
But are either of them right?
Slide 5
Gillmor (2006) is right to draw attention to the tools that citizen
journalists need to be able to participate in citizen journalism online. But
I argue that the tools only create the basic conditions, as citizen
journalists must be motivated, and they need skills such as writing skills
and language skills. Some citizen journalists may need support, as not
everyone can be expected to be competent in journalistic writing and, for
example, in taking pictures. This is where participatory media organiza-
tions play a role, as ideally they can act as social resources for citizen
journalists.
Social resources refer to structures, in this case at the mesolevel of
Page 24
organizations, that, I quote, ‘allow people opportunities to form
alliances, create joint accomplishments, and collectively defend their
interests’, as argued by Warschauer (2003, 160), who has written about
social inclusion and the digital divide. My question then is how do
participatory media organizations act as social resources for citizen
journalists? Before I discuss OMNI and VAI, it is worth briefly looking
at what people involved in citizen journalism see as desired skills and
quality in citizen journalism.
Slide 6
“...citizen journalism should aim at the same quality as ‘real’
journalism ...?the skills required are the normal good writing skills,
critical analytical skills and so forth... ?the ‘critical citizen journalism’
part comes from having a slightly different point of view from that of the
mainstream media” (Laakso, 2006, VAI).
“A citizen journalist needs to be able to use solid and consistent
grammar, write in their own voice, and use various resources effectively
to gather as much information as they can about their story” (Hahn,
2007, OMNI).
“...they [citizen journalists] do need to know how to express
themselves. Or they need an editor who can help them” (George, 2007,
OMNI).
The first quote is by a globalization-critical movement activist
(Laakso, 2006) and a reporter from VAI, and the second quote is by a
citizen reporter (Hahn, 2007) for OMNI. As the first two statements
indicate, it seems that citizen journalism should not be that different
from journalism in general, except that writing from a certain perspec-
tive is seen as desirable. Unsurprisingly, good writing skills are seen as
a requirement for citizen reporters. In the third quote, a former OMNI
assistant editor (George, 2007) draws attention to the role of editors in
helping citizen reporters.
I will move now to discuss VAI and OMNI.
Slide 7
VAI was active in Finland for three years at the beginning of this
decade. OMNI is an English language edition of South Korean
Page 25
OhmyNews and the website was launched in 2004. Both VAI and OMNI
aim to empower people to become citizen journalists. Among the key
differences between them is that VAI as part of international Indymedia
network is associated with the alter-globalization movement and its
content tends to reflect this, whereas OMNI offers a broader range of
content from news articles and analysis to film reviews and commentary.
VAI was a volunteer organization, whereas OMNI is owned by a
company. In VAI, people were not paid for their stories, whereas OMNI
pays a small sum to its reporters.
Language is another difference because many Indymedia collec-
tives, such as VAI, tend to operate in a local language, whereas OMNI
operates in English. Indymedia websites are usually city, region or, such
as VAI, country based, whereas OMNI is aimed at a global audience and
has contributors from around the world.
I will discuss next how VAI and OMNI operate and the kind of
support they provide for their citizen reporters.
Slide 8
VAI and OMNI demonstrate different approaches to offering online
space for people’s contributions. VAI by and large followed principles
of open publishing, which means that the editorial decisions are made
transparent to the users and potentially anyone can become involved in
making those decisions, as well as in contributing content. Also, the
filtering and modifying of stories is kept to a minimum. In reality, VAI,
unlike some other Indymedia websites, did not edit stories, although the
website was moderated and, for example, racist and sexist articles and
comments were removed. If the moderators considered something to be
very poorly written, they could return the article to the writer to be tidied
up.
Although some Indymedia collectives train reporters, VAI, as a very
small collective, did not provide training. OMNI has a code of ethics and
style guidelines for reporters available on their website, whereas VAI
only posted very basic editorial principles on the website. Stories that
are published on the OMNI main website go through an editing process,
although they also have a Talk Back forum on their website, which is a
non-edited space for people’s stories. In OMNI, editors can ask reporters
Page 26
to rewrite a story. Based on the interviews, it seems that for OMNI
reporters, getting facts right is very important and they appreciate that
editors do fact-checking. OMNI editors offer advice for citizen journal-
ists mainly through e-mail and online instant messaging, but sometimes
also through voice services available online, such as Skype. Some
reporters are invited to a yearly Citizen Reporters’ Forum in Seoul.
There they get to meet OMNI staff and other reporters. The forum builds
a community feel among OMNI.
80% of OMNI contributors are non-native English speakers
(Thacker, 2007). For editors, this means that correcting articles for
spelling, grammar and punctuation is a central part of their work. For
reporters not confident about their English language skills at the level
required for writing a journalistic piece, help is available. For VAI,
operating in Finnish was likely to encourage participation among Finns.
Obviously, having the website in Finnish made it incomprehensible for
the vast majority of the world’s population and for other Indymedia
readers and collectives. For OMNI, operating in English means that the
website is incomprehensible for the majority of the world’s population.
Estimates of first or second language users of English vary between
eight and eighteen per cent of people (Graddol, 2006, 62).
Slide 9
“You have to learn the art of diplomacy through text because it’s
very easy for people to misinterpret what you’re saying, especially as
often they’re not native speakers either, so it’s a double whammy”
(Thacker, 2007).
“You know, he always answers me as soon as I write to him ...it’s
always better to talk to that person but it’s...you know, when you’re
doing it in that kind of format online, um, that’s the closest it comes to
really being able to interact on a personal level” (Jacquot, 2006).
These two quotes, the first by the senior editor (Thacker, 2007) of
OMNI and the second by a citizen reporter (Jacquot, 2006) for OMNI,
refer to communication between editors and citizen reporters. As the
senior editor notes, it is challenging to communicate in writing,
especially as many of the citizen journalists are not native English
speakers. In the second quote, a citizen reporter points out that speaking
Page 27
in person with editors would be preferable. It is worth noting that
although VAI was a local operation, the collective operated by and large
using mailing lists. Some interviewees identified that this caused
problems because the organization was seen to be too loose.
Slide 10
The cases of OMNI and VAI indicate that language is still a
dividing factor on the Internet. When citizen journalism platforms
choose a language, it means that while they open up access for some,
they close it for others. Computed-mediated communication between
editors and citizen reporters across cultures – this also came up in
interviews with OMNI editors – has challenges, especially if it’s not in
the people’s native language. Interestingly, if a website operates locally,
it does not automatically mean that people meet in person, as the case of
VAI shows. On the whole, reporters for OMNI appreciate input from
editors and clear written guidelines seem to help.
These two cases indicate that the level of support available to
citizen reporters can vary dramatically between citizen journalism
platforms and it may not be enough just to provide a space for citizen
journalism.
Slide 11
Appropriate support may encourage more people to become
involved in citizen journalism, not just those who are confident about
their skills. It seems reasonable to argue that the decisions that are made
at the level of an organization, whether they concern the language of the
content and communication, the editing process, or the training of
citizen reporters, in turn not only affect who contributes to these
websites and how, but also shape the readership, as certainly is the case
with regard to the language.
There are many challenges in responsible citizen journalism. For
example: How to make sure that help is available for those who need it.
How to find volunteer or business models that allow the creation of
support structures. How can participatory media organizations balance
the power and responsibility that come with the territory when they offer
a space for people’s contributions?
Page 28
References:
Bowman, S. & Willis, C. (2003) ‘We media: how audiences are shaping the future of
news and information,’ Report by The Media Center at the American Press Institute.
Available:
http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php (accessed 4 Mar 2008).
George, C. (2007) Interview with the author, London, U.K., 17 December 2007. [Ms.
George is a former assistant editor of OhmyNews International].
Gillmor, D. (2006) We the media: grassroots journalism by the people, for the people,
Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.
Graddol, D. (2006) English next: why global English may mean the end of ‘English as
a foreign language,’ British Council. Available:
2008).
Hackett, R. A. & Carroll, W. K. (2006) Remaking media: the struggle to democratize
public communication, New York, NY: Routledge.
Hahn, J. (2007) Interview with the author, New Jersey, U.S.A., 9 August 2007. [Mr.
Hahn is a citizen journalist of OhmyNews International].
Jacquot, J. (2006) Interview with the author, San Francisco, U.S.A., 17 Nov 2006. [Mr.
Jacquot is a citizen journalist of OhmyNews International].
Keen, A. (2007) The cult of the amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture,
New York: Doubleday.
Laakso, T. (2006) Interview with the author, Helsinki, Finland, 24 August 2006. [Mr.
Laakso, one of the core group of activists who launched the VAI website, was also a
reporter on the VAI website].
Thacker, T. (2007) Interview with the author, Seoul, South Korea, 3 July 2007. [Mr.
Thacker is a senior editor of OhmyNews International].
Warschauer, M. (2003) Technology and social inclusion: rethinking the digital divide,
Cambridge: MA: MIT Press.
Page 29
[The following resume for the Amateur Computerist is based on the
presentation Anders Ekeland gave in Copenhagen, at IR9.0. Some topics
have been extended by the author, some relating directly to pictures in
the presentation have been dropped or reduced. Ekeland was at the time
a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Studies in Innovation,
Research and Education. The resume was written specially for this issue.
The original slides can be seen at:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/netizen_panel_2008/AEkeland.ppt]
Democratizing Innovation
Through the Internet
by Anders Ekeland
After having read some of the literature on “user-driven innovation”
I felt that it is was necessary to outline some alternative theoretical
perspectives before going into a more systematic empirical study of how
the Internet facilitates user-driven innovation. In my opinion the
mainstream economic theory that is used as the theoretical framework
to discuss the phenomenon of user-driven innovation is build on a set of
atomistic, egoistic and static principles that makes mainstream economic
theory ill suited to grasp this highly social and dynamic phenomenon.
Mainstream economic theory with its egoistic “homo economicus”
1
as its ideal of human rationality is in contest with precisely the coopera-
tive, collaborative – “altruistic” – aspects of the Internet. User-driven
innovation is also very interesting for those of us who are interested in
forms of society where profit maximization and competition are not the
main drivers for social and technological change. Consequently in this
presentation the actual use of the Internet for the purpose of “user-driven
innovation” will be more anecdotal, based on data and description in the
literature and my own experiences. My own experiences are connected
primarily to my interest in emission free vehicles, which includes human
powered vehicles, but is broader since it includes all non-fossil vehicles.
The starting point is Eric von Hippel’s recent book Democratizing
Innovation (2005).
2
This book is the last in a series of books and articles
by the same author related to the “sources of innovation,” which was
Page 30
also the title of von Hippel’s ‘breakthrough’ book Sources of Innovation
(1988). Here von Hippel described and discussed the role of users in the
making of innovations. Von Hippel (1988, p. 4) showed that users of a
variety of products were either the source of innovation or an important
source. User in this context is both firms and persons. As von Hippel in
Democratizing (p. 19) points out, the word ‘consumer’ gives an
association of passive consumption. This is of course generally correct,
but understates that some of us – many of us – in some spheres of life
have a much more active attitude to the products we use. We sometimes
modify them to make them better suited to our needs.
The conventional wisdom, that it is the manufacturer that finds out
what we need and then designs and produces it – completely overlooks
the social interaction that takes place even in a capitalist market
economy. As a facilitator, the Internet should be well suited as a vehicle
for democratizing innovation. Anecdotal evidence shows that the
Internet creates better user-producer links, that it makes possible a
creation of a wider and more customized variety of goods. Von Hippel
points to several studies where the intra-user and user-producer
exchange of ideas could only have been mediated through a medium
with such low cost and rich information potential as the Internet.
A recent report written by a group of students at the Technical
University of Norway (NTNU) “User-driven Innovation: When the user
makes the difference” also includes several cases where the Internet
have been instrumental for innovation. For some product categories like
extreme outdoor equipment, the users are not only “lead users,” i.e.
advanced users giving early and insightful information to the manufac-
turers R&D department what problems to address – they are practically
the developers, making modifications and/or extensions to the product
that the manufacturer then puts into production.
These developments – based on “virtual” communities of interest
– are interesting from various theoretical and policy points of view. One
important aspect is the question of alienation, i.e. the phenomenon that
the profit motive “perverts” the relationship between the producer and
the user of goods and services. Under capitalism many in our role both
as consumers and producers (workers) often get the feeling that we
get/make an inferior product, less adapted to our real needs (“prefer-
Page 31
ences”) just because the producer was constrained by short term profit
maximization. The producer has to save, has to introduce “fashion” and
product differentiation characteristics that do not contribute to satisfy
our “real” needs. As consumers we often have no other practical option
than to buy this “lousy” product – gruntingly buy it.
For an economist like Karl Marx a major aspect of how markets
worked was clearly the tension between the “private,” atomistic labor
that had to be socially accepted as “socially necessary labor” through the
market. What Marx and later Marxists like Ernest Mandel clearly saw
as a rather wasteful process – a view also confirmed by the little there
is of empirical research of this topic. Von Hippel puts it this way, “It is
striking that most new products developed and introduced to the market
by manufacturers are commercial failures.” The “success rates” are
typically found to be between 20-30% (2005, p. 108).
So this is a topic related, but different from the issue of the Internet
as a vehicle for democratization of the more strictly political sphere of
society, i.e. the large literature on the possible role of the Internet for
broadening and deepening political democracy, including how political
parties and political movements use the Internet. Parties and movements
influence the material artefacts around us – including the infrastructure
(roads, trains, city- (non) planning) and environmental standards, but
seldom individual products. That is where user-driven innovation comes
in.
The economic literature on user-driven innovation
The literature on “user-driven” innovation is very strongly influ-
enced by main-stream, neo-classical, static equilibrium, theory. The use
of “economic theory” in the singular is a problem in itself. It excludes
the heterodox schools of thought in economics, like evolutionary
(Schumpeterian), post-Keynesian, Marxian and feminist economics, just
to mention some of them. Mainstream, that is neo-classical economic
theory, builds on a set of unrealistic, static first principles, among them
a very narrow, “egoistic” view of the fundamental motivational structure
of humans, the so-called homo economicus.
This theory has great difficulty in handling the “altruistic” nature of
interactive activities in general. Such activities are an important part of
Page 32
Internet use. The open source movement and community being the most
well-know and analyzed example but far from the only one.
My core message is that it is necessary to use other theoretical
models/traditions in order to understand such activities in general, and
in order to promote such activities, among them also user-driven
innovation. There are various ways to actively use the Internet to shape
society for example by journalism or user-driven innovation to the
betterment for all of us. It is the essence of being a Netizen
User-driven innovation – an old story
In Democratizing Innovation, von Hippel gives several examples of how
user-driven innovation has been a topic of interest for several econo-
mists:
[Adam] Smith pointed out the importance of “the invention of a
great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labor, and
enable one man to do the work of many.” He also noted that “a
great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in
which labor is most subdivided, were originally the invention of
common workmen, who, being each of them employed in some
very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts towards
finding out easier and readier methods of performing it.(2005, p.
21)
And from the post WWII era:
Rosenberg (1976) studied the history of the U.S. machine tool
industry and found that important and basic machine types like
lathes and milling machines were first developed and built by user
firms having a strong need for them. Textile manufacturing firms,
gun manufacturers and sewing machine manufacturers were
important early user-developers of machine tools. (2005, p. 22)
Users as the sources of innovation
As mentioned in the introduction, the starting point is von Hippel’s
recent book Democratizing Innovation (2005). Von Hippel’s first major
opus, published in 1988, Sources of Innovation is also downloadable
Page 33
with permission from Oxford University Press. In Sources of Innovation,
von Hippel described and discussed the role of users in the making of
innovations (1988, p. 4). He showed that the users in domains like
‘Scientific instruments’ and ‘Industrial gas using’ were either the source
of innovation or an important source. The users had often made
important modifications that were many years ahead of commercial
production. This is of course not surprising, since it is the users who
have an intimate knowledge of their own needs, the problems with the
equipment, etc. So they can propose to the producer improvements that
will not only benefit themselves, but also other users.
The role of users in innovation is an important fact. By contrast, an
important way of legitimizing the very high income differentials for
entrepreneurs versus users that still exists is to present the entrepreneur
as a kind of genius who actually invented the process. What case studies
show is that, the picture is much more nuanced to say the least.
Bill Gates is one of the richest men on earth, but neither he nor
Microsoft is very impressive when it comes to innovation or satisfying
users’ real needs. Most of us can point out clear defects with Windows.
Also the business strategy of Microsoft has always been to price the
product as high as possible by creating artificial market segmentation
(for example, Home, Academic, Pro, Business Premium versions of the
same operating system) that has no economic rationale. This market
segmentation just creates problems and makes users waste a lot of time
on products where very short term profit maximization clearly dictated
how the product was developed. “VISTA” is a good example – an
operating system that had few new real features, but quite a few new
problems. That is of course why you have a “downgrade to “XP” option.
This business strategy has stimulated in opposition to it the open source
movement – which is a very systematic effort at collective, well-
organized user-driven innovation. The point about Microsoft is not that
it is particularly bad, but that the logic of capitalist competition very
often makes a firm choose a business strategy like that of Microsoft.
3
Apple has clearly been more adjusted to user needs, but even it has to try
to “lock-in” the customers to its equipment, its software. Much more
could be said about this, but let me get back to user-driven innovation
using the bicycle as an example.
Page 34
The bike as an example of user-driven innovation
The bike not only has a past. In an era of climate change, it certainly
has a future. Most of us have become so used to the ‘diamond’ frame
(DF) bicycle that we can hardly think of anything else. But the DF bike
is not optimal aerodynamically or ergonomically. Air resistance is the
major problem for biking since rolling friction can be made very small.
Having a more horizontal body position would reduce air resistance.
From the early days of biking there were various “recumbent” designs
with or without “fairing.” A French inventor, George Mochet con-
structed and a French cyclist, Francis Fauret in 1933 rode these “horizon-
tal” bikes to world records. The producers of ordinary bikes intervened
and the recumbent bike was prohibited by defining the competition bike
with certain standards. The recumbent bike almost died out, but with oil
price “shocks” in the seventies and eighties, more interest in environ-
mental issues, the recumbent bike had a renaissance.
4
It is obvious that
both the sales of recumbent bikes and their development were stimulated
by the spread of the Internet. To empirically quantify the importance of
the Internet is a difficult and demanding task. But the reason why the
recumbent has not become the ordinary bike is that it has certain
disadvantages
5
like sitting low and uphill, manoeuverability in heavy
city traffic.
One solution would be to make a hybrid bike, combining the
advantages of the diamond frame, so-called convertible recumbents. The
pictures illustrate this idea.
6
The convertible is built of standard, but in
some cases modified, bicycle parts.
Page 35
Real life and homo economicus
User-driven innovation points to other types of motives for
innovative activities that are beyond the “egoistic,” “egoistic
profit/utility maximizing behavior, points towards a truly democratic,
ecological, interactive way of organizing the production of goods and
services. It is necessary to underscore that these motives or incentives,
as most economists call them, are not irrational in any sense. They are
not contrary to long run sustainable growth and its real and final goal,
more welfare creation. On the contrary, it is only in a myopic profit
maximizing perspective that these “altruistic” types of behavior can be
considered irrational or sub-optimal. Ordinary economic models (market
cross) cannot even be called myopic, since actually they do not have any
time dimension, they are static.
I think that for modeling human behavior, a model of what is
rational is needed. Indeed most of us have such a model internalized,
since we are more satisfied with some parts of actions than others, we
are more satisfied with the macro-social result of some types of behavior
than others. The point is that a concept of rationality that has a real time
perspective includes that obvious fact that life is a continuous learning
process because we do not have global perfect information.
One obvious aspect of this learning process is that some products
and firms are failures. If there was anything close to perfect information,
no product would be a failure, no firms would go bust. Some of the
firms that go bust clearly do so because they misjudge the real needs of
the customers. But often the anarchistic nature of capitalist competition
and profit maximization means that there is too much productive
capacity created as everybody tries to be first to market - to create a
(quasi-) monopoly, i.e. get the largest possible market share.
Von Hippel writes:
It is striking that most new products developed and introduced to
the market by manufacturers are commercial failures. Mansfield
and Wagner (1975) found the overall probability of success for new
industrial products to be only 27%. Elrod and Kelman (1987) found
an overall probability of success of 26% for consumer products.
Balachandra and Friar (1997), Poolton and Barclay (1998), and
Page 36
Redmond (1995) found similarly high failure rates in new products
commercialized.
Although there clearly is some recycling of knowledge from failed
projects to successful ones, much of the investment in product
development is highly specific. This high failure rate therefore
represents a huge inefficiency in the conversion of R&D investment
to useful output, and a corresponding reduction in social wel-
fare.(2005, p. 108)
It is quite clear that increasing the rate of successful products would
result in increased welfare production. This is not taking into consider-
ation successful products that we buy, but actually would have liked to
be quite different – like Microsoft windows! Microsoft is a commercial
success, but not a welfare success.
The great surprise…sharing information!
The obvious answer to the failure of firms and products would be
to have mechanisms of information sharing, a dialog on how to best
develop the product so that it would satisfy real needs. Von Hippel
writes:
The empirical finding that users often freely reveal their innovations
has been a major surprise to innovation researchers. On the face of
it, if a user-innovator’s proprietary information has value to others,
one would think that the user would strive to prevent free diffusion
rather than help others to free ride on what it has been developed at
private cost. Nonetheless, it is now very clear that individual users
and user firms-and sometimes manufacturers – often freely reveal
detailed information about their innovations.
The practices visible in “open source” software development were
important in bringing this phenomenon to general awareness. In
these projects it was clear policy that project contributors would
routinely and systematically freely reveal code they had developed
at private expense. (2005, p. 9, my emphasis)
Page 37
An alternative approach – theories of alienation
In my opinion the reason why this “sharing of information” comes
as a surprise to innovation researchers is because the dominant paradigm
in economics is utterly static and atomistic. The reason why economics
uses the specific type of mathematical model it uses is because only
under such extreme, non-scientific conditions can a set of pro-market,
neo-liberal “results” be proven mathematically. Mainstream theory is a
clear example of the SCOTh
7
(Social Construction Of Theory). The
founding fathers did not want the theory to be that abstract, but every
trace of real life had to bee weeded out in order to prove these “results.”
I will here briefly outline an alternative approach, just to show that
the question of what kind of theory one approaches the user-driven
innovation phenomenon with matters. I will use the concept of alien-
ation. Alienation has a long history. Originally ii was a religious
concept, the tragic fate of man on earth, alienated from the “real”
heavenly existence. According to Ernest remolded (1970), it was a
theme in classical Greek/Roman philosophy. In modern times Hegel
“secularized” the concept, relating it to “alienated labor” (needs outstrip
what labor can produce since it produces new needs) – and as
“Entäusserung” – “externalization.” Marx remolded the Hegelian
concept of alienation and pointed to new forms of alienation, alienation
from the state as a hostile institution, loneliness as alienation created by
a competitive “winner takes all” society and alienation of humans from
the means of production, means of creativity – a historically new
phenomenon (Mandel, The causes of Alienation). From this perspective
being creative (innovating) together is overcoming alienation –
becoming more human – getting back to the community way of doing
things that are “in our genes” – and not as a theoretical surprise.
A surprise…for mainstream economics.
One example on how hard mainstream economics struggles to
incorporate the “altruistic” (I would say rational) nature of
Internet-aided, user-driven innovation, can be seen in an article from
Research Policy 2003 with the title, “How communities support
innovative activities: an exploration of assistance and sharing among
Page 38
end-users” (Nikolaus Franke and Sonali Shah). The case studies in this
article are taken from diverse sports communities: sailplanes, canoeing,
boardercross (snowboard competition), and handicapped cycling – but
of course there are many more. The origin of such online communities
is the “newsgroups” on the Internet, which in the early years were
mainly related to ICT, programming, programming languages, etc. Over
the years (mid eighties to late nineties) newsgroups expanded exponen-
tially both in quantity and scope. For those of us that have struggled with
programming problems and bug-full
software, the newsgroups were just
fantastic. In minutes you could have the
solution, or a good hint that saved you
days of desperate debugging. The mu-
tual benefit in such groups is evident so
that even the most experienced program-
mers read and responded to the
newsgroup posts. Once upon-a-time
anyone online could get freely given
advice. No human is all knowing. We
are not experts in all domains. In some we are experts (responders), in
others we are novices that ask for help. With the development of HTML,
browsers, FAQ-pages, knowledge banks the newsgroups are no longer
the only source of freely available help.
But our innovation researchers Nikolaus Franke and Sonali Shah
seem to be unfamiliar with the ideas behind the creation of the Internet.
Because to them “... the existence of generalized exchange is somewhat
of a puzzle, because any member of the exchange system can free-ride
since there is no guarantee of reciprocity” (p. 173). Not only is that the
case but the traditional “egoistic” explanations of “free-revealing” and
assistance like:
! Induce further improvements from others (which one then can
egoistically benefit from)
! Setting my “egoistic” standard – benefitting me more than the
others
! Reputation effects
! Low rivalry/competition context
The hydrofoil kayak. (If you were thinking
of developing one, you will find the state of
the art on the Internet – and possibilities for
sharing of ideas, drawings, etc.
Page 39
…do not stand up to critical scrutiny of these successful communities,
even when we are talking about products with a clear commercial
potential. Franke and Shah find that a cause that is “overlooked” in the
traditional theoretical framework is “the fun and enjoyment that arise
through engagement in the task and in the community. From this
perspective, the individual does not view the participation and contribu-
tion as a cost that has to be compensated. Rather these activities are
enjoyable in and of themselves.” (p. 173) This is not surprising from an
alienation point of view. Modern life, where most products around us are
too often “one size fits all” due to the extreme attention to short term
profit maximisation leaves little room in our lives for our own creativity.
We feel “big business” as an external, foreign and hostile force. By
participating in communities of innovation we increase welfare by better
products – and we overcome our alienation by shaping the material
artefacts around us – and by working together, instead of the “bellum
osmium contra omens” which is not only the ideal of mainstream
economics, but also the ethos of our times. The authors further state that
…“competition decreases the flow of information…a ski manufacturer
is likely to be better off monitoring a community of ski fanatics…than
a group of World Cup racers”… (p. 175) – so competition is not always
the driving force for innovation/progress. Quite the contrary. What is
even more “surprising” is that…“the communities do not appear to
operate like traditional reciprocal exchange markets.” (p. 171). Time
does not allow me to discuss how they really work, but overcoming the
alienation of and between user and producer is certainly a key issue. To
develop the critique of main-stream economics is also important as a
first step.
Further research
I have not touched upon how Internet-based user-driven innovation
could be supported – by a fraction of the cost of the current “bail-out
packages” – yet another example of how resources are systematically
wasted under capitalism. There are also more collective innovations to
make – for example standardization of mobile phone chargers, lap-top
chargers – where the logic of capitalist competition result in a lot of
wasted resources, a lot of wasted time and a lot of frustration for the
Page 40
users. There is a range of topics connected to users as “Watch-dogs” for
product quality, safety and sustainability – that would be an important
role – even in a society where the logic of profit maximization would not
dominate – because technology is always socially constructed and a
male, white, high education world view might be too dominating. There
is still a lot to do when it comes to empirical research on the specific
role of the Internet – what does the medium, the Net mean – a method-
ological difficult question since we do not have any ex ante bench-mark.
But maybe is that not needed, one could create one today – and then try
to see if support of Internet based user-driven innovation made any
difference. I am quite convinced it would.
Anyhow – my main point here was that from alienation – theory
perspective user-driven innovation generally is not a theoretical
problem, on the contrary – concrete examples show the possibility, the
direction to take in order to find a way to make a more human, less
competitive society, with more welfare, more equality and fewer lousy
products. In short, a society where the active and innovative collabora-
tive Netizen – homo neticus – and not the egoistic, short-sighted homo
economicus is the theoretical and practical role model of the social
sciences.
Notes:
1. Homo economicus, or Economic human, is the concept in some economic theories
of humans as rational and broadly self-interested actors who have the ability to make
judgments toward their subjectively defined ends. See for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus
2. This book is freely downloadable at:
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm under a ‘Creative Commons License’
and is “Dedicated to all who are building the information commons.”
3. For those who think that Microsoft is a monopoly as opposed to “perfect” or “free”
competition, see my paper “The Text-book Myth of the Monopoly case” presented at
Association of Heterodox Economics conference, 2006.
4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#History
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle#Disadvantages
6. See also: http://revver.com/video/439960/switchbike-wwwfreshcreationnl/
7. See Wiebe Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of
Sociotechnical Change (Inside Technology Series) (Hardcover), where the SCOT
(Social Construction Of Technology) approach is outlined and illustrated by case
Page 41
studies.
[The following is an entry by Axel Bruns on his blog at
http://snurb.info/node/881. In the entry Bruns summarizes the Netizen
panel at the IR9.0 conference in Copenhagen.]
Report on Panel Session held
on Oct 17, 2008
by Axel Bruns (from his blog)
Netizens and Citizen Journalists around the World
The post-lunch session here at AoIR 2008 begins with a paper by
Ronda Hauben. She notes that 2008 is the fifteenth anniversary of the
publication of Michael Hauben’s seminal article on the ‘Netizen’
concept – a concept emerging from Michael’s research that spread
rapidly and widely, and (especially in Asia) still has a great deal of
currency. The concept had a great deal to do with the fight against
commercialization of the Net which was prominent then; today, for the
same reason the concept has been suppressed to some extent by those
interested in a more commercial Internet.
The Netizen idea provides a bottom-up framework; the top-down
model of information is no longer the only model for news, it suggests,
and this can give voice to a greater section of society. This ties into older
ideas of the press as a watchdog over government, but (enabled by
technology) positions everyday Netizens rather than professional
journalists as such watchdogs. South Korea is an interesting example for
such trends: in 2002, Roh Moo-Hyun was elected president largely
because of Netizen activism, and in 2004, a drive to impeach him was
defeated for similar reasons.
This year (2008), there have been extensive candlelight demonstra-
tions in protest against the government; the first of these were called by
middle and high school girls, creating a “Candle Girl Army,” and to
Page 42
some extent these were directed in the first place against a new import
deal for U.S. beef (some of which did not meet U.S. food quality
standards), but they also tie into an underlying impeachment drive
against the current president. Much of this also connects to the
OhmyNews Pro-Am citizen journalism phenomenon, of course – and
some of these demonstrations were Webcast live by a new sub-division,
OhmyTV.
The presence of self-declared Netizens in such events is palpable –
remarkably, there are people with laptops (sometimes wrapped in plastic
to protect them against tear gas and water cannons) at the demonstra-
tions, doing live DIY Webcasting using the wireless and mobile Internet
connections which are ubiquitous in South Korea. One particularly
notable demonstration involved the presidential palace which had been
surrounded by a ring of sand-filled containers (described ironically by
demonstrators as Myungbak Castle, with its own Wikipedia entry); there
were lengthy online and face-to-face discussions amongst demonstrators
about whether to scale these walls and enter the protected zone, again
showing the important role of Netizens in these events.
Jay Hauben is next, and shifts our focus to the role of Netizens in
China. Internet adoption in the country is growing rapidly, of course,
with some 43 million more users coming online only this year. Some 60
million users are active contributors to forums and chat rooms, and it is
amongst this group that Netizens can be found and that, as Michael
Hauben wrote, a new electronic commons is forming. In Chinese
language, in fact, there is a distinction between wang min (Net users)
and wang luo gong min (Networked citizens, or Netizens) – but this is
often lost in translation.
One case in which Netizens made their presence felt was the 2003
death of Sun Zhigang, a student who was falsely identified as an urban
vagrant, detained by police, and died in custody after what turned out to
be a brutal beating. This issue was raised on an online forum for media
professionals in China, and taken up by journalists on the forum; a report
was finally published in the South Metropolitan Daily newspaper and
various online news portals, and generated a great deal of online
discussion and protest. Various other online sites were created (gather-
ing news reports, reports about police brutality, or creating online
Page 43
memorials to Sun), People’s Daily reported about the case and published
selected Netizen comments, and some three months after the death 12
police were convicted for their actions in the death; shortly later, the
20-year-old anti-vagrancy measures were abolished, too.
Another incident occurred in the same year, when a tractor
accidentally scraped a businessman’s BMW, and the wife of the
businessman drove into a crowd of locals in retaliation. The driver
received only a suspended sentence, however, as many witnesses had
been bribed by the businessman. This case, too, was taken by Netizens,
and generated some 320,000 posts on one portal alone; there was
substantial discussion about the growing gap between rich and poor, the
corrupt judicial system, and related issues. It also expanded to a broader
discussion about the overall direction of change in China.
However, while a new investigation was promised, discussion and
coverage of the incident was ultimately removed and forbidden by the
government, and a retrial did not lead to a different outcome. Here, then,
Netizen power did not have a direct positive outcome; at the same time,
however, there may be underlying effects, and there is some indication
that there were broader, less immediate and longer-term policy changes
which may have been driven by this and similar cases.
Ulla Rannikko is next, and takes us (in part) to Finland. She begins
by pointing out discussions of a crisis of democratic journalism, and the
related criticism of the quality of the mainstream media. Additionally,
the media are struggling to maintain their profit margins, and journalism
is being de-professionalized by the rise of alternative journalism and
media activism. Citizen journalism (which may be online or offline) is
seen to offer a partial solution to such challenges.
Citizen journalism is described by Bowman & Willis as ideally
providing “independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging, and relevant
information” – a tall order that it may never necessarily deliver on;
however, this shopping list of adjectives may not provide the only
definition of citizen journalism. Ulla contrasts the views of Dan Gillmor
and Andrew Keen here, and extracts from this the realization that citizen
journalists need Internet access, appropriate tools, motivation, skills, and
support for their work – they do not simply emerge fully formed.
What is required of citizen journalists, then? Ulla draws on
Page 44
interviews with citizen journalists at a Finnish Indymedia site and
OhmyNews International: they should aim, they say, at a quality similar
to that of conventional journalism, but provide different points of view
from the mainstream media; journalistic skills are hardly different from
those of ‘professional’ journalists, but they are put to somewhat different
uses.
The two sites orchestrate such work differently, of course; citizen
journalism in OhmyNews is clearly editor-assisted, while Indymedia
practices a form of direct, unedited publishing which is moderated only
for severe infringements against a set of basic standards. Indymedia
provides no training for citizen journalists, and has only basic guidelines
for participants, while there are a code of ethics and style guidelines for
OhmyNews contributors. Editors on the latter site are there to help the
citizen reporting process along. Additionally, of course, the Finn-
ish-language nature of this specific Indymedia site limits the availability
of a large community of participants.
Overall, then, there is a need for appropriate support and guidelines
for citizen contributors; this may increase quality and in turn also the
appeal of citizen journalism. The challenge is to develop a responsible
and sustainable form of citizen journalism.
Finally, we move on to Anders Ekeland, who focuses on user-led
innovation in Denmark. He points to the literature discussion the role of
the Internet in democratic and policy-making innovation, as well as to
literature on user-driven innovation which still works with a number of
relatively old-fashioned concepts that have a hard time dealing with the
altruistic nature of many forms of online collaborative efforts. So, there
is a need also to look to other theoretical traditions.
Adam Smith noted that many early machines were the inventions
of common workmen; this is a clear case of what von Hippel called
innovation by lead users. In many cases discussed by von Hippel, users
are either the or at least a source of innovation – the term ‘consumer’
certainly does not apply here. The Internet is especially instrumental
here in the formation not only of information, but of innovation
communities.
There are many implications of this. To begin with, if users are (co-)
innovators, then the income generated from such innovations should be
Page 45
more widely shared; if user-led innovation leads to fewer commercial
failures, then governments should support such processes; if user
participation is driven by non-egotistical motives, then this points to the
potential for a democratization of innovation.
Indeed, the prevalence of ‘free revealing’ of innovation has been a
major surprise for innovation researchers (as it is usually seen as
encouraging free riding) – revealing perhaps more about the mind set of
the researchers and the limitations of existing theory than about the
user-innovators who engage in such sharing. Open source has been
instrumental in bringing this phenomenon to wider attention.
Anders suggests that one way of overcoming this theoretical
impasse is to draw from philosophical approaches which describe the
phenomenon as a way of overcoming alienation through the formation
of innovation communities. Market forces may be not as important
drivers here as non-market forces – and indeed, strong competition
reduces the likelihood of collaboration and learning from one another.
The Netizen or homo neticus, rather than the egoistic, short-sighted
homo economicus, may provide a better theoretical role model.
[The following is a report from the IR9.0 Conference in Copenhagen in
Oct 2008. The original appeared in Danish on the citizen journalism
website:
http://flix.dk. The URL for the original is:
http://www.flix.dk/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=5135. The translation is
by the author.]
Report from Copenhagen IR9.0
By Erik Larsen
When young youth-house activist in the spring of 2008 demon-
strated for a new youth-house (ungdomshus) in Copenhagen they used
cell phones and the Internet so intelligently that you might label it ‘a
new cultural practice within cyberactivism.’ That was the conclusion
reached by Christie Stauning Andersen and Lotte Lund Larsen, two
Page 46
students who followed the activists and their use of IT closely as part of
their studies in Design, Communication and Media at the Danish IT
University (ITU) in Copenhagen.
A report by Larsen and Andersen on the subject was presented at
the conference Internet Research 9.0 (its tag is IR9) titled ‘Rethinking
Community Rethinking Space.’ This was part of the 2008 annual
meeting of IT researchers from all over the globe, organized by the
Association of Internet Researches (AoIR). The meeting took place over
three days, October 16-18, 2008, at the ITU in Copenhagen.
Andersen and Larsen kept close contact with and interviewed young
people from the ‘Ungdomshus’ (Youth-House) movement* during and
after the massive demonstrations in the streets of Copenhagen in Spring
2008. The two researchers thoroughly analyzed the chain SMS mes-
sages, web sites and mail correspondence related to Ungdomshus
movement. Their report reveals a surprisingly high level of organization,
creativity and discipline in the way the young people had used the digital
tools – or weapons – during their struggle.
The report reveals sets of unwritten rules which streamline and
optimize the communication flow between group members and between
the activists and the press/society at large. One such rule is that you
don’t change the text of a chain SMS message – this would damage the
cell phone distribution system’s value as a reliable and cheap mass
communication media. The researchers also revealed that people in the
network all knew the names and numbers of certain key people who held
the cheapest SMS subscriptions. These were the first ‘nodes’ when a
chain SMS message was released and in turn insured that messages were
distributed to as many people as possible. Chain SMS and the unwritten
rules for good cell phone traffic was one of the reasons why the activists
on multiple occasions were able to mobilize significant crowds quickly
and efficiently in any given place or time.
The activists were also found to be extremely smart Internet users.
Flyers and invitations for demonstrations and actions were distributed
via the “MySpace” social networking system. Campaign material of
different kinds were produced through a collaborative effort based on a
very simple yet highly effective piece of collaboration software – the
activists used one single G-mail account edited collaboratively by all
Page 47
group members who would share a single username and password.
Leaflets, flyers, translations and much more was stored in the drafts
folder of the account and were produced, edited and released by a group
of people working together independently of time and place.
The activists finally got what they fought for – a new ‘Ungdomshus’
– but to cyberactivists in other parts of the world there are more abstract
yet ultimately important prizes at stake: The young democracy in South
Korea is hanging by a thread and in China there is a growing pressure
from the citizens for greater influence and the right to criticize authori-
ties. In both countries IT is shaping the very identity of activists and to
a large extent defining their range and choice of action, and in both
countries cyberactivists call themselves ‘netizens’ – a word coined by
the Internet pioneer and researcher Michael Hauben in the late 80s (by
fusing net and citizens).
IR9.0 had invited Michael Hauben’s parents, Internet researchers
Jay and Ronda Hauben based at Columbia University in New York.
With a keen interest in cyberactivism the Haubens have followed the
development among netizens in South Korea and China closely and have
visited both countries several times.
Ronda Hauben opened her presentation at IR9.0 with quotes from
the 1997 book ‘Netizens: On the history and impact of Usenet and the
Internet’ which she co-wrote with Michael Hauben. In the book Michael
Hauben reflects on his research into the discussion and knowledge
sharing culture which flourished in the 80s on the Usenet:
“We are seeing a revitalization of society,” he explained. “The frame-
works are being redesigned from the bottom up. A new, more demo-
cratic world is becoming possible.”
The vision of the Internet as a potential tool for democratic renewal
was nearly drowned out by the dot.com craze around 2000 and the
promising research of Michael Hauben stopped prematurely when he
died in 2001 from the consequences of a traffic accident. But the Netizen
concept had a strong comeback when South Korean Netizens with the
citizen reporting newspaper Ohmynews.com as the unifying media
platform became an important factor for the choice of the reformist
president Roh Moo-Hyun in 2002.
Using photo documentation, Ronda Hauben showed how something
Page 48
resembling a culture revolution took place in South Korea in the spring
of 2008. The backdrop for the events: The country’s newly elected
president, the conservative Lee Myung-Bak, had tightened his grip on
the media of South Korea and had step-by-step begun to dismantle the
fragile democracy which the South Korean population gained after
massive demonstration and fights culminating in 1987.
Lee Myung-Bak became particularly unpopular when visiting
George Bush in U.S.A. in April 2008 he gave the green light for South
Korean import of American beef some of which was restricted by U.S.
regulation from being sold in the U.S. This caused an uproar in parts of
the population and became the launch-pad for the so-called ‘Candle-Girl
Army’ – an army of schoolgirls who marched with lit candles through
the streets of Seoul, protesting against school food which they feared
might be infected with mad cow disease.
On June 10, 2008, thousands went on the street protesting against
President Lee Myung-Bak. He reacted by immediately blocking access
to the Presidential Palace (Blue House) in a baroque fashion. He ordered
40 containers filled with sand and stacked upon each other, welded
together and tied to poles in the ground to be placed between the Blue
House and the area of the demonstrations. Grease was poured over the
entire construction to prevent activists from climbing over it.
Demonstrators spent hours discussing on a speaker’s stage and on
online flora the next move. They agreed to climb on top of the bizarre
road block, but instead of climbing over and confronting the police who
were behind the barricade to attack with unconventional weapons. They
launched a battery of online satire ridiculing the monstrous presidential
road-block device which was dubbed ‘Myung-Bak Castle’ and laconi-
cally labeled ‘South Korea’s tourist attraction number 0.’
For 100 days Seoul was the arena for a public rebellion where tens
of thousands went on the street in peaceful demonstrations highlighted
by subtly orchestrated ‘happening’ attacks on police and ‘Myung-Bak
Castle’ – with music, happenings and street theater all being coordinated
by netizens using online fora: The battle was discussed and planned
step-by-step online before the IRL [In Real Life] execution.
The happening-like events and demos were followed by video
activists and via cell phones and sent by portable computers to the TV
Page 49
station OhmyTV.com and online video stream distribution servers. On
these websites, all of South Korea could follow the events in real-time.
Ronda Hauben concluded that the June demonstration/festivals won
a clear victory for the demonstrators in terms of P.R. and moral. She
underlined the fact however that the situation in the country is still tense
and that Lee Myung-Bak has shown earlier that he is willing to use
brutal force against South Korean citizens.
In Jay Hauben’s presentation on the same panel focus was turned
toward the growing Netizen movement in China – a country where the
distribution of the Internet is growing explosively. It is estimated that
more than 253 million Chinese were online in July of 2008 and more
than 100 million of these are reading online fora. It is from these online
fora that Jay Hauben has collected examples of the Chinese netizens
raising critique against the Chinese government and authorities.
A student from the Wuhan province, Sun Zhigang, died in 2003
while in police custody. He had been detained for not being able to show
ID papers. One of his friends wrote to an online forum frequented by
Chinese media people and asked for media support to investigate the
matter fully.
The police claimed that Zhigang died from a heart attack but this
explanation didn’t fit with all the signs of beating and violence which
were obvious from the coronary papers.
A journalist from the newspaper South Metropolitan Daily brought
the case to the public both offline and online. Before long, all the details
of the case ran like a fire through Chinese web fora and more people
came forward with examples of police brutality. The citizen and netizen
commotion resulted in 12 policemen and detainees being arrested for
lethal violence.
An online petition against the rules for police detainment was
gathered and sent to the National People’s Congress. The central
government removed the detention law and issued a revised system that
no longer allowed for arrest or involuntary holding of migrants or others
without proper ID papers.
Jay Hauben mentioned another episode which happened in Harbin,
the capital of the Heilongjiang province, in 2003. By accident a tractor
made a scratch in a BMW owned by businessmen. In a rage over the
Page 50
incident the businessman’s wife drove the car directly into a crowd of
local peasants.
One was killed and 12 wounded but the court case which followed
the event ruled that it was an accident and the driver of the BMW was
released. It was later revealed that the witnesses to the event had been
paid off by the businessman. Two days after the court case a post
popped up at the national web forum Strong Nation Forum entitled
“Attention: BMW Kills Peasant.”
Within a short time 70,000 comments were posted in response to the
original post and the nation wide online debate quickly turned toward
general issues such as the different treatment of the rich and poor in
China and corruption in the court system.
When the case finally was mentioned in the print media, with an
assurance from authorities that the case would be reopened, one netizen
reaction was skepticism: “Why should we trust government officials?”
the title of one post read.
The government eventually shut the case down completely when it
deleted more than 300,000 comments on Chinese web fora. The reprise
court case reached the same conclusion as the first.
Jay Hauben argued that the Chinese Netizen movement is a
potentially important phenomenon in the development of democracy in
China.
The BMW case didn’t yield any actual result for the offended
Netizens but according to Jay Hauben the underlying effect should not
be underestimated. He mentioned that the Chinese government has
admitted that the debate about SARS in web fora was actually helpful
for the country and that China has begun to challenge government
officials on all levels to take active part in debates on the web.
From SMS chain messages and collaborative G-mail accounts in
Copenhagen, Netizen TV in Seoul and system critical comments on
Chinese web fora – cyberactivism is here to stay. In Asia the Netizen
movement has become a key element in the fight for direct democracy
– which the Hauben’s have missed in their home country U.S.A. since
in 1964 when for the first time they walked side by side in a demonstra-
tion against the Vietnam War. It was an era where SMS chain messages,
G-mail accounts and web fora were activist tools beyond the wildest
Page 51
imagination.
Today’s means of protest may be digital but the goal remains the
same. “The critical students movement in which we were active from the
beginning of the 60s viewed republicanism and representative democ-
racy as a derailment of direct democracy which was envisioned by
U.S.A.’s founding fathers,” says Jay Hauben who believes that U.S.A.
could learn something from the South Korean Netizen methods and
involvement.
“Democracy in U.S.A. works to the extent that people have
succeeded in fighting and sometimes even winning important battles
against government policy at certain points, but the political system we
have now does not represent the people,” says Jay Hauben. Hauben, who
categorizes himself as a participatory democratic, is baffled by the
massive Danish media coverage of the McCain and Obama presidential
campaigns, since it “doesn’t really make any difference if one or the
other wins,” he says.
*For background information about the ‘Ungdomshus’ conflict in Copenhagen, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungdomshuset
[In response to questions from Radio Austria International (ORF),
Ronda Hauben reviews how she and Michael Hauben came to write and
get the book Netizens: On the History of and Impact of Usenet and the
Internet published. Below are her answers to questions sent to her via e-
mail by Guenter Hack, an editor at ORF. The occasion was the tenth
anniversary of the book.]
One Decade of the Net Citizen
ORF: How did Michael and you get the idea for the book Netizens?
Ronda Hauben: In 1992 Michael and I had just gotten access to Usenet
even though we had known about it for a while. (Usenet is an online
Page 52
forum. See Chapter 10 of Netizens.)
Michael began posting articles on Usenet that he was writing as part
of his research as an undergraduate college student about the social
impact and the history of the Net.
Little was known among the Net community at this time about the
history of the Net, and there was little research or writing about the
social impact of the Net. People who were online were excited by the
experience they were having online and eager to understand it better.
Michael’s research, especially about the experience of users online
was pioneering at the time. Some of the earliest articles Michael posted
were “The Computer As Democratizer” and “The Social Forces Behind
the Development of Usenet.” His articles were welcomed by people
online.
After reading some of what Michael posted, a Canadian netizen,
Phil Fleisher, who was then in Ottawa, wrote Michael suggesting that
there was a need for a book length collection of articles from various
perspectives describing the important new advance represented by the
participatory interactive nature of the global Internet.
In a parallel development I had been reading 17
th
and 18
th
Century
British economic works which provided me with a framework to
appreciate the importance of communication in the economic develop-
ment of society. Once I had gotten onto Usenet, I began to think about
how it might be possible to apply the scientific framework I had found
in the economic works of writers like Sir William Petty and others to try
to document the significance of what I was finding as the practice and
historical foundations of the Internet. I remember I was thinking of
writing a “Political Anatomy of the Net” after reading Petty’s “Political
Anatomy of Ireland.”
One day I received a review copy in the mail of a print edition of a
book that had been online about how to use the Net. Books about the
Internet were just beginning to appear.
Michael and I thought it would be a good idea to take Phil’s
proposal seriously. It was worth our contributing the work we were
doing to a print edition of Netizens. Around this time we approached a
few publishers and inquired if they would be interested in a book. We
soon learned that being able to put out a print edition of the book we
Page 53
were proposing would be much harder than we had anticipated because
publishers were promoting the commercialization of the Internet, while
our book was a challenge and critique of such a change in the nature of
the Net.
By Fall of 1993, I gathered the articles Michael and I had been
writing and put them together as a collection of articles to be put online.
We titled the netbook, as we called it, “Netizens and the Wonderful
World of the Net.” We set a date in January of 1994 to have a book
reading in honor of the online publication of the book. We posted a
notice online and in a local newspaper about the event. At the time we
lived in Dearborn, Michigan. Michael was then at Columbia University
in New York City as an undergraduate student but was home for
intersession. We had our book launch at Henry Ford Community
College, Dearborn, on January 12, 1994. Several people came to our
event. Michael read from the first chapter of the book “The Net and the
Netizen.” We had some discussion about the impact of the Net that
Michael had documented in his online research. Then we went to a
computer with Internet access and showed people who had come that the
book was online and how they could use ftp to copy the book by
downloading it to their computers.
Three months later, on April 24, 1994, I visited Michael at
Columbia University. Students in the student chapter of the Association
for Computer Machinery (ACM) sponsored a book reading for us.
Michael and I both made presentations. There was a lively
discussion about what should be the future direction for the Net. Should
the emphasis be on multimedia or participatory interactive development?
Students welcomed the book. I remember visiting Michael after that and
meeting students who would ask if we had yet been able to get a print
edition of the book published.
This was an example of the continuing encouragement we got to
keep up the effort to get a print edition published of the book.
This was the period when there were a variety of people coming
online who saw the Internet as a way to make their million dollar
fortunes. For example, some lawyers, who came to be known online as
the Green Card lawyers, posted an ad on many Usenet newsgroups
advertising their services. They were greeted with much anger among
Page 54
netizens online who took up to fight them and their spam.
Our online book was welcomed by netizens. Steve Samuel, who I
think lived in Canada, proposed that we make a print edition and that he
and others online could take it to their local bookstores and ask them to
sell it. A netizen from Ireland offered to make a Latex version of the
book once we had a final manuscript. Ron Newman, a U.S. Internet
pioneer, supported our efforts and let people know about the book. He
also encouraged us to keep up the efforts to find a publisher.
Cal Woods, from Dublin, offered to put the text into html which he
did one weekend. We then had a text version and an html version online.
It took us three more years to be able to get a print edition of the
book published. Our book focused on documenting the scientific, public
and participatory nature of the Internet. During this period, the books
being promoted by U.S. publishers were those books which were either
“how to” books or books which encouraged the commercialization of
the Internet. (The Green card lawyers had been given a book contract for
$40,000 to publish a book on how to make millions using the Internet.)
At one point a publisher wrote me with an offer to publish the book.
His copy editor proceeded to change the text. She took out sections
where we challenged the commercialization of the Internet and replaced
them with language promoting Internet commercialization. When we
objected, the publisher threatened that we would never get the book
published in a print edition. We said we wouldn’t agree to the changes.
This publisher ended his offer to publish the book.
Michael didn’t let this bad experience sidetrack our efforts. He
posted the table of contents of the book online on some mailing lists and
Usenet. He received an e-mail from the IEEE Computer Society
publisher saying that if we really did have a manuscript they would be
interested in publishing the book.
The copy-editing and publishing process took more than a year.
Among the other people who stand out during this period helping us to
get the book published were Jan Lee and Deborah Scherrer, who were
active in the IEEE Computer Society at the time. Jan Lee was then editor
of the IEEE Annals of Computing encouraging us to get the research we
had done into print. Debbie was especially helpful as the IEEE Com-
puter Society Ombusperson helping us work through problems when
Page 55
they developed in the publishing process. The book was finally
published in a print edition in May 1997. We had a book party welcom-
ing the publication on Bastille Day July 14, 1997 at a book store near
Columbia. Michael and I both read sections from the book. Our
publisher came from California and so did some friends from Michigan.
Several Japanese colleagues helped to have the book translated into
Japanese so that a Japanese translation appeared in a print edition in
October 1997.
ORF: Who is a Netizen to you?
Ronda Hauben: This is a question that makes me smile. It is quite
amazing to see how the evolution of “netizens,” that Michael discovered
in his initial research into the impact of the Internet in 1992, continues
to develop.
One quite fascinating example of netizens are the young scientists
of the scientific community in South Korea who unmasked the fraud in
the research papers of one of the most famous Korean scientists Hwang
Woo-suk.
The South Korean government gave great honors to Professor
Hwang for his stem cell research. The highly regarded U.S. scientific
journal Science had published Professor Hwang’s papers. And there was
a fan club both online and offline supporting Professor Hwang and
relying on his false promises of medical breakthroughs to offer remedies
for their handicaps or diseases.
Yet the young scientists who participated in online forums such as
BRIC (Biological Research Information Center), DC Inside (A photog-
raphy web site) and Scieng (the site of the Association of Korean
Scientists and Engineers) succeeded in not only challenging the
powerful forces who supported Hwang, but also in spreading an
understanding online of the evidence of the fraudulent nature of
Hwang’s work.
In an article I wrote for OhmyNews 12/29/2005, I proposed that
these young scientists were the South Korean “Netizens of the Year”
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10
400&no=266352&rel_no=1
Netizens in South Korea also made it possible for a relatively
unknown politician to win the presidency of the country in 2002 based
Page 56
on the candidate’s stated commitment to participatory government.
Unfortunately he did not live up to his promises.
I consider the work of Florian Roetzer and the Telepolis community
to be the activity of netizens. As the editor and a journalist, Florian has
created Telepolis, which I consider to be a pioneering online magazine
created in 1996. Telepolis reports on news events often not covered
elsewhere. Even more important, however, the online community who
read and contribute to Telepolis often have serious and interesting
discussions about the articles. Telepolis is one example of an online
publication that I would call “netizen journalism.” This is a form of
journalism where those who are the staff of the publication and its
readers are active participants in the discussion of the problems of our
society.
There is a need for a journalism that is independent of the powers
that be, of a journalism critical of what those in power are doing.
Journalism should be able to expose the underlying but hidden motives
and interests behind the news. Too often journalists tell the story those
in power want to be told. The journalists too often act as if they are the
public relations department for the powerful. Rarely do journalists tell
the news from the point of view of the powerless, of those who are the
victims of the abuse of power by those in public office.
Telepolis publishes mainly in German. The url is:
Journalists who write for Telepolis are encouraged to ask the
questions and tell the news that no other newspaper will support.
An important example is the set of articles by Mathias Broechers
published immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center in the
U.S. on September 11, 2001.
Three days later and continuing on a regular basis for several
months, Broechers wrote articles which challenged the official U.S.
government account of how 9-11 had happened and who was responsi-
ble.
Broechers has said that only one or two other newspapers were
willing to publish one or two articles challenging the official explanation
of 9-11 at the time, and no news media with the exception of Telepolis
was willing to publish the series of articles he did.
Page 57
The articles appearing in Telepolis raised serious questions about
the what was the role of the U.S. government with regard to what had
happened on 9-11.
Not only did Telepolis print a number of articles challenging the
official U.S. government explanation of 9-11 and the lack of an
investigation, but there was a lively ongoing discussion and debate in the
reader’s forum section of Telepolis on the articles. Broechers reports,
also, that he received a number of e-mail responses to his articles with
leads and information that were helpful for his ongoing series of articles.
A similar process has gone on with articles appearing in Telepolis
on other significant issues of the times. For example, a series of articles
appeared in Telepolis challenging the U.S. government claim of the
existence of “weapons of mass destruction” as a pretext for its invasion
of Iraq. Articles on many different events and problems, and on
scientific and technical developments are featured in Telepolis. The
Hungarian journalist John Horvath reports from Hungary about the
developments in Eastern Europe for Telepolis. Other journalists write
about events in Palestine and other areas of Europe, Africa and the
Middle East. There has been a continuing series on the domination of the
U.S. government over the management of the Internet’s infrastructure.
In honor of the 10
th
anniversary of Telepolis, in March 2006, a number
of people wrote about their appreciation for the work done by this
pioneering online newspaper.
Some people now use the word netizen to refer to anyone who is
online. When Michael introduced and used the word, however, he
reserved the word to refer to those who participate online not only for
entertainment or personal reasons but more importantly toward
contributing to a better world.
Actually Michael, describing netizens, wrote: “Netizens...are people
who understand it takes effort and action on each and everyone’s part to
make the Net a regenerative and vibrant community and resource.
Netizens are people who decide to devote time and effort into making
the Net, this new part of our world, a better place.” (Michael Hauben,
“Preface,” Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the
Internet) The Telepolis readers and staff are one example of netizens.
Page 58
ORF: Has it been easier to be a Netizen in the more homogeneously
populated Internet then it is now?
Ronda Hauben: Before the commercialization of the Internet, there was
a very supportive netizen community that welcomed contributions and
shared their work and responded actively to the work of others. The U.S.
government’s privatization and commercialization activities, however,
gave support to those elements who abused the Net and the online
community.
There was a very diverse population of people online before the
Internet was privatized on May 1, 1995. The fact that commercial
activity was not allowed, however, made the Net a more welcoming
environment than later after the commercialization.
ORF: For the book, you did extensive research on the history of the
Internet. Do you see some of the original spirit of the Internet’s
masterminds like J. C. R. Licklider still around today?
Ronda Hauben: Yes.
It is not that I see something akin to the original vision by people
like J. C. R. Licklider now in any individual person who stands out.
Instead, the spirit has become more diffuse and spread out. It has
become the challenge for netizens to carry on the vision and figure out
how to implement it in the day to day developments that occur online
and off.
For example, the area that I particularly follow is the area of how
the Internet can help to create a publicly oriented newspaper or other
news media here in the U.S. and else where around the world.
OhmyNews in South Korea and Telepolis in Germany are examples
of netizens utilizing the Internet to make such a news media possible.
While there isn’t such a news media in the U.S. yet, there are lots of
efforts by people to make something happen.
For example, there was a scandal exposed during the George W.
Bush administration that bloggers had been active bringing to public
attention. That scandal involved U.S. Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales and the decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys, some of whom
were in the midst of politically hot criminal investigations. (See
especially TPM Muckraker
Similarly in the scandal involving Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the
Page 59
world bank and the architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there were
anonymous comments put online by the staff at the world bank that
helped to document the frustration of people who worked under him.
The scandal involving him was not only that he claimed to be requiring
governments elsewhere to fight corruption while he used his office to
give large salaries to those who had a personal or political relationship
to him, but also that he geared the program of the World Bank toward
the Bush political agenda rather than toward a program supporting
economic development goals.
Similarly, in the situation with the mass killing at Virginia Tech,
there was at least one web site with discussion about the problems in
U.S. society that lead to someone becoming so isolated and frustrated so
they can become a danger to themselves and others. While much of the
mainstream media used the situation to discuss gun control, the online
discussion I found looked for an understanding of the social problems
in U.S. society that led to this tragedy.
While the mainstream U.S. media continues to offer a very narrow
set of news for people, netizens are actively exploring how the Internet
can help them to bypass the mainstream U.S. media so that public
opinion and the public agenda become broadened to represent the public
interest, not the interest of the powerful.
As Michael wrote in Netizens, the Net brings “the power of the
reporter to the netizen.”
He explained: “People now have the ability to broadcast their
observations or questions around the world and have other people
respond. The computer networks form a new grassroots connection
that allows the excluded sections of society to have a voice. This
new medium is unprecedented. Previous grassroots media have
existed for much smaller-sized selections of people. The model of
the Net proves the old way does not have to be the only way of
networking. The Net extends the idea of networking – of making
connections with strangers that prove to be advantageous to one or
both parties.”
Michael was referring particularly to online discussion groups.
The forms of discussion groups have expanded now to include
Page 60
discussion on blogs, news articles and other formats. But the achieve-
ment is the same.
The netizen has a power and is using it :-)
Licklider described the need for citizen involvement in government
decisions to help determine how to support the continuing development
of computer technology. More significantly, Licklider proposes that
people will not be interested in government processes until they have a
means to participate in those processes. He foresees how computer
developments will provide such a means. He writes: “Computer power
to the people is essential to the realization of a future in which most
citizens are informed about, and interested and involved in, the process
of government.”
This is a goal now particularly of those who are trying to develop
a new form of media, a media which will provide for a more participa-
tory and discursive interaction between writers and readers.
Though this process is still young, it is developing and will develop
more as the Internet spreads and more people get access. Netizens are
finding ways to implement and spread the vision of a more democratic
society that the Net helps to make possible.
ORF: In February 2001, Google acquired Deja News’ archive of then
500 million Usenet messages, dating back to 1995. I remember you
opposing the deal and questioning whether corporations could sell
postings like a commodity. What do you think of collaborative websites
a.k.a. web 2.0?
Ronda Hauben: I still feel that Google has an obligation to the online
community with regard to what it does with Usenet messages. After I
wrote the article in Telepolis about the problem with Google treating
Usenet postings as a commercial commodity, I was invited to speak at
Stanford and then at Google. Afterward, I was told that someone from
Google would speak with me about what I saw as the problems, such as
with Google making decisions about what should happen with regard to
Usenet newsgroups and Usenet posts without having a mechanism of
input from users.
I made the effort to talk to the Google person I was put in contact
with. He asked me what I wanted them to do. I said for a start not to
claim that they owned the copyright on Usenet posts. (Google put their
Page 61
copyright notice on each post.) At the time the person from Google
ended the conversation with me.
Since then Google has made several changes with regard to how
they treat Usenet newsgroup posts. Still, however, I don’t know of any
mechanism that exists for them to have substantial user input into their
decisions.
How Google treats Usenet newsgroups affects Usenet, so it is
important there be a mechanism for input and discussion with users
about this. In general it is interesting that Google and some commercial
entities like Google seem to function without the realization that they
need to have solid means of interaction and discussion with users with
regard to how their activities impact the user community.
So I was glad I tried to open up a process with regard to this and
that my article was printed in Telepolis and I was invited to speak at
Stanford and at Google about the issues involved, but I was not happy
that this problem was not treated in a constructive way by Google
management.
You asked about web 2.0.
The term “web 2.0” seem to be used a lot and I’m not sure exactly
what it means.
In general it seems that this means the interactive and participatory
processes of collaborative networking and multimedia.
This all was part of the early vision for the Internet and its develop-
ment, so to call this web 2.0 seems to be suggesting that this is a new
development or something particular to the web. It isn’t something new,
or particular to the web, so in that way the term seems misleading.
Nevertheless it is good to have lots of people have access to the
collaborative processes that the Internet makes possible.
But it seems that perhaps what gets lost in the web 2.0 formulation
is that there is a social orientation intended as part of the early vision for
the Internet. The development of the net was projected as the develop-
ment of a public utility, and as an empowerment of the user for socially
related purposes. I don’t know if this is part of what is considered ‘web
2.0’ or if ‘web 2.0’ focuses mainly on the technology and loses the
social orientation of the vision guiding the development and use of the
technology. In any case, the netizen is a concept that has maintained the
Page 62
sense of a social orientation.
Also, an important part of the original vision for the Net was that all
who wanted access be able to have access to the Internet at a low cost.
I do not know if this is part of what is considered web 2.0. It is part
of what Michael included when developing the concept of the ‘netizen.’
Many people who wrote him in 1993 and 1994 wanted everyone to have
access to the Internet. The vision of widespread accessibility of the Net
was an important part of its potential promise.
In the U.S. there seems little commitment on the part of the
government to the spread of broadband.
Recently (circa 2008) the U.S. ranking is given as 25
th
globally (at
a household level) with respect to the widespread availability of
broadband access. See for example:
ORF: There’s so much information in Netizens. It’s a very dense and
powerful text.
[The editors were happy to find online the following tribute to Ronda
Hauben one of the founding editors of the Amateur Computerist.]
Ada Lovelace Day +1:
Honoring Ronda Hauben
posted by metaverse* (March 25, 2009)
Yesterday [March 24, 2009] was Ada Lovelace Day, a day to honor
women in technology.** When I first heard about the event, I knew
instantly who I wanted to honor. Though we never met, this woman
helped inspire me to participate in the community that is the Internet. I’d
lost track of what she was doing over the years, so I had to do some
research, which of course led to more research...so, I’m late.
So let me introduce you to an underappreciated Internet visionary,
one of the original Netizens: Ronda Hauben. In her youth, Hauben
worked in Detroit at the world’s largest car factory, Ford Rouge. As the
Page 63
story goes, Ford was sponsoring continuing education classes in
computer programming. Hauben and others were outraged when the
company canceled the program in 1987. After an unsuccessful attempt
to revive the company-sponsored program, Hauben launched The
Amateur Computerist newsletter to foster technology education among
came out on February 11, 1988, the 51
st
anniversary of the Flint
Sit-Down Strike. It declared: “We want to keep interest alive because
computers are the future. We want to disperse information to users about
computers. Since the computer is still in the early stage of development,
the ideas and experiences of the users need to be shared and built on if
this technology is to advance. To this end, this newsletter is dedicated
to all people interested in learning about computers.”
Sometime later, Hauben found Usenet newsgroups, and figured out
early that collaboration and participation among users were the key to
the future. In September 1992, the alt.amateur-comp newsgroup was
founded to circulate the electronic version of the newsletter, which was:
“dedicated to support for grassroots efforts and movements like the
‘computers for the people movement’ that gave birth to the personal
computer in the 1970s and 1980s. Hard efforts of many people over
hundreds of years led to the production of a working computer in the
1940s and then a personal computer that people could afford in the
1970s. This history has been serialized in several issues of the newslet-
ter.”
A year later, Hauben delivered a speech on the history and promise
of Usenet, which may have been my first acquaintance with her work.
Among the early stories The Amateur Computerist published
included one of the first histories of Usenet in its Fall 1992 Supplement,
“The Linux Movement” and the Free Software Foundation in Spring
1994, and more than a few basic (and BASIC) programs for its readers
to try out, much like Dr. Dobb’s Journal.
In 1994, Ronda and her son Michael released Netizens: On the
History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet for free on the web.
(
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/) It was later published by IEEE
Computer Society Press. It offers a terrific glimpse at the early history
of the Internet, and an important discussion of its promise that remains
Page 64
largely relevant today; especially with the increasing corporatization of
the Net.
Today, Ronda is a citizen journalist living in New York City. She
is an award-winning United Nations correspondent for OhMyNews
International, and still contributes articles on the democratic promise of
the Internet.
So go out and take a look at the complete Amateur Computerist
archives, and think about how you can contribute to your online
Comments always appreciated.
Notes:
* Notes from the Metaverse is the mostly technology-related weblog of Mike
McCallister.
** Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women
excelling in technology. See: http://findingada.com/
The opinions expressed in articles are those of their authors and not
necessarily the opinions of the Amateur Computerist newsletter. We
welcome submissions from a spectrum of viewpoints.
ELECTRONIC EDITION
ACN Webpage:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ All issues of the Amateur
Computerist are on-line. Back issues of the Amateur Computerist are available at:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/Back_Issues/
All issues can be accessed from the Index at:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/NewIndex.pdf
Page 65
EDITORIAL STAFF
Ronda Hauben
William Rohler
Norman O. Thompson
Michael Hauben (1973-2001)
Jay Hauben
The Amateur Computerist invites submissions. Articles can be
submitted via e-mail:
[email protected] Permission is given to reprint articles from
this issue in a non profit publication provided credit is given, with name of
author and source of article cited.
Page 66
