The Amateur

Computerist

Fall 2014 Upcoming Book “In the Era of the Netizen” Volume 24 No. 1

Contents

Editorial. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Participatory Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Culture and Communication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

New Dynamics of Democratization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Rise of Netizen Democracy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Candlelight 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Graduation Presentation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Is This a New Era?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Editorial

In his research and writing in the early 1990s, Michael Hauben

identified the emergence of the netizen. This conceptual grasp of an

important new phenomenon spread around the Net and so around the

world.

While this development of the netizen was recognized in the 1990s,

Michael had foreseen that with the new millennium and the spread of the

Net the netizens would become more of a phenomenon that one could

observe and identify as a significant form that was emerging.

“Welcome to the 21

Century,” Michael wrote in 1993. “You are a

Netizen (a Net Citizen), and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to

the global connectivity that the Net makes possible. You consider

everyone as your compatriot. You physically live in one country but you

are in contact with much of the world via the global computer network.

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Page 1

Virtually you live next door to every other single Netizen in the world.

Geographical separation is replaced by existence in the same virtual

space. The situation I describe is only a prediction of the future, but a

large part of the necessary infrastructure currently exists.”

What form this phenomenon was to take in the early days of the 21

Century has now been demonstrated.

In South Korea, the new century (actually also the new millennium)

was marked at first by a struggle against the powerful conservative

media which at the time determined the activity of the ruling strata of

that nation. Then the Anti-Chosun movement as it was called, named

after the Chosun media grouping, morphed into support for a presiden-

tial candidate who was willing to fight against the domination of this

media.

The netizens rallied behind this presidential candidate and lo and

behold, he won the presidency in 2002. A newspaper which grew up

online and gave him support, OhmyNews was an important part of this

victory.

Similarly in China, netizens were active criticizing abuse in their

society. Especially after 2003 there were many different critiques

contributed to by discussion among those who were able to be part of

this political discussion because of the internet. In 2008, a struggle

developed against the misrepresentation of an important event in China

by much of the mainstream western media. This situation gave birth to

the anti-cnn website, which documented the western media false

narratives about what was happening in China.

While these particular national forms developed, there was also an

international effort to challenge western media misrepresentations on a

number of blogs and website in various countries. This has spawned a

number of website, discussion groups and articles that carry on this

work. We call this phenomenon ‘netizen journalism’ or the emergence

of a new netizen media.

This issue of the Amateur Computerist gathers some of the articles

documenting these developments and which are part of a draft version

of a new book.

The new book, In the Era of the Netizen: Model for Participatory

Democracy, still in a draft form, is an effort to document netizen

Page 2

developments of the early 21

century. We call this period the Era of the

Netizen to point out that while netizens contend with other forms of

political activity, the netizen is becoming an increasingly significant

factor in the contest over the future. This is why we propose that human

society has now entered the Era of the Netizen. We foresee in the long

run that netizenship will be the dominant identity and practice among the

people of the world.

[Editor’s Note: The following was written in 1995 for the Columbia University course

“Radical Tradition in America.”]

Participatory Democracy: From The

1960s and SDS Into The Future Online*

by Michael Hauben

The 1960s was a time of people around the world struggling for

more of a say in the decisions of their society. The emergence of the

personal computer in the late 70s and early 80s and the longer gestation

of the new forms of people-controlled communication facilitated by the

internet and Usenet in the late 80s and today are the direct descendants

of 1960s.

The era of the 1960s was a special time in America. Masses of

people realized their own potential to affect how the world around them

worked. People rose up to protest the ways of society which were out of

their control, whether to fight against racial segregation, or to gain more

power for students in the university setting. The Port Huron Statement

created by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a document

which helped set the mood for the decade.

By the 1970s, some of the people who were directly involved in

student protests continued their efforts to bring power to the people by

developing and spreading computer power in a form accessible and

affordable to individuals. The personal computer movement of the 1970s

created the personal computer. By the mid 1980s they forced the

corporations to produce computers which everyone could afford. The

new communications media of the internet grew out of the ARPAnet

Page 3

research that started in 1969 and Usenet which was born in 1979. These

communication advances coupled with the availability of computers

transform the spirit of the 1960s into an achievable goal for our times.

SDS and The Need for Participatory Democracy

The early members of SDS found a real problem in American

society. They felt that the United States was a democracy that never

existed, or rather which was transformed into a representative system

after the constitutional convention. The United States society is called

a democracy, but had ceased being democratic after the early beginnings

of American society. SDS felt it is crucial for people to have a part in

how their society is governed. SDS leaders had an understanding of

democratic forms which did not function democratically in the 1960s

nor do they today. This is a real problem which the leaders and members

of SDS intuitively understood and worked to change.

An important part of the SDS program included the understanding

of the need for a medium to make it possible for a community of active

citizens to discuss and debate the issues affecting their lives. While not

available in the 1960s, such a medium exists today in the 1990s. The

seeds for the revival of the 1960s SDS vision of how to bring about a

more democratic society now exists in the personal computer and the

Net. These seeds will be an important element in the battle for winning

control for people as we approach the new millennium.

The Port Huron Statement and Deep Problems With

American Democracy

The Port Huron Statement was the foundation on which to build a

movement for participatory democracy in the 1960s. In June 1962, an

SDS national convention was held in a UAW camp located in the

backwoods of Port Huron, Michigan. The original text of the Port Huron

Statement was drafted by Tom Hayden, who was then SDS Field

Secretary. The Statement sets out the theory of SDS’s criticism of

American society. The Port Huron convention was itself a concrete

living example of the practice of participatory democracy.

The Port Huron Statement was originally thought of as a manifesto,

Page 4

but SDS members moved instead to call it a “statement.” It was prefixed

by an introductory note describing how it was to be a document that

should develop and change with experience: “This document represents

the results of several months of writing and discussion among the

membership, a draft paper, and revision by the Students for a Demo-

cratic Society national convention meeting in Port Huron, Michigan,

June 11-15, 1962. It is presented as a document with which SDS

officially identifies, but also as a living document open to change with

our times and experiences. It is a beginning: in our own debate and

education, in our dialogue with society.” (Port Huron Statement in

Miller, p. 329)

This note is important in that it signifies that the SDS document was

not defining the definite solution to the problems of society, but was

making suggestions that would be open to experiences toward a better

understanding. This openness is an important precursor to practicing

participatory democracy by asking for the opinions of everyone and

treating these various opinions equally.

The first serious problem inherent in American society identified by

the Port Huron Statement is the myth of a functioning democracy: “For

Americans concerned with the development of democratic societies, the

anticolonial movements and revolutions in the emerging nations pose

serious problems. We need to face the problems with humility; after 180

years of constitutional government we are still striving for democracy

in our own society.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 361)

This lack of democracy in American society contributes to the

political disillusionment of the population. Tom Hayden and SDS were

deeply influenced by the writings of C. Wright Mills, a philosopher who

was a professor at Columbia University until his death early in 1962.

Mills’ thesis was that the “the idea of the community of publics” which

make up a democracy had disappeared as people increasingly got further

away from politics. Mills felt that the disengagement of people from the

State had resulted in control being given to a few who in the 1960s were

no longer valid representatives of the American people. In his book

about SDS, Democracy is in the Streets, James Miller wrote: “Politics

became a spectator sport. The support of voters was marshaled through

advertising campaigns, not direct participation in reasoned debate. A

Page 5

citizen’s chief sources of political information, the mass media, typically

assaulted him with a barrage of distracting commercial come-ons, feeble

entertainments and hand-me-down glosses on complicated issues.”

(Miller, p. 85)

Such fundamental problems with democracy continue today in the

middle of the 1990s. In the Port Huron Statement, SDS was successful

in identifying and understanding the problems which still plague us

today. This is a necessary first step to working toward a solution. The

students involved with SDS understood people were tired of the

problems and wanted to make changes in society. The Port Huron

Statement was written to address these concerns: “… do they not as well

produce a yearning to believe there is an alternative to the present that

something can be done to change circumstances in the school, the work-

places, the bureaucracies, the government? It is to this latter yearning,

at once the spark and engine of change, that we direct our present

appeal. The search for a truly democratic alternative to the present, and

a commitment to social experimentation with them, is a worthy and

fulfilling human enterprise, one which moves us, and we hope, others

today.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 331)

Describing how the separation of people from power is the means

used to keep people uninterested and apathetic, the Port Huron

Statement explains: “The apathy is, first, subjective – the felt powerless-

ness of ordinary people, the resignation before the enormity of events.

But subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective American situation

– the actual structural separation of people from power, from relevant

knowledge, from pinnacles of decision-making. Just as the university

influences the student way of life, so do major social institutions create

the circumstances which the isolated citizen will try hopelessly to

understand the world and himself.” (“The Society Beyond” in the Port

Huron Statement, in Miller, p. 336)

The Statement analyzes the personal disconnection to society and

its effect: “The very isolation of the individual – from power and com-

munity and ability to aspire – means the rise of democracy without

publics. With the great mass of people structurally remote and psycho-

logically hesitant with respect to democratic institutions, those institu-

tions themselves attenuate and become, in the fashion of the vicious

Page 6

cycle, progressively less accessible to those few who aspire to serious

participation in social affairs. The vital democratic connection between

community and leadership, between the mass and the several elites, has

been so wrenched and perverted that disastrous policies go unchallenged

time and again.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 336)

The Statement describes how it is typical for people to get frustrated

and quit going along with the electoral system as something which

works. The problem has continued, as we now have all time lows in

voter turn-outs for national and local elections. In a section titled

“Politics Without Publics,” the Statement explains: “The American voter

is buffeted from all directions by pseudoproblems, by the structurally

initiated sense that nothing political is subject to human mastery.

Worried by his mundane problems which never get solved, but con-

strained by the common belief that politics is an agonizingly slow

accommodation of views, he quits all pretense of bothering.” (Port

Huron Statement in Miller, p. 337)

Students in SDS did not let these real problems discourage their

efforts to work for a better future. They wanted to be part of the forces

to defeat the problems. The Port Huron Statement contains an under-

standing that people are inherently good and can deal with the problems

that were described. This understanding is conveyed in the “Values”

section of the Statement: “Men have unrealized potential for

self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity. It is

this potential that we regard as crucial and to which we appeal, not to the

human potential for violence, unreason, and submission to authority.

The goal of man and society should be human independence: a concern

not with the image of popularity but with finding a meaning in life that

is personally authentic; a quality of mind not compulsively driven by a

sense of powerlessness, nor one which unthinkingly adopts status values,

nor one which represses all threats to its habits, but one which easily

unites the fragmented parts of personal history, one which openly faces

problems which are troubling and unresolved; one with an intuitive

awareness of possibilities, an active sense of curiosity, an ability and

willingness to learn.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 332)

Participatory Democracy

Page 7

Those participating in the Port Huron convention came away with

a sense of the importance of participatory democracy. This sense was in

the air in several ways. The convention itself embodied participatory

democracy through the discussion and debate over the text of the

Statement as several people later explained. The Port Huron Statement

called for the implementation of participatory democracy as a way to

bring people back into decisions about the country in general, and their

individual lives, in particular. One of Tom Hayden’s professors at

University of Michigan, Arnold Kaufman, came to speak about his

thoughts and use of the phrase ‘participatory democracy.’

Miller writes that in a 1960 essay, “Participatory Democracy and

Human Nature,” Kaufman had described a society in which every

member had a “direct responsibility for decisions.” The “main justifying

function” of participatory democracy, quotes Miller, “is and always has

been, not the extent to which it protects or stabilizes a community, but

the contribution it can make to the development of human powers of

thought, feeling and action. In this respect, it differs, and differs quite

fundamentally, from a representative system incorporating all sorts of

institutional features designed to safeguard human rights and ensure

social order.” (Miller, p. 94)

“Participation” explained Kaufman, “means both personal initiative

– that men feel obliged to help resolve social problems – and social

opportunity – that society feels obliged to maximize the possibility for

personal initiative to find creative outlets.” (Miller, p. 95)

A participant at the Port Huron convention, Richard Flacks

remembers Arnold Kaufman speaking at the convention, “At one point,

he declared that our job as citizens was not to role-play the President.

Our job was to put forth our own perspective. That was the real meaning

of democracy – press for your own perspective as you see it, not trying

to be a statesman understanding the big picture.” (Miller, p. 111)

After identifying participatory democracy as the means of how to

wrest control back from corporate and government bureaucracies, the

next step was to identify the means to having participatory democracy.

In the “Values” section of The Port Huron Statement, the means

proposed is a new media that would make this possible: “As a social

system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual

Page 8

participation governed by two central aims: that the individual share in

those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life;

the society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide

the media for their common participation.” (Port Huron Statement in

Miller, p. 333)

Others in SDS further detailed their understandings of participatory

democracy to mean people becoming active and committed to playing

more of a public role. Miller documents Al Haber’s idea of democracy

as “‘a model, another way of organizing society.’ The emphasis was on

a charge to action. It was how to be out there doing. Rather than an

ideology or a theory.” (Miller, pp. 143-144)

Tom Hayden, Miller writes, understood participatory democracy to

mean: “number one, action; we believed in action. We had behind us the

so-called decade of apathy; we were emerging from apathy. What’s the

opposite of apathy? Active participation. Citizenship. Making history.

Secondly, we were very directly influenced by the civil rights movement

in its student phase, which believed that by personally committing

yourself and taking risks, you could enter history and try to change it

after a hundred years of segregation. And so it was this element of

participation in democracy that was important. Voting was not enough.

Having a democracy in which you have an apathetic citizenship,

spoon-fed information by a monolithic media, periodically voting, was

very weak, a declining form of democracy. And we believed, as an end

in itself, to make the human being whole by becoming an actor in

history instead of just a passive object. Not only as an end in itself, but

as a means to change, the idea of participatory democracy was our

central focus.” (Miller, p. 144) Another member of SDS, Sharon Jeffrey

understood “Participatory” to mean “involved in decisions.” She

continued, “And I definitely wanted to be involved in decisions that

were going to affect me! How could I let anyone make a decision about

me that I wasn’t involved in?” (Miller, p. 144)

It is important to see the value of participatory democracy as a

common understanding among both the leaders and members of SDS.

While the Port Huron Statement contained other criticisms and thoughts,

its major contribution was to highlight the need to more actively involve

the citizens of the United States in the daily political process to correct

Page 9

some of the wrongs which passivity had allowed to build. Richard

Flacks summarizes this in his article, “On the Uses of Participatory

Democracy”: “The most frequently heard phrase for defining participa-

tory democracy is that ‘men must share in the decisions which effect

their lives.’ In other words, participatory democrats take seriously a

vision of man as citizen: and by taking seriously such a vision, they seek

to extend the conception of citizenship beyond the conventional political

sphere to all institutions. Other ways of stating the core values are to

assert the following: each man has responsibility for the action of the

institutions in which he is embedded ….” (Flacks, pp. 397-398)

The Need for Community for Participatory Democracy

The leaders of SDS strove to create forms of participatory de-

mocracy within its structure and organization as a prototype and as

leadership for the student protest movement and society in general. Al

Haber, the University of Michigan graduate student who was the first

SDS national officer, describes the need for a communication system to

provide the foundation for the movement: “The challenge ahead is to

appraise and evolve radical alternatives to the inadequate society of

today, and to develop an institutionalized communication system that

will give perspective to our immediate actions. We will then have the

groundwork for a radical student movement in America.” (Sale, p. 25)

He understood the general society would be the last place to

approach. There was a need to start smaller among the elements of

society that was becoming more active in the 1960s or the students.

Haber outlined his idea of where to start: “We do not now have such a

public [interaction in a functioning community] in America. Perhaps,

among the students, we are beginning to approach it on the left. It is now

the major task before liberals, radicals, socialists and democrats. It is a

task in which the SDS should play a major role.” (Miller, p. 69)

The Port Huron Statement defines ‘community’ to mean: “Human

relations should involve fraternity and honesty. Human interdependence

is a contemporary fact; …. ‘Personal links between man and man are

needed.’” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 332)

Prior to his full time involvement with SDS, Hayden wrote an

article for the Michigan Daily describing how democratic decision

Page 10

making is a necessary first step toward creating community. Hayden’s

focus was on the University when he wrote, “If decisions are the sole

work of an isolated few rather than of a participating many, alienation

from the University complex will emerge, because the University will

be just that: a complex, not a community.” However, this sentiment

persisted in Hayden’s and others thoughts about community and

democracy for the whole country. (Miller, p. 54)

This feeling about community is represented in the Port Huron

Statement’s conclusion. The Statement calls for the communal sharing

of problems to see that they are public and not private problems. Only

by communicating and sharing these problems through a community

will it be a chance to solve them together. SDS called for the new left to

“transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and

felt close-up by every human being.” The statement continues, “It must

give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so people may

see the political, social and economic sources of their private troubles

and organize to change society ….’” (Port Huron Statement in Miller,

p. 374)

The theory of participatory democracy was engaging. However, the

actual practice of giving everyone a say within the SDS structures made

the value of participatory democracy clear. The Port Huron Convention

was a real life example of how the principles were refreshing and

capable of bringing American citizens back into political process. The

community created among SDS members brought this new spirit to

light. C. Wright Mills writings spoke about “the scattered little circles

of face-to-face citizens discussing their public business.” Al Haber’s

hope for this to happen among students was demonstrated at Port Huron.

SDS members saw this as proof of Mills’ hope for democracy. This was

to be the first example of many among SDS gatherings and meetings.

Richard Flacks highlighted what made Port Huron special. He found a

“mutual discovery of like minds.” Flacks continued, “You felt isolated

before, because you had these political interests and values and suddenly

you were discovering not only like minds, but the possibility of actually

creating something together.” It was also exciting because, “it was our

thing: we were there at the beginning.” (Miller, p. 118)

Page 11

The Means For Change

SDS succeeded in doing several things. First, they clearly identified

the crucial problem in American democracy. Next, they came up with

an understanding of what theory would make a difference. All that

remained was to find the means to make this change manifest. They

discovered how to create changes in their own lives and these changes

affected the world around them. However, something more was needed

to bring change to all of American society.

Al Haber understood this something more would be an open com-

munication system or media which people could use to communicate.

He understood that, “the challenge ahead is to appraise and evolve

radical alternatives to the inadequate society of today, and to develop an

institutionalized communication system that will give perspective to our

immediate actions.” (Sale, p. 25) This system would lay the “the

groundwork for a radical student movement in America.” (Sale, p. 25)

Haber and Hayden understood SDS to be this, “a national communica-

tions network” (Miller, p. 72)

While many people made their voices heard and produced a real

effect on the world in the 1960s, lasting structural changes were not

established. The real problems outlined earlier continued in the 1970s

and afterwards. A national, or even an international, public communica-

tion network needed to be built to keep the public’s voice out in the

open.

Members of SDS partially understood this, and put forth the

following two points in the Port Huron Statement section on “Toward

American Democracy”:

– “Mechanisms of voluntary association must be created through which

political information can be imparted and political participation

encouraged.”

– “The allocation of resources must be based on social needs. A truly

‘public sector’ must be established, and its nature debated and planned.”

(Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 362)

International Public Communications Network – or The Net

This network and the means to access it began developing toward

Page 12

the end of the 1960s. Two milestones in the genesis were 1969 when the

first ARPAnet node was installed and in 1979 when Usenet started. Both

are pioneering experiments in using computers to facilitate human

communication in a fundamentally different way than already existing

public communications networks like the telephone or television

networks. The ARPAnet, which was a prototype for today’s internet, and

Usenet, which continues to grow and expand around the world, are parts

of the Net, or the worldwide global computer communication networks.

Another important step toward the development of an international

communication network was the personal computer movement, which

took place in the middle to late 1970s. This movement created the

personal computer which makes it affordable for an individual to

purchase the means to connect to this public network.

However, the network cannot simply be created. SDS understood

that “democracy and freedom do not magically occur, but have roots in

historical experience; they cannot always be demanded for any society

at any time, but must be nurtured and facilitated.” (Port Huron State-

ment in Miller, p. 361)

Participants on the ARPAnet, internet and Usenet inherently

understood this, and built a social and knowledge network from the

ground up. As Usenet was created to help students who did not have

access to the ARPAnet, or a chance to communicate in a similar way,

they came to it in full force. In “Culture and Communication: The

Interplay in the New Public Commons,” Michael Hauben writes that the

on-line user is part of a global culture and considers him or she to be a

global citizen. This global citizen is a net citizen, or a Netizen. The

world which has developed is based on communal effort to make a

cooperative community. Those who have become Netizens have gained

more control of their lives and the world around them. However, access

to this world needs to spread in order to have the largest possible effect

for the most number of people. In addition, as some efforts to spread the

net become more commercial, some of the values important to the net

are being challenged.

A recent speech I was invited to present at a conference on “the

Netizen Revolution and the Regional Information Infrastructure” in

Beppu, Japan helps to bring the world of the Netizen into perspective

Page 13

with the ideas of participatory democracy: “Netizens are not just anyone

who comes online, and they are especially not people who come on-line

for isolated gain or profit. They are not people who come to the net

thinking it is a service. Rather, they are people who understand it takes

effort and action on each and every ones part to make the net a regenera-

tive 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.” (Hauben, Hypernetwork '95 speech)

The net is a technological and social development which is in the

spirit of the theory clearly defined by the Students for a Democratic

Society. This understanding could help in the fight to keep the net a

uncommercialized public common (Felsenstein). This many to many

medium provides the tools necessary to bring the open commons needed

to make participatory democracy a reality. It is important now to spread

access to this medium to all who understand they could benefit.

The net brings power to people’s lives because it is a public forum.

The airing of real problems and concerns in the open brings help toward

the solution and makes those responsible accountable to the general

public. The net is the public distribution of people’s muckraking and

whistle blowing. It is also just a damn good way for people to come

together to communicate about common interests and to come into

contact with people with similar and differing ideas.

The lack of control over the events surrounding an individual’s life

was a common concern of protesters in the 1960s. The Port Huron

Statement gave this as a reason for the reforms SDS was calling for. The

section titled “The Society Beyond” included that “Americans are in

withdrawal from public life, from any collective efforts at directing their

own affairs.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 335)

Hayden echoed C. Wright Mills when he wrote, “What experience

we have is our own, not vicarious or inherited.” Hayden continued, “We

keep believing that people need to control, or try to control, their work

and their life. Otherwise, they are without intensity, without the

subjective creative consciousness of themselves which is the root of free

and secure feeling. It may be too much to believe, we don’t know.”

(Miller, p. 262)

The desire to bring more control into people’s daily life was a

Page 14

common goal of student protest in the 1960s. Mario Savio, active in the

Berkeley Free Speech movement, “believed that the students, who paid

the university to educate them, should have the power to influence

decisions concerning their university lives.” (Haskins and Benson, p. 55)

This desire was also a common motivator of the personal computer

movement.

The Personal Computer Movement

The personal computer movement immediately picked up after the

protest movements of the 1960s died down. Hobbyist computer

enthusiasts wanted to provide access to computing power to the people.

People across the United States picked up circuit boards and worked on

making a personal minicomputer or mainframe which previously only

large corporations and educational institutions could afford. Magazines,

such as Creative Computing, Byte and Dr. Dobbs’ Journal, and clubs,

such as the Homebrew Club, formed cooperative communities of people

working toward solving the technical problems of building a personal

and inexpensive computer.

Several pioneers of the personal computer movement contributed

to the tenth anniversary issue of Creative Computing Magazine. Some

of their impressions follow: “The people involved were people with

vision, people who stubbornly clung to the idea that the computers could

offer individuals advantages previously available only to large corpora-

tions ….” (Leyland, p. 111) “Computer power was meant for the people.

In the early 70s computer cults were being formed across the country.

Sol Libes on the East Coast and Gordon French in the West were

organizing computer enthusiasts into clubs ….” (Terrell, p. 100) “We

didn’t have many things you take for granted today, but we did have a

feeling of excitement and adventure. A feeling that we were the pioneers

in a new era in which small computers would free everyone from much

of the drudgery of everyday life. A feeling that we were secretly taking

control of information and power jealously guarded by the Fortune 500

owners of multimillion dollar IBM mainframes. A feeling that the world

would never be the same once ‘hobby computers’ really caught on.”

(Marsh, p. 110) “There was a strong feeling [at the Homebrew Club]

that we were subversives. We were subverting the way the giant

Page 15

corporations had run things. We were upsetting the establishment,

forcing our mores into the industry. I was amazed that we could continue

to meet without people arriving with bayonets to arrest the lot of us.”

The Net and Conclusion

The development of the internet and of Usenet is an investment in

a strong force toward making direct democracy a reality. These new

technologies present the chance to overcome the obstacles preventing

the implementation of direct democracy. Online communication forums

also make possible the discussion necessary to identify today’s

fundamental questions. One criticism is that it would be impossible to

assemble the body politic in person at a single time. The net allows for

a meeting which takes place on each person’s own time, rather than all

at one time. Usenet newsgroups are discussion forums where questions

are raised, and people can leave comments when convenient, rather than

at a particular time and at a particular place. As a computer discussion

forum, individuals can connect from their own computers, or from

publicly accessible computers across the nation to participate in a

particular debate. The discussion takes place in one concrete time and

place, while the discussants can be dispersed. Current Usenet news-

groups and mailing lists prove that citizens can both do their daily jobs

and participate in discussions that interest them within their daily

schedules.

Another criticism was that people would not be able to communi-

cate peacefully after assembling. Online discussions do not have the

same characteristics as in-person meetings. As people connect to the

discussion forum when they wish, and when they have time, they can be

thoughtful in their responses to the discussion. Whereas in a traditional

meeting, participants have to think quickly to respond. In addition,

online discussions allow everyone to have a say, whereas finite length

meetings only allow a certain number of people to have their say. Online

meetings allow everyone to contribute their thoughts in a message,

which is then accessible to whomever else is reading and participating

in the discussion.

These new communication technologies hold the potential for the

implementation of direct democracy in a country as long as the

Page 16

necessary computer and communications infrastructure are installed.

Future advancement toward a more responsible government is possible

with these new technologies. While the future is discussed and planned

for, it will also be possible to use these technologies to assist in the

citizen participation in government. Netizens are watching various

government institutions on various newsgroups and mailing lists

throughout the global computer communications network. People’s

thoughts about and criticisms of their respective governments are being

aired on the currently uncensored networks.

These networks can revitalize the concept of a democratic “Town

Meeting” via online communication and discussion. Discussions involve

people interacting with others. Voting involves the isolated thoughts of

an individual on an issue, and then his or her acts on those thoughts in

a private vote. In society where people live together, it is important for

people to communicate with each other about their situations to best

understand the world from the broadest possible viewpoint.

The individuals involved with SDS, the personal computer

movement and the pioneers involved with the development of the net

understood they were a part of history. This spirit helped them to push

forward in the hard struggle needed to bring the movements to fruition.

The invention of the personal computer was one step that made it

possible for people to afford the means to connect to the Net. The

internet has just begun to emerge as a tool available to the public. It is

important that the combination of the personal computer and the net be

spread and made widely available at low or no costs to people around

the world. It is important to understand the tradition which these

developments have come from, in order to truly understand their value

to society and to make them widely available. With the hope connected

to this new public communications medium, I encourage people to take

up the struggle which continues in the great American radical tradition.

Bibliography

Felsenstein, Lee. “The Commons of Information.” In Dr. Dobbs’ Journal. May 1993.

Flacks, Richard. “On the Uses of Participatory Democracy.” In Dissent. No. 13.

November 1966. Pp. 701-708. Reprinted in The American Left. Edited by Loren

Baritz. Pp. 397-405.

Page 17

Freiberger, Paul and Michael Swaine. Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal

Computer. Osborne/McGraw-Hill. Berkeley. 1984.

Haskins, James and Kathleen Benson. The 60s Reader. Viking Kestrel. New York.

1988.

Hauben, Michael. Culture and Communication: The interplay in the new public com-

mons – Usenet and Community. 1995.

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/usenet-culture.txt

Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben. Netizens: On The History and Impact of Usenet

and the Internet. Los Alamitos, CA. IEEE Computer Society Press. 1997. Also

available (1994):

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

Hauben, Michael. “Netizens and Community Networks.” Presentation at Hyper

network '95, Beppu Bay Conference. November 24, 1995. Beppu Bay, Oita

Prefecture, Japan.

Leyland, Diane Asher. “As We Were.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10 no. 11.

November 1984. Pp. 111-112.

Marsh, Robert. “1975: Ancient History.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10 no. 11.

November 1984. Pp. 108-110.

Miller, James. Democracy is in the Streets. Simon and Schuster. New York. 1987.

Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. Vintage Books. New York, 1974.

SDS. Port Huron Statement. June 15, 1962. As found in Miller. Pp. 329-374.

Terrell, Paul. “A Guided Tour of Personal Computing.” In

Creative Computing. Vol. 10 no. 11. November 1984. Pp. 100-104.

* This article is online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netdemocracy-60s.txt

Page 18

[Editor’s Note: The following is an expanded and updated version of a paper prepared

for the IFIP-WG 9.2/9.5 Working Conference on Culture and Democracy Revisited in

the Global Information Society, May 8 - 10, 1997, Corfu (Greece). A version appears

as Chapter 17, in An Ethical Global Information Society: Culture and democracy

revisited, Jacques Berleur and Diane Whitehouse, Editors, IFIP, 1997, pp 197-202.]

Culture and Communication:

The Impact of the Internet on the

Emerging Global Culture

by Michael Hauben

Any document that attempts to cover an emerging culture

is doomed to be incomplete. Even more so if the culture has no

overt identity (at least none outside virtual space). But the other

side of that coin presents us with the opportunity to document

the ebb and flow, the moments of growth and defeat, the

development of this young culture. (John Frost, Cyberpoet’s

Guide to Virtual Culture, 1993)

ABSTRACT

As we approached the new millennium, social relationships were

changing radically. Even in 1969, the anthropologist Margaret Mead

wrote of an “approaching worldwide culture.” While she wrote of a

global culture made possible by the electronic and transportation

advances of her day, her words actually foresaw fundamental changes

that have been substantially enhanced by the computer communication

networks that were just beginning. A new culture is being formed out of

a universal desire for communication. This culture is partly formed and

formulated by new technology and by social desires. People are

dissatisfied with their conditions, whether traditional or modern. Much

of the new communication technology facilitates new global connec-

tions. This article will explore the emerging culture and the influence of

the net on this new participatory global culture.

Page 19

I – The Emerging Globalization of Everyday Life

The concept of a global culture arises from the extensive develop-

ment of transportation and communication technologies in the twentieth

century. These developments have linked the world together in ways

which make it relatively simple to travel or communicate with peoples

and cultures around the world. The daily exposure of the world’s

peoples to various cultures makes it impossible for almost any individual

to envision the world consisting of only his or her culture (Mead, 1978,

p. 69). We really are moving into a new global age which affects most

aspects of human life. For example, world trade has become extensive,

more and more words are shared across languages, people are aware of

political situations around the world and how these situations affect their

own, and sports and entertainment are viewed simultaneously by global

audiences. The exposure to media and forms of communication helps

spread many of these cultural elements. While television and radio

connect people with the rest of the world in a rather removed and often

passive fashion, computer networks are increasingly bringing people of

various cultures together in a much more intimate and grassroots

manner. A global culture is developing, and the Internet is strongly

contributing to its development.

Culture is a difficult concept to define. Tim North has gathered six

different definitions in his unpublished master’s thesis (1994, chapter

4.2.1):

1. Culture: The shared behavior learned by members of a society,

the way of life of a group of people (Barnouw, 1987, p. 423).

2. A culture is the way of life of a group of people, the complex of

shared concepts and patterns of learned behavior that are handed down

from one generation to the next through the means of language and

imitation (Barnouw, 1987, p. 4).

3. Culture: The set of learned behaviours, beliefs, attitudes and

ideals that are characteristic of a particular society or population (Ember

and Ember, 1990, p. 357).

4. Culture … taken in its wide ethnographic sense is that complex

whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any

other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of a society

(Tyler, 1871; cited in Harris 1988, p. 122).

Page 20

5. Culture: The customary manner in which human groups learn to

organize their behavior in relation to their environment (Howard, 1989,

p. 452).

6. Culture (general): The learned and shared kinds of behavior that

make up the major instrument of human adaption. Culture (particular):

The way of life characteristic of a particular human society (Nanda,

1991, p. G-3).

One common category in some of these definitions is the passing of

previously learned behavior from one generation to the next. Another

common category in North’s definitions of culture is the importance of

experience and patterns of behavior being shared among a group of

people.

Historically, during most periods, culture has changed slowly and

has been passed on from generation to generation. In the last half of the

twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, for

most peoples the normal rate of cultural evolution has been accelerating.

Mead (1978, p. 64) writes that while in the past, culture was transmitted

from the older generation to the younger with slow change from

generation to generation, today the younger generation learn from both

their elders and their peers. The learning from peers is then shared with

their elders. Human culture gets set by how people live their lives

(Graham, 1995). Culture is created and re-enforced through how that

person lives in context of society and social movements. One is taught

the culture of his or her society while growing up, but those perceptions

change as he or she matures, develops and lives an adult life. Culture is

not statically defined. Rather a person grows up into a culture and then

can contribute to its change as time progresses. (Mead, 1956)

People are increasingly living a more global lifestyle, whether

mediated through television, radio and newspapers, travel or actual

experience. This global experience is facilitated by the ability of the

individual to interact with people from other cultures and countries on

a personal level. Images and thoughts available via mass media show

that other cultures exist. But when people from different cultures

actually get a chance to talk and interact, then the differences become

less of an oddity and more of an opportunity (Uncapher, 1992).

Professor Dennis Sumara argues that the formation of self-identity is

Page 21

influenced by relations with others. He writes:

The sense of self-identity … emerges … from our symbiotic

relations with others. In coming to know others we learn about

ourselves. It is important to note, however, that it is not a static

or unified self that we come to know, for in the coming-to-

know – we are changed. We evolve through our relations with

others …. (Sumara, 1996, p. 56)

That implies that people and cultures change from the interaction with

other people’s cultures. This new interaction and subsequent change is

part of the formation of a global culture.

There are critics (Appadurai, 1990: etc.) who claim this global

culture, or mass culture is snuffing out individual differences for a pre-

packaged commercial culture. These critics call for the isolation of

communities from each other so that uniqueness can be preserved. This

criticism misses that human culture is a dynamic element of society, and

freezing it would produce a museum of human society. Uncapher (1992)

correctly points out that what these critics do not recognize is that more

and more people of various cultures are understanding the power of the

new communication technologies. More and more people are reacting

against the mass media and corporate dominance and calling for a

chance to express their views and contribute their culture into the global

culture. As an example, Margaret Mead tells a story (1978, pp. 5-6) of

returning to a village in New Guinea which she had visited three decades

earlier. She wrote (p. 5):

In the 1930s, when one arrived in a New Guinea village, the

first requests were for medicine … and for trade goods. The

European was expected to bring material objects from the

outside world …. But in 1967 the first conversation went:

“Have you got a tape recorder?”

“Yes, why?”

“We have heard other people’s singing on the radio and we

want other people to hear ours.”

The presence of radios made the villagers aware of the music of others,

and they wanted a part of their culture broadcast around the world.

Mead understood the importance of diversity to the survival and

strength of a species, whether human or animal. However, she also

Page 22

understood that part of the global commonality was through the spread

of scientific understandings and technological developments. The desire

for technology is strong among those who have only heard about its

advantages. She wrote, “People who have only seen airplanes in the sky

and heard the wonderful ways of radio, satellites, telescopes, micro-

scopes, engines, and script are eager to experience these things for

themselves.” (Mead, 1978, p. 121) The Internet is one of the new

technological advances of today, and can be seen to fit with the above

examples. It is important to understand that coupled with the desire for

the technological advances is the understanding of the need to control

the introduction of such technology and participate to have its use

benefit the particular peoples in their particular needs. The peoples of

the world understand that with the implementation of technology comes

a responsibility for the management and careful handling of that

technology. Mead writes about this (1978, pp. 153-154):

… the very burgeoning of science that has resulted in world-

wide diffusion of a monotonous modern culture has also

stimulated people throughout the world to demand participa-

tion. And through this demand for participation in the benefits

of a monotonous, homogeneous technology, we have actually

generated new ways to preserve diversity.

Even in the primitive communities that Mead studied in the Pacific

Islands, she recorded that these people adopted democracy and the use

of technology with their own variations and new aspects that served their

own needs. The new advances in communication technologies facilitate

new democratic processes. People are discovering new ways to

participate and add their cultural contributions to a larger world. Efforts

to communicate via technology require the acceptance of technological

standards and the building of a common technical framework. The

growth of communications networks and standards at the same time

allows diverse cultures to share and spread their varying cultures with

others.

II – Global Contact over Computer Networks.

The new media of forums, newsgroups, e-mail, chat rooms, blogs

and webpages on the internet facilitate the growth of global interactive

Page 23

communities. These electronic communication forms are made available

through community networks, universities, the workplace, portals and

internet service providers (Hauben & Hauben, 1997, p. 8). Human

culture is ever evolving and developing, and the new public commons

that these technologies make possible is of a global nature. A growing

number of people are coming together online and living more time of

their daily lives with people from around the world. Through the sharing

of these moments by people, their cultures are coming to encompass

more of the world not before immediately available. Mead (1978, p. 88)

understood that a global community and awareness would require the

development of a new kind of communication that depended on the

participation of those who previously had no access to such power or

such a voice.

Newsgroups and forums are a relatively young medium of human

discourse and communication. The Usenet technology, one of the first

broad newsgroup networks, was developed by graduate students in the

late 1970s as a way to promote the sharing of information and to spread

communication between university campuses. Their design highlighted

the importance of the contribution by individuals to the community. The

content of Usenet was produced by members of the community for the

whole of the community. Active participation was required for Usenet

to have anything available on it. It was the opposite of a for-pay service

that provides content and information. On Usenet, the users produced

the content, i.e. talk, debate, discussion, flames, reportage, nonsense, and

scientific breakthroughs filled the space. Usenet was a public communi-

cations technology framework which was open. The users participated

in determining what newsgroups were created, and then filled those

newsgroups with messages that were the content of Usenet. In forming

this public space, or commons, people were encouraged to share their

views, thoughts, and questions with others (Hauben & Hauben, 1997, p.

4). The chance to contribute and interact with other people spread

Usenet to become a truly global community of people hooking their

computers together to communicate. People both desire to talk and to

communicate with other people (Graham, 1995; Woodbury, 1994).

Usenet was created to make that communication happen. In time it also

gave a public voice to those who would not have had the opportunity

Page 24

otherwise to have their voice heard. By promoting a democratic

medium, these graduate students who created Usenet were helping to

create the kind of medium Mead believed was an important condition

toward the development of a global culture.

In a study about the global online culture, Tim North (1994, chapter

5.2) asked the question “is there an on-line culture and society on

Usenet?” His conclusion was that there was a definite Usenet culture. He

listed four of the important defining aspects of this unique online

culture,

1. The conventions of the culture are freely discussed.

2. The culture is not closed to outsiders and welcomes new

members.

3. There is a strong sense of community within the Net culture.

4. It’s what you say, not who you are.

North described the Usenet culture as open and welcoming of

newcomers even if there was an occasional unfriendliness to “newbies”.

He focused on how the online culture was documented and available so

newcomers could figure out how the community functioned and more

easily join it. But also not only was the documentation available online

to learn from, it was open for discussion.

Another researcher in the 1990s, Bruce Jones described the fullness

of net culture:

… the Usenet network of computers and users constitutes a

community and a culture, bounded by its own set of norms and

conventions, marked by its own linguistic jargon and sense of

humor and accumulating its own folklore. (1991, p. 2)

Jones elaborates on what he saw to be an egalitarian tendency or

tendency to contribute to the community’s benefit. Jones wrote:

… the people of the net owe something to each other. While

not bound by formal, written agreements, people nevertheless

are required by convention to observe certain amenities

because they serve the greater common interest of the net.

These aspects of voluntary association are the elements of

culture and community that bind the people of Usenet together.

(p. 4)

While North proposed that Usenet was a distinct culture, he argued

Page 25

that it could not be considered a separate society. Rather, Usenet was “a

superstructural society that spans many mainstream societies and is

dependent upon them for its continued existence” (1994, chap. 4.2.2).

North argued that the Net does not need to provide the physical

needs made possible by a society. He wrote:

In this superstructural view, the Net is freed of the responsibili-

ties of providing certain of the features provided by other

societies (e.g., reproduction, food and shelter) by virtue of the

fact that its members are also members of traditional main-

stream societies that do supply them. (1994, chap. 4.2.2)

Rather, those who use the Net live in their daily offline society, and

come to the Net for reasons other than physical needs. Others (Avis,

1995; Graham, 1995; Jones, 1991) also studied this new online culture

and its connection to the growing global culture. They saw there are a

distinct online culture and a distinct offline global culture. While the

online culture strongly contributes to the developing global culture

offline, it is not the sole contributing factor. The contribution of the

online culture to the global culture through such technologies as forums

and electronic mailing lists is important as the online media requires

participation of the users to exist. Since as media forums, newsgroups

and social websites encourage participation, they support the contribu-

tions of many diverse people and cultures to the broader global culture.

Both the technological design of opening one’s computer up to

accept contributions of others and the desire to communicate led to the

creation of an egalitarian culture (Jones, 1991; North, 1994; Woodbury,

1994). People have both a chance to introduce and share their own

culture and a chance to broaden themselves through exposures to various

other cultures. As such, the online culture is an example of a global

culture which is not a reflection of purely one culture. Instead, it both

incorporates cultural elements from many nations and builds a new

culture (North, 1994). Self-identity evolves through relations with

others. (Sumara, 1996, p. 56) The new connections between people of

different cultures allows each culture to broaden itself based on the new

understandings available from other places; culture changes through the

exchange with new ways of understanding and life. And this change and

shared changes gets shared around the world.

Page 26

III – Community Networks making Online Access

Available

Being a relatively young medium, the Net is available to a subset of

the world. However, this is rapidly changing. Projects are extending the

connections to undeveloped countries and the basic technology needed

to gain access is as simple as a computer and modem connected to the

local telephone or amateur radio network. More and more people around

the world are getting online via mobile devices. Another hurdle to

overcome is technical training. However, the democratic ethos of the

Net spreads through the help that users offer each other online. A large

number of people who are on the Net want more people to be able to use

computer technology. Many are helpful and take the time and effort to

spread their knowledge to others who desire to learn. Similarly everyone

online at one point was new and learning. This experience of ‘newbie’-

ness provides a common heritage to unite people. The problems

encountered in implementing and using new technology encourages

people to connect to others using the technology. This is an incentive to

hook into the internet where such people can be contacted. The

commonality of people participating in the same technology creates a

basis to develop commonality toward other interests.

Community networks in the 1990s provided a way for citizens of a

locality to hook into these global communities for little or no cost

(Graham, 1995). Community networks also provided a way for

communities to truly represent themselves to others connected online

(Graham, 1995; Weston, 1994). Without access made available through

community networks, through publicly available computer terminals or

local dial-in phone numbers, only those who could have afforded the

cost of a computer and the monthly charges of commercial internet

service providers (ISPs) or online services or who had access through

work or school would represent themselves (Avis, 1995). Particular

portraits of various cultures would thus be only partially represented.

Also, when access is available and open to all, a greater wealth of

contributions can be made. For example, there was a strong push in

Canada and Canadian communities to get online. A lot of grassroots

community network building took place. A Canadian national organiza-

tion, Telecommunities Canada, stressed the importance of contributing

Page 27

Canada’s various cultures to the online community and in this way made

a contribution to the whole community (Graham, 1995; Weston, 1994).

In a similar way, Izumi Aizu (1995, p. 6) says that Japan had “an

opportunity to bring its own cultural value to the open world.” He

continues, “It also opens the possibility of changing Japan into a less

rigid, more decentralized society, following the network paradigm

exercised by the distributed nature of the Internet itself” (Aizu, 1995, p.

6).

There is something to be said about the attraction of representing

one’s self to the greater community. The many-to-many form of

communication where an individual can broadcast to the community and

get responses back from other individuals is an empowering experience.

No longer do you have to be rich and powerful to communicate broadly

to others and to represent yourself and your own views. This power is

making it possible for individuals to communicate with others of similar

and differing interests around the world. Grass-roots organization is

boosted and even the formation of local community groups is all

accelerated. Development of the commons to the exclusion of the big

media representations makes this an electronic grass-roots medium, or

a new enlarged public commons (Felsenstein, 1993).

The online culture is primarily a written one, although much of the

text is written generally in an informal, almost off-the-cuff fashion.

While people will post papers and well thought out ideas, much of the

conversation is generated in an immediate response to others’ messages.

This text can feel like a conversation, or a written version of oral culture.

Stories akin to the great stories of the pre-history come about. Legends

and urban myths circulate and are disseminated (Jones, 1991). Pictures

and other non-text items can be posted or sent in messages, but these

non-text items are primarily transferred and not modified, thought upon

or communally worked on as are the textual ideas. Graphics and

graphical communication and collaboration occur more on websites,

although they are still a less effective communication medium. The

common shared online language was in the beginning English (Aizu).

That is changing. Other languages exist in country hierarchies and news-

groups and in mailing lists, along with chat rooms, search engines and

web pages. Moreover, all these developments, textual or graphic, make

Page 28

possible a global conversation of diverse views. Mead recognizes that

“True communication is a dialogue.” (Mead, 1978, p. 77) She points out

that real communication occurs “… in a world in which conflicting

points of view, rather than orthodoxies, are prevalent and accessible.”

(Mead, 1978, p. 80)

IV – Conclusion

The new global culture is forming in several ways, none of which

is a generic corporate rubber stamp. People are taking charge. They are

bringing their own cultures into the global culture and spreading this

new culture around the world. This is taking on a general form and an

online form. The online form provides a strong means by which people

can spread their ideas and culture which in turn affects the broader

global culture. This broader global culture also has an effect on

newsgroups or online media. The ability to express oneself to the rest of

the world is addictive and the rapid increase of new people joining the

online global community makes that manifest. “The voiceless and the

oppressed in every part of the world have begun to demand more power

…. The secure belief that those who knew had authority over those who

did not has been shaken” (Mead, 1978, p. 5). Mead states later, “There

are new technological conditions within which a new initiative for the

human race is possible. But it will not be found without a vision.” To the

former call for brotherhood and sisterhood or of loyalty to kin and one’s

ancestors, Mead proposes, “we can now add a vision of a planetary

community.” She explains that “Within such a vision, the contributions

of each culture … can become complementary.” However, Mead

emphasizes, “but within the new vision there must be no outsiders.” (pp.

147-148)

References

Aizu, Izumi. (1995). Cultural Impact on Network Evolution in Japan Emergence of Netizens.

Institute for HyperNetwork Society. Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM).

International University of Japan. Available:

http://www.nira.or.jp/past/publ/review/95autumn/aizu.html

Appadurai, Arjun. (1990). “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Public

Culture, 2, 1–24.

Avis, Andrew. (1995) Public Spaces on the Information Highway: The Role of Community

Page 29

Networks. Unpublished master’s thesis. University of Calgary. Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Barnouw, V. (1987). An Introduction to Anthropology: Ethnology. 5

Ed. Chicago: The Dorsey

Press.

Ember, C. R. & M. Ember. (1990). Cultural Anthropology. 6

Ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Felsenstein, Lee. (1993, May). “The Commons of Information.” Dr. Dobbs’ Journal, 18–22.

Frost, John. (1993). Cyberpoet’s Guide to Virtual Culture Available:

http://www.reststop.net/cybercomm/cgvc1.html

Graham, Garth. (March 29, 1995). A Domain Where Thought is Free to Roam: The Social

Purpose of Community Networks. Prepared for Telecommunities Canada for CRTC Public

Hearings on Information Highway. Available:

http://www.ncf.ca/ncf/freeport2html/conferences/access95/reading/crtc_bri.txt.html

Harris, M. (1988). Culture, People, Nature: An introduction to General Anthropology. 5

Ed.

New York: Harper and Row.

Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben. (1997). Netizens: On The History and Impact of Usenet

and the Internet. Los Alamitos, CA. IEEE Computer Society Press. Also available (1994):

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

Howard, M.C. (1989). Contemporary Cultural Anthropology. 3

Ed. Glenview, Il: Scott,

Foresman and Co.

Jones, Bruce. (1991). An Ethnography of the Usenet Computer Network: Proposal for a Ph.D.

Dissertation in Communications. University of California, San Diego. Dept. of

Communication.

Mead, Margaret. (1956). New Lives For Old: Cultural Transformations - Manus, 1928-1953.

New York: William Morrow & Company.

Mead, Margaret. (1978). Culture and Commitment: The New Relationships Between the

Generations in the 1970s. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books/Doubleday.

Nanda, S. (1991). Cultural Anthropology. 4

Ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

North, Tim. (1994) The Internet and Usenet Global Computer Networks: An Investigation of

Their Culture and its Effects on New Users. Unpublished master’s thesis. Curtin

University of Technology. Perth, Australia.

Sumara, Dennis J. (1996). “Private readings in public: Schooling the literary imagination.” In

Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education. Counterpoint. Vol. 26 (Joe L. Kincheloe

and Shirley R. Steinberg General Editors). New York: Peter Lang.

Uncapher, Willard. (1992) Between Local and Global: Placing the Mediascape in the

Transnational Cultural Flow. Available:

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/courses/encr481/Uncapher.doc

Weston, Jay. (Nov. 26, 1994). Old Freedoms and New Technologies: The Evolution of

Community Networking. Paper presented at the Free Speech and Privacy in the

Information Age Symposium: The University of Waterloo, Canada. Published in The

Information Society: An International Journal, Volume 13, Issue 2, 1997. Available:

h t t p : / / w w w . t a n d f o n l i n e . c o m / d o i / a b s / -

10.1080/019722497129214?queryID=%24{resultBean.queryID}#preview. Access

restricted.

Woodbury, Gregory G. (1994, Fall). “Net Cultural Assumptions. Amateur Computerist

Newsletter. Vol. 6 No. 2-3. Available:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN6-2-3.pdf

Page 30

[Editor’s Note: The following are excerpts from a longer chapter with the same title

which will be part of the new book.]

The New Dynamics of Democratization

in South Korea: The Internet and the

Emergence of the Netizen

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

I – The Global Internet and the Netizen Experience in Korea

In 2002, the Sisa Journal, a South Korean weekly, named

‘Netizens’ as the Person of the Year (La 2003, p. 1). This represented

a rare recognition of a new and significant phenomenon that has

emerged with the development and spread of the internet (Hauben

1997). The netizen has become a significant actor in the struggle for

democracy. Nowhere was this more pronounced than in South Korea.

Describing the progressive impact that the internet is having around

the world, Choi Jang Jip, a professor at Korea University, writes (2000,

p. 46):

[A]ccompanied by the development of communication technol-

ogies globalization creates new elements that enable people to

counter undemocratic or anti-democratic elements …. In the

instrumental sense, globalization enables communication for

democracy in cyberspace. In terms of content, a greater affinity

between worldwide democratic values and norms and the

unique experiences of younger Koreans in the democratization

movement become possible.

Many South Koreans are dissatisfied with the process of democratic

development in South Korea, Choi recognizes that it is not political

parties but the internet and the democratic processes that the internet

makes possible that provide a continuum with the democratic processes

and practices that helped to win the June 1987 victory in South Korea.

He explains the reason:

Political society is preoccupied with political parties, political

elites, and mass media, which produces and transmits dominant

Page 31

discourse … however, cyberspace has no barriers to entry and

is an absolutely free space over which no hegemonic discourse

can exercise a dominant influence. (Choi 2000, p. 40)

Choi maintains that the Korean experience of democratic practice

is important not only for the democratization struggle in Korea, but also

as an indication of a worldwide struggle for democracy to come:

The citizen movement using Internet is just a beginning stage.

It will become popular in the near future and change the quality

and contents of movements because of the rapid internet

diffusion and information expansion. (Choi 2000, p. 50)

There is a need to document and understand the experience of

netizens in Korea not only to support the democratization struggle in

Korea itself, but also toward understanding the contribution of this

netizen experience to the worldwide struggle for democracy.

II – A Model for Democratization

Along with the recognition that the experience of democratic

struggle provides the basis for the continuing struggle for democracy in

South Korea, Choi believes that there is a need for public understanding

of democracy. He writes:

In any given nation or society, democracy develops in parallel

with the level of understanding in that society. In order for

democracy to take root and to develop in quality, [a] social

understanding of democracy has to develop. This is why civic

education for democracy is important, and it is necessary to

increase public interest and participation through such educa-

tion. When this happens, people's intellectual curiosity for

understanding will increase, and so will their social participa-

tion. This is how democracy develops. (Choi 2005, p. 13)

To develop such an understanding, he proposes the need for critical

discussion and debate about democracy (Choi 2005, p. 13). Such a

process of discussion and experimentation with democracy has been

happening on the internet in South Korea. Yet because it is taking place

at a grassroots level, online and in the Korean language, it is little

understood and even more rarely considered in the world outside of the

internet. Choi himself wrote a book translated into English (2005),

Page 32

Democracy after Democratization: the Korean Experience, documenting

the history and progress of the struggle for democracy in South Korea.

The only clue in his book of the online developments, however, is the

cover, which shows a massive demonstration in Seoul that took place in

2004 that was made possible by the online democratic developments.

The online newspaper OhmyNews is credited for the photo. Thus, the

book and its cover demonstrate the confusion about the contribution to

the democratic struggle in South Korea by the internet and the netizens.

This is understandable as the internet and the netizens are relatively

recent phenomena and their contribution to the struggle for democracy

is still poorly understood. This article is intended as a contribution to the

discussion and debate about democracy that Choi advocates.

III – A New Model for Democracy and the Need for a

Communication Infrastructure

Before discussing the internet and the netizens and their impact on

the democratization struggle in South Korea, however, I want to propose

a model for democracy that I will utilize in this article. A number of

Korean scholars note that a minimalist conception of democracy is

inadequate as a goal. Han Sang-Jin, a professor at Seoul National

University, disagrees with scholars who depend on institutional politics

from within the political system (1995, p. 131). Han writes:

If the outside energy dries up or disappears, it seems very

unlikely that any political leader or faction would pursue

structural reform. by its own initiative.

As part of his support for grassroots political activity, Han proposes

the need to support a culture of diversity, a culture which nourishes the

quest for a conscious social identity. He writes:

Crucial for democratic consolidation … is the capacity of civil

society as the basis of democratic institutions in which cultural

identities and diversities are nurtured and developed. It is

probably in this sense that one may expect that new visions for

civilization will also come from East Asia. It is indeed tempt-

ing to think about the possibility, and it will be as much so in

the future as it is now. (Han 1995, p. 13)

Han’s intuition that democratic development requires a cultural

Page 33

process is similar to the model for democracy created by the Students for

a Democratic Society (SDS) in the U.S. in the early 1960s. An essay by

Arnold Kaufman, a professor at the University of Michigan, inspired the

development of the SDS model of democracy which has become known

as ‘participatory democracy.’ The essay Kaufman wrote, “Participatory

Democracy and Human Initiative” helped to set the foundation for the

SDS model of democracy.

Kaufman writes, “Participation means both personal initiative – that

men feel obliged to resolve social problems and social opportunity – that

society feels obliged to maximize the possibility for personal initiatives

to find creative outlets” (Quoted in Hauben 1995). Thus for Kaufman

and then for the SDS, the concept of participatory democracy had two

aspects, one a role for the person as part of a social process, and two, a

role for the society to encourage the creative initiative of the person.

This is different from the minimalist conceptions of democracy and

from conceptions relying on an elite to make the decisions for the

population, or proposing that democracy means facilitating institutional

competition among an elite. Kaufman, and subsequently SDS, proposed

a model for democracy which had three elements:

(1) The involvement of ordinary people actively participating to foster

the changes they desire in their society.

(2) Some structural connection between the community of ordinary

people and those in society who make the decisions.

(3) A commitment by society to foster the creative development and

functioning of the population.

SDS saw the need for a communications infrastructure to provide

a public space for discussion and debate among the community of

ordinary people as crucial for its vision of democracy. For such public

discussion “mechanisms of voluntary association must be created

through which political information can be imparted and political

participation encouraged,” proclaims the Port Huron Statement of SDS

in the section “Toward American Democracy” (Hauben 1995, p. 7)

In a paper he wrote about the SDS vision of participatory democ-

racy and the internet, Michael Hauben, then a student at Columbia

University, described how the creation and development of the internet

has provided just such a communications infrastructure identified by

Page 34

SDS as necessary to realize their model of participatory democracy.

(Hauben 1995, p. 7)

…

VIII – Conclusion

In his book Democracy After Democratization, Choi (2005)

explains the significant role that the mainstream conservative media has

played in Korean society since the June 1987 democratic victory. In a

chapter titled “Politics Ruled by the Press,” Choi describes the power of

the press over political institutions of South Korea. “If anyone asks me

who moves the politics in Korea,” he writes, “I would say it is the

press.” (p. 41)

According to Choi’s argument, it is not South Korean government

officials who determine the political issues and priorities to be consid-

ered. Instead it is the press that sets the agenda and priorities for the

political officials, who “adjust their role according to what is reported

that day in the press.” (Choi 2005, p. 41) The conservative press

wielding this power (Choi wrote the Korean original of his book based

on lectures prior to the Dec. 2002 election of Roh Moo Hyun) was in

possession of what Choi characterizes as unbridled power, unchecked by

any democratic process. Choi proposes that democracy is a process by

which justice emerges from the conflict between various opinions and

interests. To have a democratic society, a continuous process of reform

is needed, one that can continually counter the resistance to

democratization of the conservative vested interests. Otherwise the

society can regress and there is the danger of reactionary forces gaining

dominance. To continue the advance toward a more democratic society,

Choi maintains that there is a need for “efforts to continually develop

institutional mechanisms to defend it, [to] foster values appropriate to it

and further nurture it.” (2005, p. 50)

The online media then developing in South Korea is a new form of

institutional mechanism. This institutional mechanism is helping to

defend, foster and nurture the continuing development of democracy in

Korea. Similarly, the netizens, the online citizens who participate in

online forums discussing and debating the issues of the day and the

social goals needed to continue the struggle for democracy, are the heirs

of the pro-democracy movement of the 1980s.

Page 35

Netizens in Korea have developed and contribute to many online

forms. These include Cyworld, blogs, websites for the discussion of

music or human rights or ecology issues, just to mention a few. Also

there are websites where serious social or political questions are raised,

as for example, where the authenticity of photos of human rights

violations by the North Koreans were challenged.

In 2005, three websites for the discussion of scientific developments

gained the spotlight in newspapers and scientific journals around the

world. These websites were Scieng (Association of Korean Scientists

and Engineers) (www.scieng.net), BRIC (The Bio-logical Research

Information Center) (bric.postech.ac.kr), and the Science Gallery of

DCInside (www.dcinside.com). They gained prominence in a contro-

versy that developed in South Korea over possible ethical and fraudulent

breaches in stem-cell research by a prominent scientist. Issues raised on

these websites led to articles in the print media in Korea (Chosun Ilbo

2005a) and around the world and even in international scientific journals

(Chosun Ilbo 2005b). Young scientists in Korea posting in BRIC were

proposed as the ‘Netizens of the Year’ for the role they played in helping

to uncover fabricated data and false scientific claims in well respected

scientific articles by Hwang Woo-sook. He had been a nationally and

internationally acclaimed scientific researcher.

The subject matter of these online forms, however, are not the

salient aspects. Rather, it is the fact that via this new form of communi-

cations media, netizens are able to speak out about their views and the

problems they deem important and to hear and think about the views and

concerns of other netizens. One of the early participants in the U.S.

student group SDS remembers a talk by Arnold Kaufman at the SDS

conference creating the Port Huron Statement on participatory democ-

racy. She writes (quoted in Hauben 1995) :

At one point, he declared that our job as citizens was not to

role-play the President. Our job was to put forth our own

perspective. That was the real meaning of democracy – press

for your own perspective as you see it, not trying to be a

statesman understanding the big picture.

Such a process makes possible the active involvement of people in

the discussion of issues they find of interest. As each person argues for

Page 36

his or her viewpoint in discussion with others with similar or different

viewpoints, a vibrant debate can ensue. It is just such a process that Choi

considers necessary for democracy. This is the kind of process that has

been nourished by the online media in South Korea and it has in turn led

to the spread and continuing development of the internet.

The online media has had an impact on many areas of Korean

society, including election campaigns. The General Election campaigns

of 2000 and the Presidential Election campaign in 2002 were especially

impacted by online discussion and debate. Describing the role of the

internet in the 2000 election, Jeong Hoiok (2000) then of Ewha

Woman’s University, writes:

The 16

general election [April 2000] was the first in Korea in

which the real world and virtual world came together thanks to

information technology. Indeed, even well established candi-

dates have come to actively use the Internet as an effective

campaign tool, while the homepage of the anti-incumbent

Citizens’ Alliance for the 2000 General Election was visited by

more than 900,000 Internet users. Even the Central Election

Management Committee made the headlines when it disclosed

on the Internet the military records, personal assets, and any

criminal records of registered candidates. Moreover, a number

of websites are actively engaged in political activities on an

ongoing basis.

In a special feature of the French newspaper, La Monde, about the

2000 Korean General Election, published on April 25, 2000, the editors

observed that “the Internet served as a catalyst for the development of

a new form of democracy,” during that election. The editors then

predicted that, “Once today’s information technology is fully applied,

this will significantly contribute to furthering Korea’s democratization.”

(Hoiok 2000, p. 5)

The varied forms of online media that have developed in the past

several years in Korea are helping to nourish a new form of democracy,

participatory democracy. Participatory democracy, in turn, is helping to

foster the continuing development and spread of the internet in Korea.

The continuing development of the internet and of the netizens protects

and nurtures new online forms that have become a new institution for

Page 37

the continuing struggle to maintain and extend democracy.

Note:

See article in Korean:

http://www.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=300437

There was a response in English by dongilone:

“I have firmly believed that truth prevails in the long run. I am choked with overflow-

ing emotions of relief and joy, when I am aware that the future of Korean science will

not be withered, with your brilliant performance, suffering frequent slanderings and

other physical and mental threats to you young scientists, from blind followers of the

God Lie. Momentary bitterness of setback is to be welcomed when lasting longer sweet

fruit is to be savored.

I am proud of you young scientists.

I treat you all a large barrel of Makoli.”

http://www.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=299945

Bibliography

Aizu, Izumi, (2002). “A Comparative Study of Broadband in Asia: Deployment and

Policy.” Paper presented at the “Asian Economic Integration – Current Status and

Prospects” Symposium hosted by the Research Institute of International

Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) on April 22, Online at:

http://www.anr.org/web/html/output/2002/bbasia0929.pdf.

Choi, Jang Jip, (2000). “Democratization, Civil Society, and the Civil Social

Movement in Korea: the Significance of the Citizens’ Alliance for the 2000

General Election,” Korea Journal. Vol. 40 No. 3. Autumn. Pp. 26-57.

Choi, Jang-Jip, (2005). Democracy after Democratization: the Korean Experience.

Humanitas. Seoul.

Chon, Kilnam, et al, (2005). A Brief History of the Internet in Korea. Online at:

http://net.its.hawaii.edu/history/Korean_Internet_History.pdf

Chosun Ilbo, (2005a). “Fresh Mixup Casts Doubt on Cloning Pioneer’s Research.” Dec

15. Online at:

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2005/12/15/2005121561008.html

Chosun Ilbo, (2005b). “Hwang Scandal Splashed Across Global Front Pages.” Dec 16.

Online at:

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2005/12/16/2005121661024.html

Han, Sang-Jin, (1995). “Economic Development and Democracy: Korea as New

Model?” Korea Journal. Vol. 35 No. 2. Summer. Pp. 5-17.

Hauben, Michael, (1995) “Participatory Democracy from the 1960s and SDS Into the

Future Online.” Online at: http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netdemocracy-

60s.txt

Hauben, Michael (1997). “The Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People’s

Page 38

Lives.” Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. Michael

Hauben and Ronda Hauben. Los Alamitos, CA. IEEE Computer Society Press.

1997.

Jeong, Hoiok, (2000). “Information Society and Democracy in Korea.” Korea Focus.

Sept-Oct. Vol. 8, No. 5. P. 1.

La, Do-sam, (2003). “Understanding Korea’s Internet Development and Cyber-

culture,” Korea Focus, Sep-Oct, Vol. 11, No. 5. P. 1.

The Rise of Netizen Democracy: A

Case Study of Netizens’ Impact on

Democracy in South Korea

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

The history of democracy also shows that democracy is a

moving target, not a static structure.

John Markoff

What does it mean to be politically engaged today? And what

does it mean to be a citizen? The transformation of how we

engage and act in society challenges how we perceive the

concepts of civic engagement and citizenship, their content and

expression. The introduction of new information technologies,

most notably in the form of internet, has in turn reinvigorated

these discussions.

Ylva Johansson

Someone may construe that in South Korea politics the major

source of power moved from ‘the muzzle of a gun (army)’ to

‘that of the emotion (TV)’ and then to ‘that of logic (Internet)’

in a short time.

Yun Young-Min

Page 39

Abstract

South Korean netizens are exploring the potential of the internet to

make an extension of democracy a reality. The cheering during the

World Cup games in Korea in June 2002 organized by the Red Devils

online fan club, then the protests against the deaths of two Korean

school girls caused by U.S. soldiers were the preludes to the candidacy

and election of Roh Moo Hyun, the first head of state whose election can

be tracked directly to the activity of the netizens. This is a case study of

the South Korean netizen democracy. This case study is intended as a

contribution to a needed broader project to explore the impact netizens

are having on extending democratic processes today.

I – Preface

In the early 1990s, a little more than two hundred years after the

French Revolution, a new form of citizenship emerged. This is a

citizenship not tied to a nation state or nation, but a citizenship that

embodied the ability to participate in the decisions that govern one’s

society. This citizenship emerged on the internet and was given the title

‘netizenship.’ The individuals who practice this form of citizenship refer

to themselves as ‘netizens.’

In the early 1990s, Michael Hauben, recognized the emergence and

spread of this new identity. In the book Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet, he describes how he came to

recognize that not only was there a new technical development, the

internet, but also, there was a new identity being embraced by many of

those online. Hauben writes:

The story of Netizens is an important one. In conducting

research five years ago [in 1992-1993] online to determine

people’s uses of the global computer communications network,

I became aware that there was a new social institution, an

electronic commons developing.

It was exciting to explore this new social institution. Others

online shared this excitement …. There are people online who

actively contribute toward the development of the Net. These

people understand the value of collective work and the commu-

nal aspects of public communications. These are the people

Page 40

who discuss and debate topics in a constructive manner, who

e-mail answers to people and provide help to new-comers, who

maintain FAQ files and other public information repositories,

who maintain mailing lists, and so on. These are people who

discuss the nature and role of this new communications

medium. These are the people who as citizens of the Net, I

realized were Netizens …. (T)hey are the people who under-

stand it takes effort and action on each and everyone’s part to

make the Net a regenerative and vibrant community and

resource …. The word citizen suggests a geographic or national

definition of social membership. The word Netizen reflects the

new non-geographically based social membership. So I

contracted net.citizen to Netizen.

Just as many different meanings have developed for ‘citizen,’ so

‘netizen’ has come to have several meanings. The early concept of

‘netizen’ is ‘one who participates in the affairs of governing and making

decisions about the internet and about how the internet can impact

offline society.’ A further development of this concept is ‘one who is

empowered by the net to have an impact on politics, journalism, culture

and other aspects of society.’

This case study will explore this new

socio-political-cultural identity, the identity of the netizen in the context

of recent developments in South Korea.

While there is a large body of literature about the internet and its

impact on society, there has been considerably less attention paid to

those who are empowered by the internet, to the netizens, who are able

to assume a new role in society, and to embody a new identity. This case

study will explore how the netizens of South Korea are helping to shape

the democratic practices that extend what we understand as democracy

and citizenship. Their experience provides an important body of practice

to consider when trying to understand what will be the future forms of

political participation.

II – Introduction

In his article “Where and When was Democracy Invented?,” the

sociologist John Markoff raises the question of the practice of democ-

racy and more particularly of the times and places where innovations in

Page 41

democracy are pioneered.

Markoff writes that a dictionary in 1690 defined democracy as a

“form of government in which the people have all authority.” (p. 661)

Not satisfied with such a general definition, Markoff wants to have a

more concrete definition or conception of democracy. He wants to

investigate the practices that extend democracy. He proposes looking for

models or practices that will help to define democracy in the future.

Such models or practices, he cautions, may be different from what we

currently recognize as democratic processes. “We need to consider,” he

writes, “the possibility that somewhere there may be still further

innovations in what democracy is, innovations that will redefine it for

the historians of the future.” (p. 689)

Markoff suggests that researchers who want to understand the

means of extending democracy in the future not limit themselves to the

“current centers of world wealth and power.” (p. 663) Similarly, he

proposes that the poorest areas of the world will not be the most fruitful

for researchers looking for innovations in democracy.

Considering Markoff’s guidelines, South Korea fits very appropri-

ately with regard to the size and environment likely to innovate

democratic practices. Events in South Korea confirm that indeed there

are pioneering practices that can give researchers a glimpse into how

democracy can be extended in a practical fashion.

III – The South Korean Netizens Movement

Various factors have contributed to democratic developments in

South Korea. For example, the activities of Korean non governmental

organizations (NGOs) have played an important role. Similarly, the

student movements at least since1980 have served to maintain a set of

social goals in the generations that have grown up with these experi-

ences. Government support for the spread and use of computers and the

internet by the South Korean population has also played a role.

For the purposes of this article, however, I want to focus on the

practice of the Korean netizen. Along with the pioneering of computer

networking in South Korea (1980s) and internet technology (1990s),

there was the effort to maintain internet development for public

purposes. This is different from how in the 1990s, for example, the U.S.

Page 42

government gave commercial and private interests free reign in their

desires to direct internet development.

A – South Korean Networking as a Social Function

This case study begins in 1995.

In 1995, the U.S. government privatized the U.S. portions of the

internet backbone. The goal of the U.S. government was to promote

private and commercial use. At the same time the concept of netizen was

spreading around the U.S. and the international networking community,

partially in opposition to the trend of privatization and commercializa-

tion.

In South Korea, however, there was a commitment to “prevent

commercial colonialization” of the South Korean internet. The effort

was to promote the use of the internet for grassroots political and social

purposes, as a means of democratizing Korea. In a paper presented in

1996, “The Grassroots Online Movement and Changes in Korean Civil

Society,” Myung Koo Kang,

documents the netizen activity in South

Korea to “intervene into the telecommunication policy of the govern-

ment which is pushing toward privatization, and to build an agenda for

non-market use of the electronic communications technology.”

Kang describes the formation of the Solidarity of Progressive

Network Group (SPNG) in 1995. He wrote, “It is now estimated that the

South Korean online community is populated by as many as 1.5 million

users.” (p. 117) In the early 1990s, commercial networks like Chollian,

Hitel, and Nownuri were main providers of internet access in South

Korea. Those interested in developing the democratic potential of the

internet were active in these networks in newsgroups devoted to specific

topics or on internet mailing lists. Online communities developed and

the experience was one that trained a generation in participatory online

activity. Describing the experience of being online in one of these

communities in the early 1990s, a netizen writing on Usenet explains:

There was Hitel, Chollian, Nownuri, three major texts based

online services in Korea. I think they boomed in early 90's and

withered drastically as the Internet explosion occurred in mid

and late 90's.

They provided the BBS, file up/download, chatting and

Page 43

community services.

Their community services were very strong. I also joined some

such groups and learned a lot. Community members formed a

kind of connection through casual meeting, online chatting,

study-groups and etc. The now influential Red Devils … was

at first started as one of such communities. It introduced new

forms of encounters among the people with the same interest.

They also had some discussion space, similar to this news

group and people expressed their ideas ….

B – How the Net Spread

When the Asian economic crisis hit South Korea in 1997, the

Korean government met the crisis partially with a commitment to

develop the infrastructure for high speed access. It gave support for the

creation of businesses to provide internet access and to provide training

to use computers and the internet. Describing the program of the South

Korean government, Kim, Moon and Yang write:

It invested more than 0.25% of the GDP to build a high-speed

backbone and is also providing more than 0.2% of GDP in soft

loans to operators from 1999 to 2005.

Along with the financial and business investment, the government

supported training programs in internet literacy. One such program was

called the “Ten Million People Internet Education” project to provide

computer and internet skills to 10 million people by 2002. Unemployed

South Korean housewives were particularly targeted and reports indicate

that 1 million were provided with courses as part of the 4.1 million

people who participated in government initiated programs. Primary and

secondary schools were also provided with high speed internet access.

internet cafes with high speed access called PC-bangs spread widely,

offering another form of cheap internet access.

C – Netizen Events

Several developments in the first few years of the 21

Century

demonstrate the impact the spread of the internet has had on South

Korean society. A key result of widespread access to the internet in

South Korea has been the emergence of the netizen and of examples of

Page 44

netizen democracy.

1) The Red Devils and World Cup Cheering

The Red Devils is a fan club for the South Korean national soccer

team. It developed as an online community. The club became the main

soccer cheering squad. Its original name had been “Great Hankuk

Supporters Club” when it was created in 1997. It was renamed “Red

Devils” after an online e-mail process “collecting public views through

e-mail bulletins.”

The 2002 Soccer World Cup was held in South Korea and Japan.

The Red Devils utilized the internet for the World Cup cheering.

Describing how the internet was utilized, Yong-Cho Ha and Sangbae

Kim write:

(T)he Web was a thrilling channel for many soccer fans across

the country to satisfy their craving for information on the Cup.

The 2002 World Cup provided Koreans with an opportunity to

facilitate the dynamic exchange of information on the Web. In

particular, the existence of the high-speed Internet encouraged

the dynamic exchange of information about World Cup

matches, players and rules. The Internet, which has become an

essential part of everyday life for the majority of Koreans,

helped raise public awareness about soccer and prompted

millions of people to participate in outdoor cheering cam-

paigns.

Major portal sites were flooded with postings on thousands of

online bulletin boards. Online users scoured the Web to absorb

detailed real-time match reports, player-by-player descriptions,

disputes about poor officiating and other soccer information.

“Instant Messenger” also played a role in spreading real-time

news and lively stories to millions of people. Korea has more

than 10 million instant messenger users and many of them

exchanged views and feelings about World Cup matches

though the new Internet communications tool.

During the World Cup games held in June 2002, crowds of people

gathered in the streets in South Korea, not only in Seoul. The Red Devils

organized cheering and celebrating by 24 million people.

Sociologist

Page 45

Sang-Jin Han describes how the Red Devils carefully planned for the

massive cheering “through on-line discussions about the way of

cheering, costumes, roosters’ songs and slogans, and so on.” The Red

Devils functions democratically and has online and off-line activities.

“Anyone who loves soccer can be a member of the Red Devils,”

Sang-Jin Han explains, by going to the website, logging on, and filling

out their form. The website is http://reddevil.or.kr. When the club started

they had 200 members. During the world cup events, they had a

membership of 200,000.

The massive street celebrating during the soccer games has been

compared in importance with the victory of the June 1987 defeat of the

military government in South Korea.

To understand this assessment, it is helpful to look at an article

written during the event by Byung-chan Gwak, the culture desk editor

of Hankyoreh, a South Korean newspaper. I will quote at length from

this article as it provides a feeling for the unexpected but significant

impact that the World Cup event in 2002 had on Korean society. Byung-

chan Gwak writes:

To be honest with you, I was annoyed by the critics who

compared the cheering street gatherings in front of the City

Hall in June 2002 to the democratic uprising in June 1987.

Much to my shame I criticized the foolish nature of sports

nationalism … and even encouraged others to be wary of the

sly character of commercialism …. However as time passed, I

began to wonder whether I wasn’t being elitist and authoritar-

ian …. I was blind to a changed environment and to a changed

sensibility. I assumed that people were running around because

of blind nationalism and commercialism.

However, this was not a group that was mobilized by anybody

nor a group that anyone could mobilize …. On June 25, I

wandered around Gwanghwamoon and in front of City Hall

trying to get an understanding of the future leaders of this

country. Otherwise, my clever brain told me, I would end up an

old cynic confined to my own memories. After spending a long

day wandering amongst young people, I finally understood.

Although trying to understand their passion through this

Page 46

experience was like a Newtonian scientist trying to understand

the theory of relativism, I understood.

What we had experienced at that moment was the experience

of becoming a ‘Great One.’ In a history with its ups and downs,

we had more than our share of becoming this ‘Great One’ The

4.19 Revolution [1960] and 6.10 Struggle [1987] are two

examples. So are the 4.3 Cheju Massacre [1948] and the 5.18

Democracy Movement [1980]. The gold collection drive

during the IMF financial bailout was part of this effort too –

trying to find a ray of hope in a cloud of despair ….

The flood of supporters in June 2002, however, was no longer

about finding hope. It was about young people dreaming

dreams that soared higher and further than those of the past

generations. Unlike the older generation, the younger genera-

tion is ready to meet the world with open hearts. They have the

imagination to reinvent it and the flexibility to come together

and then separate as the occasion calls for it. The whole world

was rapt with attention on ‘Dae-han Min-gook (Great Korea)’

not just because of our soccer ability but because of this young

generations’s passion and creativity. Does this mean that their

dreams have come true? No. Does this mean that all this was

nothing more than one summer night’s feast? No. These

dreams will continue to flourish and the responsibility for

making sure that they do belongs to the older generation, which

has had the experience of becoming a Great One through such

events as the 6.10 or 4.19 ….

Not only did the cheering crowds joyously celebrate the Korean

team victories in the World Cup events, they also helped clean the

streets when the event was over. Another aspect of the Red Devils

achievement was to remove the stigma attached to the color red.

Previously, avoiding the color red was a form of anti-communism in

South Korea. The Red Devils’ organization of the street cheering is a

demonstration of how communication among netizens that the internet

makes possible had a significant impact on the whole of South Korean

society as the celebration unfolded off-line.

Recognizing the importance of analyzing this experience to the

Page 47

people of Korea, a symposium was held on July 3, 2002 by the Korean

Association of Sociological Theory shortly after the World Cup events.

The title of the symposium was “World Cup and New Community

Culture.” The theme was “Understanding and Interpreting the Dynamics

of People (National People) Shown at the 2002 World Cup.” Sang-Jin

Han described the dynamics of the culture that emerged from the World

Cup events. Cho Han Hae-joang writes (p. 13):

What Han found during the collective gathering was a new

community that possessed values of open-mindedness and

diversity, of co-existence and respect for others …. Impressed

by the cheering crowds, Han Sang-jin suggested looking for a

point where the values of individualism and collectivism can

synergize rather than collide. He wrote ‘If there is a strong

desire for individual self-expression and spontaneity blooming

in the on-line space on one hand, there must be a strong sense

of cohesion and desire for unity in the socio-cultural reality on

the other. The new community culture will be equipped with

the ability to harness these two forces into a symbiotic relation-

ship.’ In fact, at the symposium, many sociologists confessed

to having been astounded at witnessing what they had consid-

ered to be impossible ‘the coming together of the generations

and the coexistence of the values of collectivism and individual-

ism.’

Influenced by the joy of the World Cup experience, the committee

of Munhwa Yondae ( Citizens’ Network for Cultural Reform) organized

a campaign. They sought to reclaim the streets for public purposes, and

to designate July 1 as a holiday. Also they gave support to the campaign

to establish a 5-day work week and one month holidays for Koreans.

2) Candle-light Anti U.S. Demonstrations

On June 13, 2002, while the World Cup games were being held in

South Korea and Japan, two 14 year old Korean school girls were hit and

killed by a U.S. armored vehicle operated by two U.S. soldiers on a

training exercise. Once the games were over, many of those who had

been part of the soccer celebrating took part in protests over the deaths,

demanding that those responsible be punished. In November, 2002, the

Page 48

two soldiers were tried by a U.S. military court on charges of negligent

homicide. The verdict acquitting them was announced on November 19,

2002. Some protests followed. Then on November 27, 2002, at 6 a.m.,

a netizen reporter with the logon name of Ang.Ma posted a message

online on the OhmyNews website saying he would come out with a

candle to protest the acquittal of the soldiers. On Saturday, November

30, four days later, there were evening rallies in 17 cities in South Korea

including thousands of people participating in a candlelight protest in

Seoul. They demanded a retrial of the soldiers and the withdrawal of

U.S. troops from South Korea. In subsequent weeks, candlelight

demonstrations spread and grew in size. Protesters also demanded that

the Status of Forces Agreement Treaty (SOFA) between the U.S. and

South Korea be amended to give the Korean government more control

over the activities of the U.S. troops in Korea.

The impact of the “candlelight vigils that started from one netizen’s

[online -ed] suggestion last month,” is described in a newspaper

account:

In Gwanghwamun, Seoul, the candles, lit one by one, form a

sea. Tonight, on the 28

, without exception, the candles have

gathered. About 1200 citizens gathered in the ‘Open Citizen’s

Court’ beside the U.S. embassy in Gwanghwamun sway their

bodies to the tunes of ‘Arirang’ which also played during the

World Cup soccer matches last June. Middle-school student

Kim Hee-yun says, ‘Every Saturday, I come here. There is

something that attracts me to this place.’

Opposition to SOFA and to the presence of U.S. troops in South

Korea continued to grow. The most well known outcome of this

movement and the event most often cited as a result of the power of

Korean netizens, is the election of Roh Moo-Hyun as President of South

Korea on December 19, 2002.

The internet and netizens played a

critical role in Roh’s election.

An article in a women’s newspaper on Dec 7, 2002, refers to the

importance of netizens in South Korea:

The netizens of the Korean Internet powerhouse are magnifi-

cent. They are reviving the youth culture of the Red Devils and

the myth of the World Cup to create a social movement to

Page 49

revise SOFA.

3) Korean Netizens and the Election of President Roh

Of the candidates potentially running for the Presidency in South

Korea in 2002, Roh Moo-Hyun had been considered the underdog and

least likely to win. He had made a reputation for himself by his

willingness to run for offices where he was unlikely to win, but where

his candidacy might help to reduce regional antagonisms.

Another

basis for Roh’s popularity was his campaign plank advocating citizen

participation in government. Roh had opened an internet site in August

1999 and his site was one of the successful candidate websites at the

time. In the April 2000 election, Roh ran for a seat to represent Pusan in

the National Assembly as a means of continuing his struggle against

regional hostilities.

Though he lost that election, thousands of people were drawn to

Roh’s website and the discussions that followed the failed election

effort. Through these online discussions, the idea was raised of starting

an online fan club for Roh. The Nosamo Roho fan club was started by

Jeong Ki Lee (User ID: Old Fox) on April 15, 2000.

Nosamo also

transliterated as ‘Rohsamo,’ stands for ‘those who love Roh.’

The fan club had members both internationally and locally with

online and offline activities organized among the participants. When

Nosamo was created, a goal of the organization was a more participatory

democracy. Sang-Jin Han, reports that using the internet, the online

newspaper OhmyNews, broadcast “live the inaugural meeting of the club

held in Daejon on June 6, 2000 through the Internet.”

In Spring 2002, the Millennium Democracy Party (MDO) held the

first primary election for the selection of a presidential candidate in the

history of South Korea. Nosamo waged an active primary campaign. “In

cyberspace, they sent out a lot of writings in favor of Roh and Rosamo

to other sites and placed favorable article on their home pages.” (p. 9)

The internet activity of the fan club made it possible for Roh to win the

MDP nomination. Nevertheless, he was still considered a long shot to

win the Presidency.

Early in the 2002 campaign, the conservative press attacked Roh.

In response, more and more of the public turned to the internet to discuss

Page 50

and consider the responses to these attacks. Analyzing how these attacks

were successfully countered via online discussion and debate, Yun

Young-Min writes, the “political influences” in discussion boards

“comes from logic, and only logic can survive cyber-debate. This is one

of the substantial changes that the internet has brought about in the

realm of politics in South Korea.”

Also Yun documents that as the

attacks increased, so did the number of visits recorded by Roh’s

websites and other websites supporting the Roh candidacy. (pp.

148-149) In a table comparing visits to websites of the two main

candidates, Yun documents a significantly greater number of visits to the

Roh website and Roh related websites as opposed to the websites of his

opposing candidate. (p. 151)

Along with the Roh websites, the online newspaper OhmyNews was

helpful to the Roh candidacy. OhmyNews developed a form of participa-

tory citizen journalism. The online newspaper helped Roh counter the

criticism of the conservative press. Roh gave his first interview to

OhmyNews after winning the presidency.

The night before the election, a main supporter of Roh, Chung

Mong-joon who had formed a coalition with Roh for the election,

withdrew his support. That night, netizens posted on various websites

and conducted an online campaign to discuss what had happened and

what Roh’s supporters had to do to repair the damage this late defection

did to the campaign. An article in the Korea Times

describes how the

online discussion helped to save Roh’s candidacy:

The free-for-all Internet campaign also helped Roh when he

lost the support of Chung Mong-joon just a day before the poll.

Unlike other conventional media such as newspapers and

televisions, many Internet websites gave unbiased views on the

political squabble between Roh and Chung, helping voters to

form their reaction …. The Internet is now the liveliest forum

for political debate in Korea, the world leader in broadband

Internet patronized by sophisticated Internet users ….

The Korea Times reporter describes the activity of netizens to get

out the vote on election day in support of Roh:

As of 3 p.m. on voting day, the turnout stood at 54.3 percent,

compared with 62.3 percent at the same time during the

Page 51

presidential election in 1997. Because a low turnout was

considered likely fatal for Roh – the young often skip voting –

many Internet users posted online messages to Internet chatting

rooms, online communities and instant messaging services

imploring their colleagues to get to the voting booth. The

messages spread by the tens of thousands, playing a key role in

Roh’s victory.

During Roh’s election campaign, netizens turned to the internet to

discuss and express their views, views which otherwise would have been

buried. “The advent of the internet can bring, by accumulating and

reaching critical mass in cyberspace, a political result that anyone could

hardly predict. No longer is public opinion the opinion of the press ….

In fact the press lost authority by their criticisms,” Yun concludes.

Because of the internet, Kim Yong-Ho observes, there is the “shift

from party politics to citizen politics.”

The attitude of the two main

candidates toward the internet proved to be a critical factor determining

the outcome of the election. Roh’s main opponent approached the

internet as a “new technology.” For Roh and his supporters, however,

the internet became “an instrument to change the framework and

practice of politics.” (p. 235) “Certainly, politics in Korea is no longer

a monopoly of parties and politicians,” conclude Yong-Chool Ha and

Sangbae Kim.

4) High School Students Protest Hair Length Restrictions

An example of how the younger generation in South Korea found

the internet helpful was the struggle of high school students to oppose

hair length restrictions set by the government and enforced by their

schools. Teachers in some South Korean schools cut the hair of students

who have hair longer than the school regulations permit. Such involun-

tary hair cutting, students explained, was not only humiliating, but also

can leave them with a hair cut that is unseemly. Considering the many

pressures that high school students in South Korea are under, an editorial

in the Korea Times,

explains:

Most egregious of all are their hairstyles – buzz cuts for boys

and bob cuts or ponytails for girls …. At some schools,

teachers still make narrow, bushy expressways on the crowns

Page 52

of boys’ heads with hair clippers, and lay bare girls’ ears with

scissors. They say these are for the proper guidance of students

by preventing them from frequenting adult-only places and

focusing on only studies. But this is nothing but violence and

abuse.

High school students opposed these restrictions and practices with

a website to discuss the problem and how to organize their protests.

Over 70,000 people signed an online petition protesting the hair length

restrictions and practices. Also there were demonstrations organized

online against these practices. The demonstrations were met with a

significant show of force by police and from high school teachers.

5) Government Online Forums

Netizen activities in South Korea had an effect on official govern-

ment structures. Government officials are under pressure to utilize the

forms that are being developed online. For example, the online website

for the President of Korea had a netizen section. Netizens could log on

and post their problems and complaints. These could then be viewed by

anyone else who logged onto the website. The open forum section of the

website was left relatively free of government restrictions or interference

for a while.

Uhm and Haugue

provide a description of the participatory

sections of the President’s website. They write:

Behind the outwardly chaotic Open Forum of the BBS on the

Presidential Website, a team works quietly, browsing all the

messages received through the BBS and other channels for user

participation, and sorting them in terms of the need for specific

attention and governmental follow-ups. One of the main jobs

the team conducts is to transfer each of the messages to the

relevant section of the Presidential Office, or to the ministry in

charge of the policy area concerned. The other main job is to

make a daily report to the President, based on the issues not

necessarily ripe for media attention but showing signs of

potential that could push the government into difficulties.

These interactive channels function as a dynamic store of

political issues, spanning the gamut of societal interests,

Page 53

ranging from key policy issues like the amendment of educa-

tion acts to essentially private matters like a boundary dispute

between neighbors.

Korean government ministries similarly had websites where anyone

could post a message, “even anonymously, and share them with others.”

(p. 28) These websites where offered as a place where “all public

opinion” can be expressed. (p. 28)

Posting to an official site is not necessarily without concern about

retaliation, however. Recently, a high school student reported:

We have no channel to convey our opinions to the education

authorities. If we post a petition to a Web site of a provincial

education office, the message is delivered to our school and

teachers give us a hard time because of it.

There are other events which demonstrate the power of the net and

the netizen in contemporary Korean politics. For example, there was the

Defeat Campaign for the April 2000 election. NGO’s used the internet

to wage a protest against the reelection of a number of politicians they

proposed were too corrupt or incompetent to continue in office. They

called this a blacklist. Several of the politicians they opposed did not get

reelected.

Rather than gathering further examples, however, there is the

challenge to understand the nature of the practice to extend democracy

that has emerged in South Korea.

D – The Netizen and Netizen Democracy in South Korea

One aspect identified as important for netizen democratic activity

is that the netizen participation is directed toward the broader interests

of the community. Byoungkwan Lee writes:

People who use the Internet for certain purpose are called

‘Netizens’ and they may be classified in various groups

according to the purpose that they pursue on the Internet. While

some people simply seek specific information they need, others

build their own community and play an active part in the

Internet for the interest of that community. (Michael-ed)

Hauben (1997) defined the term Netizen as the people who

actively contribute online toward the development of the

Page 54

Internet …. In particular, Usenet news groups or Internet

bulletin boards are considered an ‘agora’ where the Netizens

actively discuss and debate upon various issues …. In this

manner, a variety of agenda are formed on the ‘agora’ and in

their activity there, a Netizen can act as ‘a citizen who uses the

Internet as a way of participating in political society’ ….

Another component of democratic practice is to participate in

discussion and debate. Discussing an issue with others who have a

variety of views is a process that can help one to think through an issue

and develop a thoughtful and common understanding of a problem. The

interactive nature of the online experience allows for a give and take that

helps netizens dynamically develop or change their opinions and ideas.

Several Korean researchers describe the benefit of online discussion. For

example, Jongwoo Han writes:

Another aspect of online is that participating in a discussion

with others with a variety of viewpoints makes it possible to

develop a broader and more all sided understanding of issues.

Jinbong Choi, offers a similar observation:

By showing various perspectives of an issue the public can

have a chance to acquire more information and understand the

issue more deeply.

Byoungkwan Lee observes how the net provides “a public space

where people have the opportunity to express their own opinions and

debate on a certain issue.”

Comparing the experience online with the

passive experience of the user of other media, Lee notes, “Further the

role of the internet as a public space seems to be more dynamic and

practical than that of traditional media such as television, newspapers,

and magazines because of its own distinct characteristics, namely,

interactivity.” (pp. 58-59)

An important function of the internet is to facilitate netizens’

thinking about and considering public issues and questions.

Byoungkwan Lee explains some of how this occurs:

Various opinions about public issues, for instance, are posted

on the Internet bulletin boards or the Usenet newsgroups by

Netizens, and the opinions then form an agenda in which other

Netizens can perceive the salient issues. As such it is assumed

Page 55

that not only does the Internet function as the public space, but

it can also function as a medium for forming Internet users’

opinions.

Through their discussion and participation, netizens are able to have

an impact on public affairs. Hyug Baeg Im argues that the internet even

makes it possible for Korean netizens to provide a check on government

activity:

[The] Internet can deliver more and diverse information to

citizens faster in speed and cheaper in cost, disclose informa-

tion about politicians in cyber space that works 24 hours,

transmit quickly the demands of people to their representatives

through two-way cyber communication, and enable politicians

to respond to people’s demands in their policy making and

legislation in a speedy manner. In addition, netizens can make

use of Internet as collective action place of monitoring,

pressuring and protesting that works 24 hours and can establish

the system of constant political accountability.

The impact the internet is having on the younger generations of

Korean society has impressed several researchers. For example,

Jongwoo Han observes that younger netizens are more quickly able to

participate in political affairs than was previously possible. Jongwoo

Han writes:

Due to its effectiveness as a communications channel, the

Internet shortens the time in which social issues become part of

the national agenda, especially among populations previously

excluded from the national discourse. The time needed for one

generation to learn from the previous one is also shortened. In

newly created Internet cyberspace, the young generation, which

did not use to factor in major social and political discourses in

Korean society, is becoming a major player. The political

orientation of the offline 386 generation was smoothly handed

on to the 2030 apolitical young generation through the 2002

World Cup and candle light anti-U.S. demonstrations.

(Note: The 386 generation refers to those who were university students

in the 1980s. Also they were the first generation of Korean students who

had access to computers for their personal use. The 2030 generation

Page 56

refers to students currently in their 20's and 30's and who have grown up

with the internet.)

Jongwoo Han argues that online discussion has brought a needed

development in Korean democracy. All can participate and communicate

(pp. 16-17):

Due to the revolutionary development of information technol-

ogy, the transition of power from one generation to the next

will accelerate, thus maximizing the dynamics of changes in

political systems. The duration of the overall learning and

education process between generations will also be shortened.

Especially, the Netizen transcends the boundaries of age, job,

gender and education as long as participants share individual

inclinations on topics.

Explaining how the participatory process works, Kim, Moon, and

Yang provide an example from Nosamo’s experience:

Their internal discussion making process was a microcosm of

participatory democracy in practice. All members voted on a

decision following open deliberations in forums for a given

period of time. Opinions were offered in this process in order

to effect changes to the decision on which people were to vote.

Such online discussion and decision making was demonstrated

when members of Roh’s fan club disagreed with his decision to send

South Korean troops to Iraq in support of the U.S. invasion. Even though

they were members of a fan club, they did not feel obligated to support

every action of the Roh Presidency.

The fan club members held an

online discussion and vote on their website about the U.S. war in Iraq.

They issued a public statement opposing the decision to send South

Korean troops to Iraq.

Several researchers are endeavoring to investigate the netizens

phenomenon and the conscious identity that is being developed. They

believe that the internet is providing an important way to train future

citizens. For example, Sang-Jin Han writes:

I argue that a post-traditional and hence post-Confusian attitude

is emerging quite visible particularly among younger genera-

tions who use the Internet, not simply as an instrument of

self-interest, but as a public sphere where netizens freely meet

Page 57

and discuss matters critically.

In his research, Sang-Jin Han is interested in the impact the internet

is having on the democratic development of South Korean society. He

argues that the online experience provides an alternative experience to

the authoritarian and hierarchical institutions and practices that are

prevalent in society offline. The online experience in itself is a form of

a laboratory for democracy. In the process of participating in the

democratic processes online, a new identity is forged. One begins to

experience the identity of oneself as a participant, not observer.

Contributions online are appreciated or the subject of controversy. This

is a different world than the one the ordinary person experiences offline

and one that is a more dynamic and creative experience. Sang-Jin Han

refers to research by Sunny Yoon about the impact of the internet on

South Korean youth. Yoon writes:

In short, the Korean new generation experiences an alternative

identity in cyberspace that they have never achieved in real

life. The hierarchical system of ordinary social reality turns up

side down as soon as Korean students enter cyberspace. In

interviews, most students claim that the Internet opened a new

world and new excitement. This is not only because the

Internet has exciting information, but also because it provides

them with a new experience and an alternative hierarchical. It

is something of an experience of deconstructing power in

reality, especially in Korean society, which is strongly hierar-

chical and repressive for young students.

IV – Conclusion

In this case study I have explored several aspects of the online

experience that generally are given little attention. South Korean

netizens utilize the internet forums to let each other know of a problem

or event, to discuss problems and to explore how to find solutions. This

form of activity is a critical part of a democratic process. It involves the

participant not in carrying out someone else’s solution to a problem, but

in the effort to frame the nature of the problem and to understand its

essence.

The internet does not require that one belong to a particular

Page 58

institution. A netizen can express his or her opinion, gather the facts that

are available, and hear and discuss the facts gathered and opinions

offered by others. Not only is the internet a laboratory for democracy,

but the scale of participation and contributions is unprecedented. Online

discussion makes it possible for netizens to become active individual

and group actors in social and public affairs. The internet makes it

possible for netizens to speak out independently of institutions or

officials.

The netizen is able to participate in an experience that reminds one

of the role that the citizen of ancient Athens or the citoyen just after the

French Revolution could play in society. The experience of such

participation is a training ground in which people learn the skills and

challenges through the process. Considering the potential of the internet,

the Swedish researcher Ylva Johansson refers to the potential of

technology as contributing to political participation and the concept of

citizenship on a higher societal level.

Describing this important benefit of being online, Hauben writes:

For the people of the world, the Net provides a powerful means

for peaceful assembly. Peaceful assembly allows people to take

control of their lives, rather than that control being in the hands

of others.

This case study of Korean netizens provides a beginning investiga-

tion into the impact that widespread broadband access can bring to

society.

The practices of South Korean netizens to extend democracy

is prologue to the changes that netizenship can bring to the world, to the

rise of netizen democracy as a qualitative advance over the former

concept of the citizen and democracy.

Appendix A

The Early Development of Computer Networking in Korea

South Korea’s first networking system was the connection of two computers on

May 15, 1982, one at the Department of Computer Science, at Seoul National

University and the other to a computer at the Korean Institute of Electronics

Technology (KIET) in Gumi (presently ETRI ) via a 1200 bps leased line. In January

1983, a computer at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

connected to the other two computers. These three computers at different networking

sites used TCP/IP to connect. This is the communication protocol which makes it

Page 59

possible to have an internet. This early Korean computer network was called System

Development Network (SDN).*

In August 1983, the Korean SND was connected to the mcvax computer in the

Netherlands using the Unix networking program UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy). And in

October 1983 the Korean network was connected to a site in the U.S. (HP Labs).

A more formal connection to the U.S. government-sponsored network CSNET

was made in December 1984. In 1990, the Korean network joined the U.S. part of the

internet.

* See “A Brief History of the Korean Internet,” 4.1.05

https://sites.google.com/site/koreainternethistory/publication/brief-history-korea-eng-

ver

Notes:

See for example, Michael Hauben, Preface, in Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben,

Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, IEEE Computer

Society Press, 1997, p. ix.

Ibid., Chapter 1, p. 3.

This is a concept that Michael Hauben developed in an article “What the Net Means

to Me,” online at:

http://www.ais.org/~hauben/Michael_Hauben/Collected_Works/Amateur_Computer

ist/What_the_Net_Means_to_Me.txt

“Where and When was Democracy Invented,” Comparative Studies in Society and

History 41(4), 1999, pp. 660-690. Online at:

http://pics3441.upmf-grenoble.fr/articles/demo/where_and_when_was_democracy_i

nvented.pdf

A significant caveat about this case study is that computer networking and the internet

were developed relatively early in South Korea. (See Appendix A) The country is a

showplace for the spread of broadband internet access to a large percentage of the

population. A study of the spread of the internet in South Korea is a study of an

advanced situation which allows one to see into the future. This study raises the

question of whether knowledge of the practices of the South. Korean netizen movement

can help to extend democracy elsewhere around the world.

Ibid., note 1, Chapter 12, pp. 214-221.

Myung Koo Kang, “The Grassroots Online Movement and Changes in Korean Civil

Society,” Review of Media, Information and Society 3, 1998, pp. 107-127.

Jongseon Shin, soc.culture.korea, April 10, 2005. Online at:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/soc.culture.korean/gbZORadACPQ/Ixr

UYb7FuE8J

Heekyung Hellen Kim, Jae Yun Moon and Shinkyu Yang, “Broadband Penetration

and Participatory Politics: South Korea Case,” Proceedings of the 37

Hawaii

Page 60

International Conference on System Sciences, 2004, p. 4.

Ibid., p. 5.

Sang-Jin Han, “Confucian Tradition and the Young Generation in Korea: The Effect

of Post-Traditional Global Testing,” International Symposium Dialogue among Youth

in East Asia Project, Yingjie Exchange Center of Peking University, delivered January

14, 2004.

Yong-Chool Ha and Sangbae Kim, “The Internet Revolution and Korea: A

Socio-cultural Interpretation,” International Conference on Re-Booting the Miracle?

Asia and the Internet Revolution in the Age of International Indeterminacy, Seoul,

South Korea, December 4, 2002. Online at:

http://www.sangkim.net/it&korea.pdf

See Hyug Baeg Im, From Democratic Consolidation and Democratic Governance:

Century South Korean Democracy in Comparative Perspective, p. 28.

Ibid., note 11, p. 10.

Translated and quoted in Hae-joang Cho Han, “Beyond the FIFA World Cup: An

Ethnography of the ‘Local’ in South Korea around the 2002 World Cup,” Inter-Asia

Cultural Studies,. Vol. 5, No. 1, 2004, p. 11.

Ibid., p. 5.

Ibid., pp. 17-18.

See for example, Na Jeong-ju, “Anti-U.S. Protests Held Nationwide Over Acquittals

of GIs,” Korea Times, November 27, 2002 and Na Jeong-ju, “Entertainers, Priests Join

Anti-U.S. Protests,” Korea Times December 3, 2002

Ibid., note 15, p. 22.

Kim Hyong-eok, “The Two Koreas: A Chance to Revive,” Korea Times, December

27, 2002. This article attributes Roh’s election to the euphoria generated by the World

Cup Soccer Games, the hostility to the U.S. generated by the deaths of the two Korean

school girls and the inadequacy of the U.S. response.

Ibid., note 15, p. 14.

Yun Young-Min, “An Analysis of Cyber-Electioneering Focusing on the 2002

Presidential Election in Korea,” Korea Journal, Autumn 2003, pp. 141-164.

Jongwoo Han. “Internet, Social Capital, and Democracy in the Information Age:

Korea's Defeat Movement, the Red Devils, Candle Light Anti-U.S. Demonstration, and

Presidential Election during 2000-2002,” p. 15, no longer online. See also, Han

Jongwoo, Networked Information Technologies, Elections, and Politics: Korea and the

United States, Lanham. Md, Lexington Books, 2012, p. 85.

Ibid., note 11, p. 8.

Ibid., note 22, p. 157.

Kim Deok-hyun, “Roh’s Online Supporters Behind Victory,” Korea Times, December

23, 2002.

Ibid.

Ibid., note 22, p. 143.

Kim Yong-Ho, “Political Significance of the 2002 Presidential Election Outcome and

Political Prospects for the Roh Administration,” Korea Journal, Vol. 43, No.2, 2003,

p. 233.

Page 61

Yong-Chool Ha and Sangbae Kim, “The Internet Revolution and Korea: A Socio-

cultural Interpretation,” Paper delivered Dec 4, 2005 at the conference Re-Booting the

Miracle? Asia and the Internet Revolution in the Age of International Indeterminacy,

Seoul, South Korea, December 4-5, 2005, p. 8.

“No Forced Haircut, Please,” Korea Times, May 5, 2005.

Seung-Yong Uhm and Rod Hague, “Electronic Governance, Political Participation

and Virtual Community: Korea and U.K. Compared in Political Context,” paper

presented at European Consortium for Political Research, Joint Workshops, workshop

on “Electronic Democracy: Mobilisation, Organisation and Participation via new

ICTs,” Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Grenoble, France, 6-11 April 2001, p. 24.

Bae Keun-min, “High School Students Stand Up for Rights,” Korea Times, May 10,

2005.

Byoungkwan Lee, Karen M. Lancendorfer and Ki Jung Lee, “Agenda-Setting and the

Internet: the Intermedia Influence of Internet Bulletin Boards on Newspaper Coverage

of the 2000 General Election in South Korea,” Asian Journal of Communication, Vol.

15, No 1, 2005, p. 58.

Ibid., note 23, 17.

Jinbong Choi, “Public Journalism in Cyberspace: A Korean Case Study,” Global

Media Journal, Vol. 2, No 3, 2003, p. 27. Online at:

http://lass.purduecal.edu/cca/gmj/fa03/graduatefa03/gmj-fa03-choi.htm.

Ibid., note 34, pp. 58-59.

Ibid.

Hyug Baeg Im, “Democratic Consolidation and Democratic Governance: 21

Century

South Korean Democracy in Comparative Perspective,” Sixth Forum on Reinventing

Government, Seoul, South Korea, May 24-27, 2005.

Ibid., note 23, p. 4.

Ibid., note 9.

An article in the Korea Times on March 24, 2003, quotes a member of the fan club:

“When we say we love Roh Moo-hyun, we do not mean Roh is always right. We

simply mean that we love his ideas for new politics and a democracy in which the

people are the real owners of the country.” Byun Duk-kun, “‘Nosamo’ Opposes

Assistance to Iraq War.”

Ibid., note 11, p. 4.

Sunny Yoon, “Internet Discourse and the Habitus of Korea’s New Generation,”

Culture, Technology, Communication, edited by Charles Ess with Fay Sudweeks, State

University of New York, 2001, p. 255.

Ylva Johansson, “Civic Engagement in Change – The Role of the Internet,” European

Consortium for Political Research, Edinburgh, U.K., 2003.

Ibid., note 1, see for example Chapter 18, “The Computer as a Democratizer,” pp.

315- 320.

Hauben quotes Steve Welch who recognized the importance of all having access (

Ibid., p. 27): “If we can get to the point where anyone who gets out of high school has

used computers to communicate on the Net or a reasonable facsimile or successor to

it, then we as a society will benefit in ways not currently understandable. When access

Page 62

to information is as ubiquitous as access to the phone system, all Hell will break loose.

Bet on it.”

Bibliography

Cho Han, Hae-joang. “‘You are entrapped in an imaginary well’: the formation of

subjectivity within compressed development – a feminist critique of modernity

and Korean culture.” Inter-Asia Culture Studies. Vol. 1, No. 1. 2000. Pp 49-69.

Cho Han, Hae-joang. “Youth, Internet and Culture: Based on the Haja Experimental

Project.” Oceans Connect: Maritime Perspectives In & Beyond the Classroom.

John Hope Franklin Center for International Studies Conference. Duke Univer-

sity. Feb. 28 - March 3, 2002.

Cho Han, Hae-joang. “Youth, Temporary Autonomous Zone, and Internet in South

Korea. From the Book to the Internet: Communications Technologies, Human

Motions, and Cultural Formations in Eastern Asia.” Paper Presented at Oregon

University Freeman Conference. October 16-18, 2003.

Cho Han, Hae-joang. “Beyond the FIFA’s World Cup - Ethnography of the ‘Local’ in

South Korea around the 2002 World Cup.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Vol. 5,

No. 1. 2004. Pp. 9-26.

Choy, Jibing. “Public Journalism in Cyberspace: A Korean Case Study.” Global Media

Journal. Vol. 2, No. 1. 2003. Online at:

http://lass.purduecal.edu/cca/gmj/fa03/graduatefa03/gmj-fa03-choi.htm

Chon, Kilnam; Park, Hyunje; Kang, Kyungran; and Lee, Yo ung eum. “A Br i ef

History of the Internet in Korea.” Korea Internet History Project. July 29, 2005.

https://sites.google.com/site/koreainternethistory/publication/brief-history-korea-

eng-ver

Ha, Yong-Chool and Kim, Sangbae. “The Internet Revolution and Korea: A Socio-

cultural Interpretation.” Paper delivered Dec 4, 2005 at the conference Re-Booting

the Miracle? Asia and the Internet Revolution in the Age of International

Indeterminacy. Seoul, South Korea. Dec. 4-5, 2005. Online at:

http://www.sangkim.net/it&korea.pdf

Han, Jongwoo. “Internet, Social Capital, and Democracy in the Information Age:

Korea’s Defeat Movement, the Red Devils, Candle Light Anti-U.S. Demonstra-

tion and Presidential Election During 2000-2002.” September 2002.

Han, Jongwoo. Networked Information Technologies, Elections, and Politics: Korea

and the United States. Lanham, Md. Lexington Books. 2012.

Han, Sang-Jin. “Paradoxical Modernity and the Quest for Neo-Communitarian

Alternative.” Prepared for the workshop on The Normative Case of Modernity and

its Cultural Contextualization. German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo,

Japan. Nov. 16-17, 2004.

Han, Sang-Jin. “Modernization and the Rise of Civil Society: The Rule of the

‘Middling Grassroots’ for Democratization in Korea.” Human Studies, Vol. 24.

2001. Pp. 113-132.

Page 63

Han, Sang-Jin. “Confucian Tradition and the Young Generation in Korea: The Effect

of Post-Traditional Global Testing.” International Symposium Dialogue among

Youth in East Asia Project, Yingjie Exchange Center of Peking University.

Delivered January 14, 2004.

Han, Sang-Jin. “Three Prime-Movers in the Contested Civil Society: Why and How

Social Transformation Occurs in Korea.” Keynote Speech 36

ITS World

Congress of Sociology. Beijing. July 7-11, 2004.

Im, Hyug Baeg. “Democratic Consolidation and Democratic Governance: 21

Century

South Korean Democracy in Comparative Perspective.” 6

Forum on Reinventing

Government. Seoul, South Korea. May 24-27, 2005.

Johansson, Ylva. “Civic Engagement in Change – The Role of the Internet.” European

Consortium for Political Research. Edinburgh, U.K. 2003.

Kang, Myung Koo. “The Grassroots Online Movement and Changes in Korean Civil

Society.” Review of Media, Information and Society. Vol. 3. 1998. Pp. 107-127.

Kim, Heekyung Hellen, Moon, Jae Yun and Yang Shinkyu. “Broadband Penetration

and Participatory Politics: South Korea Case.” Proceedings of the 37

Hawaii

International Conference on System Sciences. 2004. Pp. 1- 10.

Kim, Junki. “Electronic Advocacy by Non Governmental Organizations in Korea:

Changing the Practice of Political Advocacy.” March 15-16, 2001.

Kim, Yong-Ho. “Political Significance of the 2002 Presidential Election Outcome and

Political Prospects for the Roh Administration.” Korea Journal, Vol. 43, No. 2.

2003. Pp. 230-256.

Kwon, Haesoo and Lee, Jong Youl. “NGO’s Political Reform Movement Process Via

the Internet: Focusing on ‘Election Defeat Movement’ in Korea.” International

Review of Public Administration. Vol. 8, No. 2. 2004. Pp. 49-57.

Lee, Byoungkwan; Lancendorfer, Karen M. and Lee, Ki Jung. “Agenda-Setting and the

Internet: the Intermedia Influence of Internet Bulletin Boards on Newspaper

Coverage of the 2000 General Election in South Korea.” Asian Journal of

Communication. Vol. 15, No 1. 2005.

Lee, Jae Joung. Political Changes and Challenges in Korean Society, Session 1,

Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, 2002.

Markoff, John. “Where and When was Democracy Invented?” Comparative Studies in

Society and History. Vol. 41, No. 4. 1999. Pp. 660-690. Online at:

h t t p : / / p i c s 3 4 4 1 . u p m f -

grenoble.fr/articles/demo/where_and_when_was_democracy_invented.pdf in

1996. Pp. 109-127.

Shin, Jongseon. “Online community of the 1990s and Korean Netizens movement.”

soc.culture.korea April 10, 2005. Online at:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/soc.culture.korean/gbZORadACP

Q/IxrUYb7FuE8J

Uhm, Seung-Yong and Hague, Rod. “Electronic Governance, Political Participation

and Virtual Community: Korea and U.K. Compared in Political Context.” Paper

presented at European Consortium for Political Research, Joint Workshops,

Workshop on “Electronic Democracy: Mobilisation, Organisation and Participa-

Page 64

tion via new ICTs,” Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Grenoble, France, 6-11 April

2001.

Yoon, Sunny. “Technological Choice and Transnational Capital Power: Disputes on

the European or the U.S. model of Digital Television in South Korea.” Paper

presented at IAMC. Porto Alegre. July, 2004.

Yoon, Sunny. “Internet Discourse and the Habitus of Korea’s New Generation.”

Culture, Technology, Communication. Edited by Charles Ess with Fay Sudweeks.

State University of New York. 2001. Pp. 241-260.

Yun, Young Min. “An Analysis of Cyber-Electioneering Focusing on the 2002

Presidential Election in Korea.” Korea Journal. Autumn 2003. Pp. 141-164.

[Editor’s Note: The following is an edited version of a talk given in Copenha-

gen on Oct 17, 2008 at the 9

Annual Conference of the Association of Internet

Researchers.]

Candlelight 2008 and the 15

Anniversary of ‘The Net and Netizens’

Netizen Journalism as Watchdog Journalism

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

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

people who were developing this new form of citizenship, netizens.

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 have on news media?

Would netizens make possible a new form of journalism? The net “gives

the power of the reporter to the Netizen” Hauben wrote.

This article explores the nature of what this power is. It considers

the long desired goal for the press to act as a watchdog to challenge the

abuse of power. During the more than 100 days of protest from May

through August 2008 netizens in South Korea acted to develop such a

press. In this article the events of Candlelight 2008, particularly the

Page 65

events of June 11, are examined to consider what can be learned from

the experience of Candlelight 2008.

The year 2008 also marked the 15

anniversary of the publication

of the article “The Net and Netizens” by Michael Hauben on the internet

in the summer of 1993.

Hauben posted this article in four parts because

it was fairly long. It was based on pioneering research he had done about

the impact of the internet by asking online users 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. Hauben

contracted the term net.citizen into the term ‘netizen’. Based on the

responses he received, Hauben put together an analysis defining a new

conceptual phenomenon he called the netizen.

His article summarizing this research 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.

Netizen is not a

passive identity. Rather a netizen is an active participant in the affairs of

the net and ultimately of the world. Identifying as a netizen has become

an identity people online have embraced. They consider themselves to

be netizens.

In a 2006 book by Mark Poster, netizen was described as a political

concept.

The impression is given that the concept showed up on the net

more or less spontaneously. This is not accurate. Before Hauben’s work,

the word netizen was rarely if ever used. After the wide online circula-

tion of his article, the use of the concept netizen became increasingly

common. It was a process of initial online research, of summarizing the

research, of 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 netizen was established.

The early 1990s was also a time when the privatization of the

internet was being actively promoted by commercial interests. Spreading

the consciousness of oneself as a netizen became part of the fight

defending the public essence of the net from the growing power of

commercial interests over the affairs of the internet. An understanding

of the origin and development of the concept of netizen has in various

ways been obscured by those forces who wanted to promote the

Page 66

commercial domination of the internet.

In “The Net and Netizens,” Hauben 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

challenged. The top-down model of information being distributed by a

few for mass consumption is no longer the only news.”

Hauben observed, “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, Hauben 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.

Hauben wrote elsewhere that in its simplest form the power of

netizens to determine the form and content of online discussion

characterizes democracy, making the net and netizens a significant

model for a democratic society. He challenged the claim that elections

are the essence of democracy, since elections merely allow citizens to

vote on candidates once every few years. Democracy, Hauben argued,

requires the active participation of the populace and it is a process where

their discussion and debate can have some effect on the decisions made

by government. That is what Hauben proposed to be a more appropriate

model of democracy.

Another one of the earliest articles Hauben circulated online was

about James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill. In 1825, James Mill

wrote an Encyclopedia article about the Freedom of the Press. Mill

wrote that government officials are likely to be corrupt. These officials

Page 67

Candlegirl and Her Army (Nanum Munhwa)

are put in a situation where they have power. Therefore a means is

needed to monitor and contain their use of this power. Mill suggested

society needs a press that functions as a watchdog to oversee the use of

power by government officials. The net, Hauben wrote, makes such a

watchdog possible.

“The Net and Netizens” was first posted online in 1993. The

conceptual understanding it proposed at that time in the early 1990s was

something new. The question to be raised is: How accurate was

Hauben’s assessment of the potential of the net and of the netizen to

make a more democratic world possible?

In order to answer this question, it is helpful to look at recent

political developments in South Korea. Netizens in South Korea have

been at the forefront of the struggle to explore the potential of the

internet and the netizens to create a more democratic society.

In 2003, an article in the Financial Times reported that the new

South Korean President had been elected by netizens. It described the

election of 2002. The actions of netizens during this election made it

possible for the president to be someone from outside the political

establishment. Roh Moo-hyun was elected for a five year term as the

President of South Korea.

Roh had run on a platform supporting

participatory democracy.

In 2004, the National Assembly tried to impeach him and the

netizens took up the fight against the attempted impeachment. One of

the means of fighting for democracy in South Korea is candlelight

demonstrations. An activist in South Korea explained that one of the

sources of inspiration

for candlelight demon-

strations in South Ko-

rea was the candlelight

demonstrations in Leip-

zig, Germany that help-

ed to reunite Germany

in 1989.

Again in 2008,

there were candlelight

demonstrations in

Page 68

South Korea. This time for over 100 days. The first of these demonstra-

tions was held on May 2, 2008.

The first candlelight demonstration on May 2 was the result of

online discussion and efforts by netizens on discussion groups, which on

the Korean internet are called cafes. Realizing the concern expressed in

online discussion about what was happening in South Korea, middle and

high school students used cell phones and fan websites to announce what

became the first major candlelight demonstration of May 2008.

The demonstration was part of an expression of popular frustration

with the new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Lee Myung-bak,

a conservative candidate, had won the presidential election in December

2007. During this election, internet posts about the candidates by

netizens were subjected to censorship, with many of the posts being

removed on the order of the government, and over 1000 netizens

receiving summonses to report to police stations in South Korea to be

penalized for their post. This was part of censorship of online activity by

netizens trying to participate in the 2007 election campaign carried out

by the South Korean government from June 2007-December 2007. In

April 2008 shortly after he was inaugurated, Lee Myung-bak came to the

U.S. and signed an agreement with George Bush. The agreement ended

the former restrictions on the import of U.S. beef into South Korea. It

eliminated the regulations that existed to provide precautions with regard

to the danger of mad cow disease or other health concerns related to

beef. Virtually all the previous restrictions were to be removed.

Middle school and high school students felt the change in regula-

tions on beef would add to their health concerns, along with their

concern with other plans the Lee Myung-bak administration had

announced to make unpopular changes in the laws in South Korea. Also

there was an impeachment petition being circulated online. A number of

people in South Korea felt that the new president and his proposed

program would take South Korea back 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.

In August Oh Yeon-ho, the CEO and founder of the internet

newspaper OhmyNews gave a talk in the U.S. about the candlelight 2008

demonstrations. OhmyNews which was started in 2000, as an internet

Page 69

newspaper pioneered a number of new forms in its commitment to be a

century newspaper.

The Korean edition of OhmyNews combines articles submitted by

its regular staff with those submitted by volunteer correspondents from

the Korean-speaking population at home and abroad. The staff fact

checks the articles and then decides which will be put on the OhmyNews

front page. The Korean edition has a regular staff. The smaller English

language edition of the newspaper known as OhmyNews International

had only a very minimal staff and its edition was mainly based on

contributions of articles by people. The Korean edition of OhmyNews is

a major newspaper in South Korea.

There’s been a very proud tradition in South Korea of protest and

sacrifice. In 1987, though large protests the South Koran people ended

the authoritarian system which had governed their country. But only in

the last 10 years had people felt that they had some minimal level of

democracy. In his talk, Oh Yeon-ho explained that people had commit-

ted themselves to using the internet to try to guarantee and spread that

democracy.

OhmyNews had played an important role in the 2008 demonstra-

tions. One of OhmyNews’ important contributions was to start OhmyTV.

Because of OhmyTV, people around the world were able to watch the

demonstrations in South Korea. Even if one does not speak Korean, one

could have a good idea of what was going on in the demonstrations by

watching OhmyTV which was webcast online and therefore available

worldwide. At times, OhmyNews had 24 hour coverage. Also there were

articles and photos about the candlelight demonstration. There were

articles covering the Candlelight in the English edition of OhmyNews,

some of which were translated from the Korean edition of the newspa-

per.

Though ‘netizen’ is not a Korean word, it has been adopted into the

Korean language. Some online users refer to 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 online what was happening.

A report on the demonstrations by France24 demonstrated this

Page 70

consciousness of oneself as a netizen. The reporter interviews someone

she calls a netizen with his laptop. Even when the police were using

water cannons attacking the demonstrators, one could see some netizens

with plastic over their laptops trying to film what was going on. People

took their cameras, their cell phones and in any way they could, would

broadcast on the internet what was happening. They would get broad-

casts 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 were not at the demonstration would

discuss what they saw and interact with the demonstrators via their

computers or cell phones. As one person explained, netizens could go

with their laptops to the demonstration. They could be at the demonstra-

tion and be online at the same time. So these two experiences really

came together in many ways for a number of people during these

demonstrations.

Some netizens emphasized that the Candlelight 2008 demonstra-

tions were different from the prior tradition of demonstrations. In South

Korea, there is a tradition of militant demonstrations in the struggle for

democracy. The demonstrations in 2008, however, were festivals. There

were people of all ages participating. There were men, women, and

children at the demonstrations. People would bring their musical

instruments. For example, in the middle of the police attacking protest-

ers at one of the demonstrations, some people began to play their

accordions. At other times, there would be singing. There would be

dancing. There was debating. There was a free speech stage set up.

People would line up for a chance to speak. Others would listen and

react to the speakers. And the demonstrators posted their articles, photos

and videos on the internet, so that they became the press. Hence they

were no longer dependent on how their demonstrations were reported in

the traditional media.

In order to understand what happened during Candlelight 2008, it

is crucial to recognize that South Korea is advanced in terms of the

internet.

South Korea is among the most advanced nations having the highest

percentage of people connected with broadband access. What has

Page 71

happened in South Korea presents a glimpse into the future, demonstrat-

ing what is possible when a large number of people in a country have

access to high speed broadband connectivity.

If the internet can spread widely and if there’s inexpensive wireless

available, people can have access to the internet and to write, to share

their videos, and to carry on discussions about what is happening in the

world. This form of broad access can function as a watchdog over

government officials. This was demonstrated at times during the

demonstrations when netizens filmed or took photographs of the actions

of the police. These films or photos at times were a protection for people

from the arbitrary actions of the police.

A significant set of events demonstrating the power of the internet

to make possible a more participatory democracy occurred during the

demonstration that took place in Seoul on June 10 and continued into the

early hours of June 11. A very big demonstration was planned for June

10, to celebrate the victory twenty-one years earlier of South Koreans

over the military government in South Korea in June 1987. Some

estimate as many as 600,000 to 700,000 people participated in the

demonstration in Seoul on June 10, with over one million people

participating around the country. To prepare for the demonstration, the

government created a blockade of 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. These were shipping containers, filled

with sand so they are said to have weighed 40 tons each. They put grease

on them to prevent people from climbing over the blockade.

Netizens named this

structure, “Myung-bak’s

castle.” They made a

wikipedia entry for this

as a landmark of Seoul.

They decorated the land-

mark with their posters.

This is a photo of

what happened later, af-

ter the June 10 demon-

st r a t i on, f ro m 12

Page 72

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 barriers.

On the other side of

the shipping containers,

there are buses filled

with police inside and

outside guarding the Pres-

ident’s house.

S o m e p e o p l e

brought blocks of styro-

foam tothe demonstra-

tion area, making it pos-

sible to create a structure

to breach the shipping

container barricade. Af-

ter the main demonstra-

tion was over in the early

morning hours of June

11, a discussion was car-

ried out by the demon-

strators debating what to

do about the barrier.

Some argued that the

demonstrators should go over the barricade. Others argued that this was

too dangerous, especially given the candles and the inflammability of the

Styrofoam and the grease on the barricades. The discussion continued

for 5-1/2 hours, with people lining up on both sides of the debate.

Through the discussion people decided not to go over the barricade.

Instead several people with their banners went up on the barricade to

show that they could have gone over it if they wanted to but that they

had decided not to.

The photo presents the contrast between what is often called

democracy and what is much more democratic. On one side of the

barricade is the area filled with police protecting the President from

communicating with the people. On the other side of the barricade were

the people holding a serious discussion and deciding how to resolve a

Page 73

difficult difference of opinion.

On the later side of the barricade, the people communicated with

each other, demonstrating the power and generative nature of democ-

racy. People online wrote about how important it was to them, to see that

there could be a discussion where people had real differences which they

could resolve. This was significant in two ways:

First, they figured out 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. In this example, the

potential to generate a form and content was transferred from the online

world to the demonstration area.

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

anniversary of the publication online of

“The Net and Netizens.”

Notes:

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.

There is an online version of the book at: http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook

Michael Hauben, “The Effect of the Net on the Professional News Media,” in

Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. There is an online

version of the article at

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x13

“The Net and Netizens” is the first chapter in Netizens: On the History and Impact of

Usenet and the Internet. There is an online version of this chapter at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x01

“Socially” is used here 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.

Mark Poster, Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines,

Durham NC, Duke University Press, 2006, p. 78.

For example, there was difficulty getting the book Netizens published and distributed

widely.

Ronda Hauben, “Online Grassroots Journalism and Participatory Democracy in South

Korea,” in Korea Yearbook 2007, edited by Rudiger Frank, James E. Hoare, Patrick

Kollner, and Susan Parnes, Brill, Leiden, 2008, pp. 61-82.

Interview with Lee Tae-ho of PSPD, 18 July 2006.

Ronda Hauben, “Netizens Censored in South Korean Presidential Election, OhmyNews

Page 74

International, December 25, 2007.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=381313&rel_no=1

Ronda Hauben, “Candlelight 2008 and Behind the Scenes in the Beef Deal: the Role

of the OIE in Changing the Category of U.S. Beef in South Korea,” OhmyNews

International, May 6, 2009.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385186&rel_no=1

Ibid., note 7, pp. 64-67.

[Editor’s Note: The following was presented on May 21, 1995 at a party celebrating the

graduation of Michael Hauben and some of his classmates from Columbia University.]

Graduation Presentation

May 21, 1995

by Michael Hauben

My graduation did not end at the May 1995 Columbia University

Commencement ceremonies. I did receive my Diploma on May 17, but

my graduation was not completed until May 19. On that Friday, I was

interviewed about the internet by a Japanese camera crew for a televi-

sion documentary to be shown on TV Tokyo. In speaking with these

people the result of my four years both here at Columbia and connected

to the outside world was revealed.

During the interview I described Netizens and the world-wide

community which the internet and Usenet News make possible. Netizens

are people who use the various computer communications networks and

feel they are citizens of this net. People desire to communicate with

others around the world. In order to communicate, to share information

and to have a discussion, it is necessary to share a common space and to

accept differences. People who connect to the internet willingly help

others and work collectively to have a place which allows their personal

speech and which allows the speech of others. It is in this spirit of an

open forum that we are holding this party today. The internet and other

communications networks are about people and are about people

communicating with each other. It is this understanding and experience

which I shared with the interviewers. The internet is not about comput-

ers and isolated experiences, it is a very social human experience.

Page 75

I entered Columbia asking the question “Why are people, so

complacent in this country?” I asked this question on my application

essay in 1990 considering that people in Eastern Europe and China were

fighting their governments for a better life and a better world, while here

at home little seemed to be happening to combat the worsening times.

In thinking about this question, I chose the joint Philoso-

phy/Economics major as my prospective major. My introduction to the

Columbia bureaucracy came about when upon visiting campus, I

discovered this major had been turned upside down, and was now based

in the Economics Department rather than the Philosophy Department

and was renamed Economics and Philosophy. The emphasis was:

similarly shifted from classical philosophy to contemporary economics.

In arriving at Columbia and setting up my computer account, I

connected to the world by using Usenet Newsgroups. My Unix account,

[email protected], gave me access to Usenet Newsgroups which

are public discussion forums that are circulated around the world. It was

in discussions on these newsgroups that I developed my academic study.

I was fascinated by the internet and Usenet News and wanted to find out

more about this network which connected people from around the world.

It was on the internet and Usenet where I posed questions and

conducted research into what other people found valuable about being

on-line and how it was important in their lives.

In researching these questions during different history and literature

classes, along with several independent studies, I became an active

participant of the Usenet Newsgroups and mailing lists. I submitted

questions and thought pieces to these forums, and people around the

world responded with their opinions and thoughts. I became interested

in the Net itself, and I posed questions about it online. Many people

online found they shared this interest, and they connected to me and

contributed their understandings of the value of the Net to their lives.

Many of these private electronic mail messages and public Usenet

responses were extremely thoughtful. I also raised questions about how

it was possible for such a medium to develop where people were helpful

to total strangers. In starting to research the history of the internet and

Usenet News, students and professors who were part of that history sent

me personal accounts and supporting documentation.

Page 76

My papers and research about the internet and Usenet have been

guided and helped by many real people around the world. When I

finished my papers, I contributed back to the Net by making them

publicly available and asking for comments and criticism. In addition to

various responses of that sort, I also received much encouragement and

support. People wrote thanking me for making my writings available.

Also, I received various requests from professors and others to reprint

and make my writings available to classes and other more public forums.

This support was of course in addition to help and encouragement from

my parents. All of this support came outside of Columbia. There were

two professors in the Computer Science Department, namely Professor

Unger and Professor Greenleaf, and Professor Garton from the Music

Department who were helpful, but there was very little help from the

university or computer science department as a whole. My connection

to the outside world and online community is what has both made my

research possible, and provided feedback that this research was

important and valuable to others. I have mainly enjoyed the time I have

spent at Columbia because of the feedback I received from other people

saying they appreciated my effort, and that my writings have been useful

for more than just a grade.

Identification of this value to society came slowly but surely. People

sent various e-mail messages, and this was helpful, but did not feel to be

lasting. These past two years have been marked by various events which

have helped to solidify my understanding of the value. The word

Netizen started to appear both online and in print. Papers I wrote were

published in three journals. Ronda and I gave several presentations in

New York City and Michigan from the book we put together. A radio

station in California interviewed me last semester. And currently Ronda

and I are negotiating with a publisher to publish our online book in a

printed form. Lastly, professors from the Global Communications

Institute in Japan have been communicating with me about my partici-

pating at a conference in Japan later this year. The interview on Friday

was the culminating event which identified that this work has been

recognized as important.

After four years, I feel I have answered the question with which I

entered Columbia. The internet and Usenet News provides a place where

Page 77

people can communicate with other people at a grassroots level to make

their lives better and to attempt to make the world a better place. By

connecting to others with similar interests, questions and problems,

along with people with different understandings, it is now possible to try

and do something about the world, and to gain some power in how one

lives his or her life.

All in all, while Columbia has been a difficult place to live for the

last four years, it has been an honor to be able to contribute to the world

some understanding of how to make a better future.

[Editor’s Note: The following was presented on Feb. 21, 2014. The occasion was a

meeting announcing the projected online publication of a second Netizen book to be

a sequel to the Netizen book put online in January 1994 over 20 years ago. A hope was

expressed that there will be a series of such books.]

Is This a New Era?

by Jay Hauben

[email protected]

I – Sequel to the Netizens Book: Remembering Lewis

Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society

I want to tell a little story and ask a question.

At a meeting discussing the new book being worked on as a sequel

to Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, I

made an observation. This new book needs an analytical framework, a

guiding idea that helps us pick what articles to put into the book and

how to tie them together so the reader sees what we are trying to

document and understand.

As an example of such a guiding analysis, I recalled that Lewis

Henry Morgan, an American anthropologist in his 1877 book Ancient

Society, saw human society unfolding through a number of stages. In

particular he saw that human society could not enter the higher stage of

civilization until the smelting of iron was invented.

I was remembering where Morgan had written, “The production of

iron was the event of events in human experience. Out of it came the

Page 78

metallic hammer and anvil, the axe and the chisel, the plough with an

iron point, the iron sword; in fine, the basis of civilization, which may

be said to rest upon this metal. The want of iron tools arrested the

progress of mankind in barbarism.”

Ronda Hauben, one of the authors working on the new book,

thought that such a breakthrough is what the invention of the internet

and the emergence of the netizen represents for our time. She argued that

many great things have happened but the advance of democracy has

been stuck. With the emergence of the net and the netizens, human

society can now move ahead with greater democracy and the means to

solve problems that have been unsolvable for a long time.

I thought it is the reverse. There was a great worldwide democratic

movement in the second half of the twentieth century as witnessed by

the 1968 outburst of demands for more democracy in Paris, New York

City, Prague, Tokyo, Mexico City and in other places around the world.

Then again in 1987 in South Korea, 1988 in Burma, followed in 1989 in

China and then Eastern Europe. Perhaps that movement was even seen

more recently with the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. The emer-

gence of the net and the netizen is the continuation of that movement

and they are its product.

Ronda said that we have an interesting disagreement. But isn’t

Michael Hauben’s article, “Participatory Democracy From the 1960s

and SDS into the Future Online”

an argument that the 1960s group in

the U.S., Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), could not succeed

because it lacked a communication network for the realization of full

participation of the members of society in the decisions that affect their

lives?

I was struck by this comparison with Michael’s analysis and

Morgan’s and decided to read Michael’s paper more carefully.

II – SDS and Democracy’s Need for a Communications

Network

Michael begins his essay on SDS appearing to agree with me. He

writes, “The emergence of the personal computer in the late 70s and

early 80s and the longer gestation of the new forms of people-controlled

communication facilitated by the internet and Usenet in the late 80s and

Page 79

today are the direct descendants of 1960s.”

Michael found in the Port Huron Statement (1962),

that SDS saw

that people were tired of the problems and were yearning for change but

politics had become a spectator sport. Something new was needed, a

more participatory democracy. SDS sought “the establishment of a

democracy of … participation governed by two central aims: that the

individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and

direction of his life; [and] the society be organized to … provide the

media for their common participation …. [C]hannels should be

commonly available to relate men to knowledge and to power so that

private problems … are formulated as general issues.” It was necessary

“to make the human being whole by becoming an actor in history

instead of just a passive object. Not only as an end in itself, but as a

means to change, the idea of participatory democracy was our central

focus.”

Michael quotes Al Haber, first SDS national officer, “The challenge

ahead is to appraise and evolve radical alternatives to the inadequate

society of today, and to develop an institutionalized communication

system that will give perspective to our immediate actions. We will then

have the groundwork for a radical student movement in America.”

Haber and Tom Hayden, author of the first draft of the Port Huron

Statement, understood SDS to be this “national communications

network.”

But Michael analyzes that SDS could not be sustained. He writes,

“While many people made their voices heard and produced a real effect

on the world in the 1960s, lasting structural changes were not estab-

lished. The real problems outlined earlier continued in the 1970s and

afterwards. A national, or even international, public communications

network needed to be built to keep the public’s voice out in the open.”

Today, an international, public communications network and the

netizens exist. Will human society now make accelerated progress? Is

Ronda correct that this is a new era?

III – Is a Revolution in Human Communications

Happening?

Maybe we can see in his writings how Michael thought about this.

Page 80

I will briefly look at two of Michael’s articles, “The Computer as a

Democratizer”

and “The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning:

Printing and the Net”

about the printing press.

In “The Computer as a Democratizer” Michael writes, “The

computer connects to th[e] democratizing trend through facilitating

wider communications among individual citizens to the whole body of

citizens.” To understand what is needed for democracy to work, he

studied an essay by James Mill, “Liberty of the Press” written in 1825.

From Mill, Michael saw the necessity of an uncensored press “to keep

watch on … government in order to make sure this government works

in the interest of the many.” Mill champions freedom of the press, “as

a realistic alternative to Rousseau’s general assembly, which is not

possible most of the time.”

But now most people can have an “information access and

broadcast station in their very own home.” They can participate “in

debates with others around the world, search for data in various data

banks, post an opinion or criticism for the whole world to see.” To

Michael, it is a leap not only to have access to information but also to be

able to broadcast. He writes, “These systems begin to make possible

some of the activity James Mill saw as necessary for democracy to

function … more oversight over government and a more informed

population.” Also, with the net and the netizens, a new public space is

opening up which can serve as an assembly of the whole people.

Michael saw that the computer and the net remove some of the obstacles

to democracy. And I add make possible a more participatory democracy.

But is the emergence of the net and the netizen a revolutionary

development?

To answer this question, Michael studied the history of the impact

of the invention and spread of the printing press. The modern printing

press was developed in the middle and late 15

Century. It quickly

replaced the 2000 year old scribal culture surrounding hand copying of

texts out of which it grew. Michael writes that “This scribal culture

could only go so far in furthering the distribution of information and

ideas. Texts existed, but were largely unavailable for use by the common

people ….” The printing press and the culture that grew up with it broke

through barriers which had previously limited the production of books.

Page 81

“The broad distribution of presses … ushered in the age of printing”

which accelerated the Enlightenment. “The printing press facilitated the

meeting of minds pursuing intellectual pursuits. The interconnection of

people led to the quickening of the development of ideas and knowl-

edge. These progenitors of the printing trade were in the forefront of the

sweeping intellectual changes which the presses made possible.”

Michael agrees with Elizabeth Eisenstein, the author he was reading,

that the impact of the printing press was revolutionary not evolutionary.

Jumping to today Michael writes, “Just as the printing press

essentially replaced the hand-copying of books in the Renaissance,

people using computer networks are essentially creating a new method

of production and distribution of creative and intellectual written works

today.” Besides making distribution and communication more universal,

cheaper and easier, netizens are building the net “from a connection of

computers and computing resources into a vast resource of people and

knowledge.” Their activity has opened a new kind of public space

accessible to all, inviting and encouraging participation by ordinary

people in all the questions and potentially all the decisions of society.

This public space is separate from either commercial purposes or

religious or political limitations or ideas. The net is the “poor people’s”

public space and the poor people’s media.

Michael concludes that, in the age of the printing press, “we, too,

are in an age of amazing changes in communications technologies, and

it is important to realize how these changes are firmly based on the

extension of the development of the printing press which took place in

the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” But he also tells us that “under-

standing how the printing press unleashed a communications revolution

provides a basis to assess if the establishment of worldwide computer

communication networking is the next communication revolution.” His

essay raises the question, are the net and the netizens continuing the

important social revolution that the printing press had begun? The first

sentence of his essay answers:

“A revolution in human communications is happening.”

Back to my question, is Ronda’s insight that we are entering into the

Era of the Netizen correct? I would say it is hard to know. The net and

the netizens are only recent developments. Also, we are in the middle of

Page 82

something very big. It is hard to see its full meaning and impact. I do not

know what has been so strongly holding democracy back so cannot

really know if the net and the netizens have broken it. I think Michael’s

thinking was moving in that direction.

As for my thinking, I can say I hope we will see more democracy.

If pressed, I would say my guess is that the net and the netizens are

ushering in a new era, the Era of the Netizen.

Notes:

Ancient Society, p. 42: “When the barbarian, advancing step by step, had discovered

the native metals and learned to melt them in the crucible and to cast them in moulds;

when he had alloyed native copper with tin and produced bronze; and, finally, when by

a still greater effort of thought he had invented the furnace, and produced iron from the

ore, nine-tenths of the battle for civilization was gained. Furnished with iron tools,

capable of holding both an edge and a point, mankind were certain of attaining to

civilization. The production of iron was the event of events in human experience,

without a parallel, and without an equal, beside which all other inventions and

discoveries were inconsiderable, or at least subordinate, Out of it came the metallic

hammer and anvil, the axe and the chisel, the plough with an iron point, the iron sword;

in fine, the basis of civilization, which may be said to rest upon this metal. The want

of iron tools arrested the progress of mankind in barbarism. There they would have

remained to the present hour, had they failed to bridge the chasm. It seems probable

that the conception and the process of smelting iron ore came but once to man. It would

be a singular satisfaction could it be known to what tribe and family we are indebted

for this knowledge, and with it for civilization. The Semitic family were then in

advance of the Aryan, and in the lead of the human race. They gave the phonetic

alphabet to mankind and it seems not unlikely the knowledge of iron as well.”

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/morgan-lewis/ancient-society/ch03.htm

Available online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netdemocracy-60s.txt

SDS, “Port Huron Statement,” as found in James Miller, Democracy in the Streets,

Simon and Schuster, New York, 1987, pp. 329-374.

Ibid, note 2. Quotes are from Miller pp. 333, 144, and 374.

Available online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x18

Available online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x16

Page 83

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.

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 84