The Amateur

Computerist

Spring 2012 Honor of Michael Hauben & Emergence of Netizens Volume 21 No. 2

Table of Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

Participatory Democracy: SDS into Future Online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4

Researching the “Net”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 21

Computer as a Democratizer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 30

What the Net Means to Me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 36

Culture and Communication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 38

Printing Press and the Net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 46

Effect of the Net on Professional News Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 63

New York City Civic Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 80

Does Progress Result from Technology?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 85

Introduction

On May 1, 1997, the book Netizens: On the History and Impact

of Usenet and the Internet was published in a print edition. This May

Day, May 1, 2012, marks the 15

anniversary of that occasion.

Five years ago, on the occasion of the 10

anniversary of the

book, I wrote an article for the online magazine Telepolis

(

www.heise.de/tp). In the article I wrote that an anniversary “offers an

occasion to consider the potential of the Net that was identified in

Netizens and to assess what has developed with regard to this poten-

tial today.”

I reviewed some of the background of Netizens: “During the

course of his pioneering research in the early 1990s, Michael Hauben

discovered a surprising phenomenon. He recognized that there was a

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

Page 1

new social consciousness developing among those in the online com-

munity. At the time, the Internet had recently emerged as a new com-

munications infrastructure. More and more people were gaining ac-

cess. The experience of being online and of having access to the par-

ticipatory interactive online environment was proving to be a signifi-

cance experience.”

The article continued, “People were eager to explore the nature

and power of these new communication capabilities. To be online led

to a feeling of empowerment. The idea began to impress itself on

some in the online community that here was the potential for a new

meaning for the concept of citizen. Could the Internet make it possi-

ble for the citizen to be able to act in a way not hitherto possible?

Could the Net really make it possible for citizens to become active

participants in the process of determining what happened in their soci-

ety?”

The result of this process was that “a new identify was in the pro-

cess of being generated. This was a social identity as a citizen of the

Net, as a netizen.”

To celebrate the 15

anniversary of the publication of the print

edition of Netizens we have gathered a number of articles written or

presented as talks by Michael Hauben. This collection brings together

both new work Michael did after the publication of Netizens along

with work done earlier which was not included in the book. Also in-

cluded in this collection are some of Michael’s articles that were pub-

lished in Netizens.

This collection of articles and speeches particularly concentrates

the ability Michael had to reflect on the importance of a current de-

velopment through the perspective of a commentary on an earlier de-

velopment. He was thus able to grasp the long range broader implica-

tions of the contemporaneous development of the Internet.

In his article “The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning: Print-

ing and the Net,” (p. 22, this issue) Michael writes, “Understanding

how the printing press unleashed a communications revolution pro-

vides a basis to assess if the establishment of worldwide computer

communication networking is the next communication revolution.”

Page 2

The articles in this collection consider how the Net is expanding

the ability of the common people with access to the Net to communi-

cate with each other to offer to the world their thoughts, ideas and

questions, in short, for the common people to contribute to the intel-

lectual and creative commonwealth still coming into existence in a

way never before possible.

And it is this broadening of intellectual and collaborative cooper-

ation that similarly makes possible and desired more democratic polit-

ical structures and institutions.

For Michael, the key to this ferment is the Netizen, those who

contribute to the ever expanding public set of resources. This is the

unique advance. “Making a contribution is an integral part of Netizen

behavior,” writes Michael.

He sees the Net as a “new kind of public space,” a space that

makes “collaboration and cooperation possible.” This new public

commons, as Michael characterizes the public space made available

via the Net, is one where “people are encouraged to share their views,

thoughts and questions with others.” It is a “many to many” process

where netizens can broadcast to others around the world and get re-

sponses back. This participation Michael recognized is an empower-

ing experience.

Personal computer pioneer Lee Felsenstein realized that “the de-

velopment of the commons to the exclusion of the big media repre-

sentations makes this a grassroots medium or a new enlarged public

commons.” Michael concurs with this characterization of the com-

mons created by the Net.

Similarly the ability of netizens to contribute to and create their

own news is a means to create an alternative to the commercial busi-

ness oriented media. This makes possible a means to effectively chal-

lenge the outdated forms and processes that have come to dominate in

the commercial media environment.

The Net is “the poor man’s version of the mass media” writes

Michael. With the Net, the monopoly of the elites over the media was

broken. One important example of the potential of the Net, Michael

explains, is that the Net bestows, “the power of the reporter on the

netizen.”

Page 3

Netizens now have the ability to not only critique the misrepre-

sentations and limitations of the commercial media, but also to create

a more broad ranging and accurate media.

Similarly in his article “Participatory Democracy: From the

1960s and SDS into the Future On-line” (first article this issue), Mi-

chael shows how an early goal of SDS was to create “a medium to

make it possible for a community of active citizens to discuss and

debate the issues affecting their lives.” This new communication

infrastructure would be one that would make it possible for people to

have a means to participate in the discussion and determination of the

political decisions of their society. Michael pointed out that Usenet

and the Internet provided what SDS saw as necessary but lacked, in

Al Haber’s words, “an institutionalized communication system that

would give perspective to our immediate actions.”

The articles in this collection, we hope, will help to stimulate

thought and discussion over the potential of the Net and Netizen, but

more profoundly, over how to recognize, as Michael did, the impor-

tant prototypes that are developing and emerging. The aim is to nour-

ish those that will help to bring about the changes which will bring

more power to the grassroots of society in the new global commons.

[Editor’s Note: The following was written in 1995 as a paper for the

Columbia University course “Radical Tradition in America.” The

year 2012 marks the 50

Anniversary of The Port Huron Statement

which was issued on June 15, 1962.]

Participatory Democracy From the

1960s and SDS into the Future On-line

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 gesta-

Page 4

tion of the new forms of people-controlled communication facilitated

by the Internet and Usenet in the late 80s and today are the direct de-

scendants 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 research that started in 1969 and Usenet which was

born in 1979. These communications advances coupled with the

availability of computers transforms 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 begin-

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

part in how their society is governed. SDS leaders had an understand-

ing 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 understand-

ing 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.

Page 5

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 mil-

lennium.

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 mani-

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

prefixed by an introductory note describing how it was to be a docu-

ment that should develop and change with experience: “This docu-

ment represents the results of several months of writing and discus-

sion among the membership, a draft paper, and revision by the Stu-

dents for a Democratic 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 prac-

ticing participatory democracy by asking for the opinions of everyone

and treating these various opinions equally.

Page 6

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 soci-

eties, 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 philoso-

pher 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 in-

creasingly got further away from politics. Mills felt that the disen-

gagement 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 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 suc-

cessful 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 workplaces, 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 alterna-

Page 7

tives 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 State-

ment 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 situa-

tion – the actual structural separation of people from power, from rel-

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

versity influences the student way of life, so do major social institu-

tions create the circumstances which the isolated citizen will try hope-

lessly 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

community and ability to aspire – means the rise of democracy with-

out publics. With the great mass of people structurally remote and

psychologically hesitant with respect to democratic institutions, those

institutions themselves attenuate and become, in the fashion of the

vicious 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 frus-

trated 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 Ameri-

can 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 constrained by the common belief that politics is an agonizingly

Page 8

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

understanding 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 author-

ity. 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 cu-

riosity, an ability and willingness to learn.” (Port Huron Statement in

Miller, p. 332)

Participatory Democracy

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 partici-

patory 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 gen-

eral, 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 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 justi-

Page 9

fying 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 dif-

fers, 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 initia-

tive – that men feel obliged to help resolve social problems – and so-

cial opportunity – that society feels obliged to maximize the possibil-

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

A participant at the Port Huron Conference, Richard Flacks re-

members 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 mean-

ing 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 democ-

racy. 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 partic-

ipation 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 pro-

vide the media for their common participation.” (Port Huron State-

ment in Miller, p. 333)

Others in SDS further detailed their understandings of participa-

tory 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 em-

phasis 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)

Page 10

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 per-

sonally 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 partici-

patory 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 ac-

tively involve the citizens of the United States in the daily political

process to correct 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 de-

fining participatory democracy is that ‘men must share in the deci-

sions 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 responsibil-

Page 11

ity 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 ap-

proach. There was a need to start smaller among the elements of soci-

ety 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: “Hu-

man relations should involve fraternity and honesty. Human interde-

pendence 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

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 de-

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

Page 12

This feeling about community is represented in the Port Huron

Statement’s conclusion. The Statement calls for the communal shar-

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

Only by communicating and sharing these problems through a com-

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

new left to “transform modern complexity into issues that can be un-

derstood and felt close-up by every human being.” The statement con-

tinues, “It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indiffer-

ence, so people may see the political, social an 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 re-

freshing 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 scat-

tered little circles of face-to-face citizens discussing their public busi-

ness.” Al Haber’s hope for this to happen among students was demon-

strated 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 be-

ginning.” (Miller, p. 118)

The Means For Change

SDS succeeded in doing several things. First, they clearly identi-

fied 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

Page 13

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

communication system or media which people could use to communi-

cate. 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 per-

spective 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 na-

tional communications 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 communi-

cations 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 fol-

lowing 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

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 facili-

tate human communication in a fundamentally different way than al-

ready existing public communications networks like the telephone or

Page 14

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 com-

munication networks. Another important step toward the development

of an international communication network was the personal com-

puter 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 net-

work.

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 so-

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

Statement in Miller, p. 361)

Participants on the ARPAnet, Internet and Usenet inherently un-

derstood 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 herself

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. How-

ever, 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 val-

ues 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

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

one who comes on-line, 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

Page 15

it takes effort and action on each and every ones part to make the Net

a regenerative and vibrant community and resource. Netizens are peo-

ple 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 commons (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 ben-

efit.

The Net brings power to people’s lives because it is a public fo-

rum. 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 muck-

raking 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 Hu-

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

for. The section titled “The Society Beyond” included that “Ameri-

cans 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 experi-

ence we have is our own, not vicarious or inherited.” Hayden contin-

ued, “We keep believing that people need to control, or try to control,

their work and their life. Otherwise, they are without intensity, with-

out 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

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

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

Page 16

paid the university to educate them, should have the power to influ-

ence decisions concerning their university lives.” (Haskins and

Benson, p. 55) This desire was also a common motivator of the per-

sonal 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 peo-

ple. People across the United States picked up circuit boards and

worked on making a personal minicomputer or mainframe which pre-

viously only large corporations and educational institutions could af-

ford. 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 prob-

lems 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

corporations….” (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 main-

frames. 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 corporations had run things. We

were upsetting the establishment, forcing our mores into the industry.

Page 17

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 pre-

venting the implementation of direct democracy. Online communica-

tion forums also make possible the discussion necessary to identify

today’s fundamental questions. One criticism is that it would be im-

possible 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 newsgroups 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 tradi-

tional meeting, participants have to think quickly to respond. In addi-

tion, 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 neces-

sary computer and communications infrastructure are installed. Future

Page 18

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 govern-

ment 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 in-

volve people interacting with others. Voting involves the isolated

thoughts of an individual on an issue, and then his or her acting 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 move-

ment and the pioneers involved with the development of the Net un-

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

forward in the hard struggle needed to bring the movements to fru-

ition. 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.

Page 19

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.

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

sonal 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

commons – 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. 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 Prefec-

ture, Japan.

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

vember 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. 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.

Page 20

This article is online at:

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

[Editor’s Note: The following is a speech given to Columbia Univer-

sity’s student ACM Chapter on March 24, 1994 and at the

Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library on May 1,

1995. Adapted from the paper titled: “The Net and Netizens: The Im-

pact the Net has on People’s Lives.”]

Researching the “Net”: The Evolution

of Usenet and The Significance of the

Global Computer Network

by Michael Hauben

Welcome to the 21

Century. You are a Netizen, or a Net Citizen,

and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to the global connectiv-

ity that the Net makes possible. You consider everyone as your com-

patriot. You physically live in one country but you are in contact with

much of the world via the global computer network. Virtually you

live next door to every other single Netizen in the world. Geograph-

ical 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. The Net – or

the Internet, BITNET, FidoNet, other physical networks, Usenet,

VMSnet, and other logical networks and so on – has rapidly grown to

cover all of the developed countries in the world. Every day more

computers attach to the existing networks and every new computer

adds to the user base – at least twenty seven-million people are inter-

connected today. Why do all these people pass their time sitting in

front of a computer typing away? They have very good reason to!

Twenty-seven-million people plus have very good reason not to be

wrong.

Page 21

We are seeing a revitalization of society. The frameworks are

being redesigned from the bottom up. A new more democratic world

is becoming possible. According to one user, the Net has “immeasur-

ably increased the quality of…life.” The Net seems to open a new

lease on life for people. Social connections which were never before

possible, or which were relatively hard to achieve, are now facilitated

by the Net. Geography and time no longer are boundaries. Social lim-

itations and conventions no longer prevent potential friendships or

partnerships. In this manner Netizens are meeting other Netizens from

far away and close by that they might never have met without the Net.

A new world of connections between people – either privately

from individual to individual or publicly from individuals to the col-

lective mass of many on the net – is possible. The old model of cen-

tral distribution of information from the Network Broadcasting or

Publication 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. Netnews brings the power

of the reporter to the Netizen. People now have the ability to broad-

cast their observations or questions around the world and have other

people respond. The computer networks form a new grassroots con-

nection that allows the excluded sections of society to have a voice.

This new medium is unprecedented. Previous grassroots media have

existed for much smaller-sized selections of people. The model of the

Net proves the old way does not have to be the only way of network-

ing. The Net extends the idea of networking – of making connections

with strangers that prove to be advantageous to one or both parties.

The complete connection of the body of citizens of the world that

the Net makes possible does not exist as of today, and it will defi-

nitely be a fight to make access to the Net open and available to all.

However, in the future we might be seeing the possible expansion of

what it means to be a social animal. Practically every single individ-

ual on the Net today is available to every other person on the Net. In-

ternational connection coexists on the same level with local connec-

tion. Also the computer networks allow a more advanced connection

between the people who are communicating. With computer-commu-

nication systems, information or thoughts are connected to people’s

Page 22

names and electronic-mail addresses. On the Net, one can connect to

others who have similar interests or whose thought processes they

enjoy.

Netizens make it a point to be helpful and friendly – if they feel it

to be worthwhile. Many Netizens feel they have an obligation to be

helpful and answer queries and followup on discussions to put their

opinion into the pot of opinions. Over a period of time the voluntary

contributions to the Net have built it into a useful connection to other

people around the world. The Net can be a helpful medium to under-

stand the world. Only by seeing all points of view can any one person

attempt to figure out either their own position on a topic or in the end,

the truth.

Net Society differs from off-line society by welcoming intellec-

tual activity. People are encouraged to have things on their mind and

to present those ideas to the Net. People are allowed to be intellectu-

ally interesting and interested. This intellectual activity forms a major

part of the on-line information that is carried by the various computer

networks. Netizens can interact with other people to help add to or

alter that information. Brainstorming between varieties of people pro-

duces robust thinking. Information is no longer a fixed commodity or

resource on the Nets. It is constantly being added to and improved

collectively. The Net is a grand intellectual and social commune in

the spirit of the collective nature present at the origins of human soci-

ety. Netizens working together continually expand the store of infor-

mation worldwide. One person called the Net an untapped resource

because it provides an alternative to the normal channels and ways of

doing things. The Net allows for the meeting of minds to form and

develop ideas. It brings people’s thinking processes out of isolation

and into the open. Every user of the Net gains the role of being spe-

cial and useful. The fact that every user has his or her own opinions

and interests adds to the general body of specialized knowledge on

the Net. Each Netizen thus becomes a special resource valuable to the

Net. Each user contributes to the whole intellectual and social value

and possibilities of the Net.

Page 23

Licklider, the Visionary

The world of the Netizen was envisioned some twenty-seven

years ago by J. C. R. Licklider and Robert Taylor in their article “The

Computer as a Communication Device” (Science and Technology,

April 1968). Licklider brought to his leadership of the U.S. Depart-

ment of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) a

vision of “the intergalactic computer network.” Whenever he would

speak of ARPA, he would mention this vision. J. C. R. Licklider was

a prophet of the Net. In his article Licklider establishes several help-

ful principles which would make the computer play a helpful role in

human communication. These principles were:

1) Communication is defined as an interactive creative process.

2) Response times need to be short to make the “conversation” free

and easy.

3) The larger network would form out of smaller regional networks.

4) Communities would form out of affinity and common interests.

Licklider focused on the Net comprising of a network of net-

works. While other researchers of the time focused on the sharing of

computing resources, Licklider kept an open mind and wrote: “…The

collection of people, hardware, and software – the multiaccess com-

puter together with its local community of users – will become a node

in a geographically distributed computer network…. Through the net-

work, therefore, all the large computers can communicate with one

another. And through them, all the members of the supercommunity

can communicate – with other people, with programs, with data, or

with a selected combination of those resources.”

Licklider’s understandings from his 1968 paper have stood the

test of time, and do represent what the Net is today. His concept of the

sharing of both computing and human resources accurately describes

today’s Net. The networking of various human connections quickly

forms, changes its goals, disbands and reforms into new collabora-

tions. The fluidity of such group dynamics leads to a quickening of

the creation of new ideas. Groups can form to discuss an idea, focus

Page 24

in or broaden out and reform to fit the new ideas that have resulted

from the process.

The virtual space created on noncommercial computer networks

is accessible universally. This space is accessible from the connec-

tions that exist; whereas social networks in the physical world gener-

ally are connected only by limited gateways. So the capability of net-

working on computer nets overcomes limitations inherent in

noncomputer social networks. This is important because it reduces the

problems of population growth. Population growth no longer means

limited resources. Rather, that very growth of population now means

an improvement of resources. Thus, growth of population can be seen

as a positive asset. This is a new way of looking at people in our soci-

ety. Every new person can mean a new set of perspectives and spe-

cialties to add to the wealth of knowledge of the world. This new

view of people could help improve the view of the future. The old

model looks down on population growth and people as a strain on the

environment rather than the increase of intellectual contribution these

individuals can make. However, access to the Net needs to be univer-

sal for the Net to fully utilize the contribution each person can repre-

sent. Once access is limited, the Net and those on the Net lose the full

possible advantages the Net can offer. Lastly the people on the Net

need to be active in order to bring about the best possible use of the

Network.

Licklider foresaw that the Net allows for people of common in-

terests, who are otherwise strangers, to communicate. Much of the

magic of the Net is the ability to make a contribution of your ideas,

and then be connected to utter strangers. He saw that people would

connect to others via this net in ways that had been much harder in the

past. Licklider observed as the ARPAnet spanned two continents.

This physical connection allowed for wider social collaborations to

form. This was the beginning of Computer Data networks facilitating

connections of people around the world.

My research on and about the Net has been and continues to be

very exciting for me. When I posted my inquiries, I usually received

the first reply within a couple of hours. The feeling of receiving that

very first reply from a total stranger is always exhilarating! That set

Page 25

of first replies from people reminds me of the magic of email. It is

nice that there can be reminders of how exciting it all is – so that the

value of this new use of computers is never forgotten.

Critical Mass

The Net has grown so much in the last few decades, that a critical

mass of people and interests has been reached. This collection of indi-

viduals adds to the interests and specialties of the whole community.

Most people can now gain something from the Net, while at the same

time helping it out. A critical mass has developed on the net. Enough

people exist that the whole is now greater than anyone individual and

thus makes the Net worthwhile to be part of. People are meshing in-

tellects and knowledge to form new ideas. Larry Press made this clear

by writing: “I now work on the Net at least two hours per day. I’ve

had an account since around 1975 but it has only become super im-

portant in the last couple of years because a critical mass of member-

ship was reached. I no longer work in L.A., but in cyberspace.”

Many inhabitants of the Net feel that only the most technically

inclined people use the Net. This is not true, as many different kinds

of people are now connected to the Net. While the original users of

the Net were from exclusively technical and scientific communities,

many of them found it a valuable experience to explore the Net for

more than just technical reasons. The nets, in their early days, were

only available in a few parts of the world. Now however, people of all

ages, from most parts of the globe, and of many professions, make up

the Net. The original prototype networks (e.g.,: ARPAnet in the

U.S.A., NPL in the United Kingdom, CYCLADES in France and

other networks around the world) developed the necessary physical

infrastructure for a fertile social network to develop. Einar Stefferud

wrote of this social connection in an article, “The ARPAnet has pro-

duced several monumental results. It provided the physical and elec-

trical communications backbone for development of the latent social

infrastructure we now call ‘The Internet Community.’” (ConneXions,

Oct. 1989, Vol. 3 No. 10, p. 21)

Many different kinds of people comprise the Net. The University

Community sponsors access for a broad range of people (students,

Page 26

professors, staff, professor emeritus, and so on). Programmers, engi-

neers and researchers from many companies are connected. A K-12

Net exists within the lower grades of education which helps to invite

young people to be a part of our community. Special Bulletin Board

software (for example Waffle) exists to connect personal computer

users to the Net. Various Unix bulletin board systems exist to connect

other users. It is impossible to tell exactly who connects to public bul-

letin board systems, as only an inexpensive computer (or terminal)

and a modem are required to connect. Many common bulletin board

systems (for example fido board) have at least e-mail and many also

participate through a gateway to Netnews. Prototype Community Net-

work Systems are forming around the world (e.g., In Cleveland – the

Cleveland Freenet, In New Zealand – the Wellington Citynet, In Cali-

fornia, the Santa Monica Public Electronic Network, etc.) Access via

these community systems can be as easy as visiting the community

library and membership is open to all who live in the community.

In addition to the living body of resources this diversity of

Netizens represent, there is also a continually growing body of digi-

tized data that forms a set of resources. Whether it is Netizens digitiz-

ing great literature of the past (e.g., the Gutenberg Project), or it is

people gathering otherwise obscure or nonmainstream material (e.g.,

Various Religions, unusual hobbies, fringe and cult materials, and so

on), or if it is Netizens contributing new and original material (e.g.,

the Amateur Computerist Newsletter), the net follows in the great tra-

dition of other public bottom-up institutions, such as the public library

or the principle behind public education. The Net shares with these

institutions that they serve the general populace. This data is just part

of the treasure. Often living Netizens provide pointers to this digitized

store of publicly available information. Many of the network access

tools have been programmed with the principle of being available to

everyone. The best example is the method of connecting to file repos-

itories via FTP (file transfer protocol) by logging in as an “anony-

mous” user. Most (if not all) World Wide Web Sites, Wide Area In-

formation Systems (WAIS), and gopher sites are open for all users of

the Net. It is true that the current membership of the Net Community

Page 27

is smaller than it will be, but the net has reached a point of general

usefulness no matter who you are.

All of this evidence is exactly why there could be problems as the

Net comes under the control of commercial entities. Once commercial

interests gain control, the Net will be much less powerful for the ordi-

nary person than it is currently. Commercial interests vary from those

of the common person. They attempt to make profit from any avail-

able means. Compuserve is an example of one current commercial

network. A user of Compuserve pays for access by the hour. If this

scenario would be extended to the Net of which I speak, the

Netiquette of being helpful would have a price tag attached to it. If

people had had to pay by the minute during the Net’s development,

very few would have been able to afford the network time needed to

be helpful to others.

The Net has only developed because of the hard work and volun-

tary dedication of many people. It has grown because the Net is under

the control and power of the people at a bottom-level, and because

these people have over the years made a point to make it something

worthwhile. People’s posts and contributions to the Net have been the

developing forces.

Network as a New Democratic Force

For the people of the world, the Net provides a powerful way of

peaceful assembly. Peaceful assembly allows for people to take con-

trol over their lives, rather than that control being in the hands of oth-

ers. This power has to be honored and protected. Any medium or tool

that helps people to hold or gain power is something that is special

and has to be protected. (See “The Computer as a Democratizer,” this

issue next article.)

J. C. R. Licklider believed that access to the then growing infor-

mation network should be made ubiquitous. He felt that the Net’s

value would depend on high connectivity. In his article, “The Com-

puter as a Communication Device”, Licklider argues that the impact

upon society depends on how available the network is to the society

as a whole. He wrote: “For the society, the impact will be good or bad

depending mainly on the question: Will ‘to be on line’ be a privilege

Page 28

or a right? If only a favored segment of the population gets a chance

to enjoy the advantage of ‘intelligence amplification,’ the network

may exaggerate the discontinuity in the spectrum of intellectual oppor-

tunity.”

The Net has made a valuable impact on human society. I have

heard from many people how their lives have been substantially im-

proved via their connection to the Net. This enhancement of people’s

lives provides the incentive needed for providing access to all in soci-

ety. Society will improve if net access is made available to people as

a whole. Only if access is universal will the Net itself truly advance.

The ubiquitous connection is necessary for the Net to encompass all

possible resources. One Net visionary responded to my research by

calling for universal access. Steve Welch wrote: “If we can get to the

point where anyone who gets out of high school alive has used com-

puters to communicate on the Net or a reasonable facsimile or succes-

sor to it, then we as a society will benefit in ways not currently under-

standable. When access to information is as ubiquitous as access to

the phone system, all hell will break loose. Bet on it.”

Steve is right, “all hell will break loose” in the most positive of

ways imaginable. The philosophers Thomas Paine, Jean Jacques

Rousseau, and all other fighters for democracy would have been

proud.

Similar to past communications advances such as the printing

press, mail, and the telephone, the Global Computer Communications

Network has already fundamentally changed our lives. Licklider pre-

dicted that the Net would fundamentally change the way people live

and work. It is important to try to understand this impact, so as to help

further this advance.

This article is online at:

http://www.ais.org/~hauben/Michael_Hauben/Collected_Works/Articles/speech_ac

m.txt

Page 29

[Editor’s Note: The following appeared online in Spring 1992. A later

version appeared as Chapter 18 of Netizens: On the History and Im-

pact of Usenet and the Internet]

The Computer as a Democratizer

by Michael Hauben

“…only through diversity of opinion is there, in the existing state

of human intellect, a chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.”

John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty”

“In a very real sense, Usenet is a marketplace of ideas.”

Bart Anderson, Bryan Costales,

and Harry Henderson

Political thought has developed as writers presented the theoreti-

cal basis behind the various class structures from aristocracy to de-

mocracy. Plato wrote of the rule of the elite Guardians. Thomas Paine

wrote why people need control of their governments. The computer

connects to this democratizing trend through facilitating wider com-

munications among individual citizens to the whole body of citizens.

James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, takes a look at democ-

racy in his article “Liberty of the Press” from the 1825 Supplement to

the Encyclopedia Britannica. He writes about the question of a gov-

ernment that works as it should – for the advantage and gain of the

people instead of the advantage and gain for those in control. Mill

sees the government necessarily being corrupted if the chance exists.

Those in the position of rule, would abuse that power for their advan-

tage. Mill describes, “If one man saw that he might promote misrule

for his own advantage, so would another; so, of course would they

all.” ( James Mill, “Liberty of the Press,” p. 20) Mill says that the

people need a check on those in government. People need to keep

watch on their government in order to make sure this government

works in the interest of the many. Mill thus concludes, “There can be

Page 30

no adequate check without the freedom of the press. The evidence of

this is irresistible.” (Mill, p. 18)

What Mill often phrases as freedom of the press, or liberty of the

press, is more precisely defined as the uncensored press. The uncen-

sored press provides for the dissemination of information that allows

the reader or thinker to do two things. First, a person can size up the

issue and honestly decide his or her own position. Second, as the

press is uncensored, this person can make his distinctive contribution

available for other people to consider and appreciate. Thus what Mill

calls “freedom of the press” makes possible the free flow and ex-

change of different ideas.

Thomas Paine, in The Rights of Man, describes a fundamental

principle of democracy. Paine writes, “that the right of altering the

government was a national right, and not a right of the government.”

(p. 341) Mill also expresses that active participation by the populace

is a necessary principle of democracy. He writes: “Unless a door is

left open to the resistance of the government, in the largest sense of

the word, the doctrine of passive obedience is adopted; and the conse-

quence is, the universal prevalence of the misgovernment, ensuring

the misery and degradation of the people.” (Mill, p. 13)

Another principle Mill links democracy to, is the right of the peo-

ple to define who can responsibly represent their will. However, this

right requires information to make a proper decision. Mill declares:

“We may then ask, if there are any possible means by which the peo-

ple can make a good choice, besides liberty of the press? The very

foundation of a good choice is knowledge. The fuller and more per-

fect the knowledge, the better the chance, where all sinister interest is

absent, of a good choice. How can the people receive the most perfect

knowledge relative to the characters of those who present themselves

to their choice, but by information conveyed freely, and without re-

serve, from one to another?” (Mill p. 19) Without information being

available to the people, the candidates for office can be either as bad

as the incumbents or worse. Therefore there is a need to prevent the

government from censoring the information available to people. Mill

explains: “If it is in the power of their rulers to permit one person and

forbid another, the people may be sure that a false report, – a report

Page 31

calculated to make them believe that they are well governed, when

they are ill-governed, will be often presented to them.” (Mill, p. 20)

After electing their representatives, democracy gives the public

the right to evaluate their chosen representatives in office. The public

continually needs information as to how their chosen representatives

are fulfilling their role. Once these representatives have abused their

power, Paine’s and Mill’s principle allows the public to replace those

abusers. Mill also clarifies that free use of the means of communica-

tion is another extremely important principle: “That an accurate report

of what is done by each of the representatives, a transcript of his

speeches, and a statement of his propositions and votes, is necessary

to be laid before the people, to enable them to judge of his conduct,

nobody, we presume, will deny. This requires the use of the cheapest

means of communication, and, we add, the free use of those means.

Unless every man has the liberty of publishing the proceedings of the

Legislative Assembly, the people can have no security that they are

fairly published.” (Mill, p. 20)

Ignorance, Thomas Paine calls the absence of knowledge and

says that man with knowledge cannot be returned to a state of igno-

rance. (The Rights of Man, p. 357) James Mill shows how the knowl-

edge man thirsts after leads to a communal feeling. General confor-

mity of opinion seeds resistance against misgovernment. Both confor-

mity of opinion and resistance require general information or knowl-

edge. Mill explains: “In all countries people have either a power le-

gally and peaceably of removing their governors, or they have not that

power. If they have not that power, they can only obtain very consid-

erable ameliorations of their governments by resistance, by applying

physical force to their rulers, or, at least, by threats so likely to be fol-

lowed by performance, as may frighten their rulers into compliance.

But resistance, to have this effect, must be general. To be general, it

must spring from a general conformity of opinion, and a general

knowledge of that conformity. How is this effect to be produced, but

by some means, fully enjoyed by the people of communicating their

sentiments to one another? Unless the people can all meet in general

assembly, there is no other means, known to the world, of attaining

this object, to be compared with freedom of the press.” (Mill, p. 18)

Page 32

In the previous quote Mill places his championing of the freedom

of press as a realistic alternative to Rousseau’s general assembly,

which is not possible most of the time. Mill expands on the freedom

of the press by setting the rules. An opinion cannot be well founded

until its converse is also present. Here he sets forth the importance of

developing your own opinion from those that exist. Mill writes: “We

have then arrived at the following important conclusions, – that there

is no safety to the people in allowing anybody to choose opinions for

them; that there are no marks by which it can be decided beforehand,

what opinions are true and what are false; that there must, therefore,

be equal freedom of declaring all opinions both true and false; and

that, when all opinions, true and false, are equally declared, the assent

of the greater number, when their interests are not opposed to them,

may always be expected to be given to the true. These principles, the

foundation of which appears to be impregnable, suffice for the speedy

determination of every practical question.” (Mill, p. 23)

The technology that is the personal computer, international com-

puter networks, and other recent contributions embody and put into

practice James Mill’s theory of liberty of the press. The personal

computer makes it affordable for most people to have an information

access station in their very own home. There are international com-

puter networks that exist which allow a person to have debates with

other people across the world, search for data in various data banks,

or even play a computer game.

If a person is affiliated with a university community, works at a

business which pays to connect to the Internet, or pays a special ser-

vice fee, he or she can connect to a network of computer networks

around the world. A connection to this international network empow-

ers a person by giving him access to various services. These services

include electronic mail, which means the ability to send private mes-

sages electronically to people across the world who also have elec-

tronic mail boxes. The public alternative to this is a service called

Usenet. This service is an example of James Mill’s democratic princi-

ples.

Usenet consists of many newsgroups which each cover a broad,

but yet specific topic. People who utilize Usenet typically pick certain

Page 33

newsgroups or topics to focus on. Every group has several items of

discussion going on at the same time. Some examples of newsgroups

include serious topics such as talk.politics.theory, – people “talking”

about current issues and political theory, sci.econ – people discussing

the science of economics, soc.culture.usa – people debating questions

of United States society; and recreational topics (which might also be

serious) such as alt.rock-n-roll – discussing various aspects of rock

music, rec.sport.hockey – a discussion of hockey and rec.humor –

jokes and humor. The discussions are very active and provide a

source of information that fulfills James Mill’s criteria for both more

oversight over government and a more informed population. In a

sense, what was once impossible, is now possible; everyone’s letter to

the editor is published. (Hauben, Interview with Staff Member, The

Amateur Computerist, vol. 4 no. 2-3 p. 14) What is important is that

Usenet is conducted publicly, and is uncensored. This means that ev-

eryone can both contribute and gain from everyone else’s opinion.

The importance of Usenet also exists in that it is an improvement

in communications technology from that of previous telecommunica-

tions. The predecessors to computer networks were the Ham Radio

and Citizen Band Radio (CB). The computer network is an advance in

that it is easier to store, reproduce and utilize the communications. It

is easier to continue a prolonged question and answer session or de-

bate. The newsgroups on Usenet have a distribution designation

which allows them to be available to a wide variety of different size

areas – local, city, national, or international. This allows for a variety

of uses. The problem with the Internet is that in a sense it is only open

to those who either have it provided to them by a university or com-

pany that they are affiliated with, or who pay for it. This limits part of

the current development of the computer networks.

An example of a public enterprise, however, is a computer ser-

vice called Freenet in Cleveland, Ohio. Freenet is operated by Case

Western Reserve University as a community service. Anyone with a

personal computer and a modem (a device to connect to other com-

puters over existing phone lines) can call a local phone number to

connect to Freenet. If members of the public do not own computers,

they can use Freenet at the public library. Besides Usenet, Freenet

Page 34

provides free access to a vast variety of information databases and

community information. Freenet is just one example of the computer

networks becoming much more readily available to broad sectors of

society. As part of its databases, Freenet includes Supreme Court de-

cisions, discussion of political issues and candidates, and debate over

contemporary laws. Freenet is beginning to exemplify Mill’s principle

that democracy requires the “use of the cheapest means of communi-

cation, and, we add, the free use of those means.” (Mill, p. 20)

This is an exciting time to see the democratic ideas of some great

political thinkers beginning to be practiced. James Mill wrote that for

government to serve the people, it must be watched by the people uti-

lizing an uncensored press. Freedom of the press also makes possible

the debate necessary for the forming of well-founded opinions by the

people. Usenet and Freenet are examples of the contemporary elec-

tronic practice of the uncensored accessible press required by Mill.

These networks are also the result of hard work by many people aspir-

ing for more democracy. However, they still require more help from

those dedicated to the hard fight against tyranny.

Bibliography

Anderson, Bart, Bryan Costales, and Harry Henderson, Unix Communications, Indi-

ana, 1991.

Hauben, Michael, “Interview with a Staff Member,” The Amateur Computerist, vol.

4 no. 2-3.

Mill, James, Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press, and Law

of Nations, reprint, Kelley Publishers, New York, 1967.

Mill, John Stuart, “On Liberty” in Three Essays, Oxford, 1975.

Paine, Thomas, “The Rights of Man” in Two Classics of the French Revolution,

Anchor Books, Doubleday. New York, 1989.

Watkins, Beverly T, “Freenet helps Case Western fulfill its Community-Service

Mission,” April 29, 1992, Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A21.

Page 35

This article is online at

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/compdem.txt

[Editor’s Note: The following was written in Spring 1994.]

What the Net Means to Me

by Michael Hauben

The Net means personal power in a world of little or no personal

power for those other than on the top. (Those on top are called power-

ful because of money, but not because of thoughts or ideas.) The es-

sence of the Net is Communication: personal communication both be-

tween individual people, and between individuals and those in society

who care (and do not care) to listen. The closest parallels I can think

of are:

- Samizdat Literature in Eastern Europe.

- People’s Presses.

- The Searchlight, Appeal to Reason, Penny Press, etc.

- Citizen’s Band Radio.

- Amateur or Ham radio.

However the Net seems to have grown farther and to be more

accessible than the above. The audience is larger, and continues to

grow. Plus communication via the Net allows easier control over the

information – as it is digitized and can be stored, sorted, searched,

replied to, and easily adapted to another format.

The Net is the vehicle for distribution of people’s ideas, thoughts

and yearnings. No commercial service deals with the presentation of

peoples’ ideas. I do not need a computer to order flowers from “FTD”

or clothes from the “Gap.” I need the Net to be able to voice my

thoughts, artistic impressions, and opinions to the rest of the world.

Page 36

The world will then be a judge as to if they are worthy by either re-

sponding or ignoring my contribution.

Throughout history (at least in the U.S.A.), there has been a phe-

nomenon of the street-corner soapbox. People would “stand up” and

make a presentation of some beliefs or thoughts they have. There are

very few soapboxes in our society today. The '70s and '80s wiped out

public expression. The financial crisis substituted a growing sent-

iment of make your money or shut up. In the late '80s and early '90s,

the Net has emerged as a forum for public expression and discussion.

The Net is partially a development from those who were involved

with the Civil Rights movement, anti-war struggles and free speech

movements in the '60s. The personal computer was also a develop-

ment by some of these same people.

Somehow the social advances rise from the fact that people are

communicating with other people to help them undermine the upper

hand other institutions have. An example is people in California keep-

ing tabs on gas station prices around the state using Netnews and ex-

posing gougers. Another example is people publically reviewing mu-

sic themselves – rather than telling others,” you should really go buy

the latest issue of magazine ‘X’ (Rolling Stone, etc.) as it has a great

review.” This is what I mean by people power – people individually

communicating to present their view on something rather than saying

go get commercial entity ‘Xs’ view from place ‘Y.’ This is people

contributing to other people to make a difference in people’s lives. In

addition, people have debated commercial companies’ opposition to

the selling of used CDs. This conversation is done in a grassroots way

– people are questioning the music industry’s profit making grasp on

the music out there. The industry definitely puts profit ahead of artis-

tic merit, and people are not interested in the industry’s profit making

motive, but rather great music.

The Net is allowing two new avenues not available to the average

person before:

1) A way of having one’s voice heard.

2) A way of organizing and questioning other people’s experiences so

as to have a better grip on a question or problem.

Page 37

Thus in some ways there is a regaining control of one’s life from soci-

ety.

These are all reasons why I feel so passionately about 1) keeping

the Net open to everyone, and having such connections being avail-

able publicly, and 2) keeping the Net un-commercialized and un-pri-

vatized. Commercialism will lead to a growing emphasis on other

uses for the Net. As I said before, it is not important for me to be able

to custom order my next outfit from the “Gap” or any other clothing

store. Companies should develop their own networks if they wish to

provide another avenue to sell their products. In addition, commercial

companies will not have it in their interest to allow people to use the

Net to realize their political self. Again let me reemphasize, when I

say politics, I mean power over one’s own life and surroundings. And

this type of politics I would call democracy.

A version of this article is online at:

http://www.ais.org/~hauben/Michael_Hauben/Collected_Works/Amateur_Computer

ist/What_the_Net_Means_to_Me.txt

[Editor’s Note: The following first appeared online in January 1997.

It appears as a chapter in An Ethical Global Information Society: Cul-

ture and Democracy Revisited, edited Jacques Berleur and Diane

Whitehouse.]

Culture and Communication The

Interplay in the New Public Commons

— Usenet and Community Networks

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

Page 38

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

As we approach the new millennium, social relationships are

changing radically. In 1978, the anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote

of an “approaching world-wide culture” (p. 3). While she wrote of a

global culture made possible by the mass media of her day, her words

actually foresaw fundamental changes made by computer communi-

cation networks that were just beginning. A new culture is being

formed out of a desire for communication (Graham, 1995). This cul-

ture is partially formed and formulated by new technology and by

social desires (Jones, 1989; Woodbury, 1994). People are dissatisfied

with the modern condition, and much of the new communication

technology facilitates new global connections (Uncapher, 1992). This

article will explore the effect of new communication forms on human

culture and of human culture on these new communication forms.

The development of transportation and communication technolo-

gies has linked the world together in ways which make it simple to

travel or communicate with peoples and cultures around the world.

The daily exposure to various cultures makes it impossible for an in-

dividual to envision the world consisting of only his or her culture

(Mead). We really are moving into a new global age which affects

most aspects of human life, for example, economics, language, poli-

tics, and entertainment. The exposure to media and forms of commu-

nication help spread many of these cultural elements. Television and

radio connect people with the rest of the world in a rather impersonal

fashion, whereas computer networks are increasingly bringing people

of various cultures together in a much more intimate and grassroots

manner.

Historically, culture has changed slowly and been passed on from

generation to generation. In the last half of the twentieth century, cul-

ture is a living dynamic part of people’s lives. Mead writes that while

in the past culture was transmitted from the older generation to the

younger, today the younger generation learn from their peers and

Page 39

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

lives (Graham). 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 no longer statically defined. Rather a person grows up

into a culture and then changes it as that life progresses through time.

As people increasingly live a more global lifestyle, whether me-

diated through media or actual experience, culture is changing. This

global experience is facilitated by the ability of the individual to inter-

act with people from other cultures and countries on a personal level.

Images and thoughts available via mass media show these cultures

exist, but when people get a chance to talk and interact, then the dif-

ferences become less of an oddity and more of an opportunity

(Uncapher).

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

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

pre-packaged culture. These critics call for the isolation of communi-

ties from each other so that the 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

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

more and more these various cultures are understanding the power of

the new communication technologies. More and more people are re-

acting against the mass media and corporate dominance and calling

for a chance to express their views and contribute their culture into

the global culture. Margaret Mead tells a story (pp. 5–6) of returning

to a village in New Guinea which originally requested medicine and

trade goods. On this later visit, rather than asking for more contribu-

tions of western civilization, the villagers requested their songs be

recorded via tape recorder in order to contribute their own culture to

the outside world. The presence of radios made the villagers aware of

others’ music, and they wanted a part of their culture broadcast

around the world.

The new media of Usenet, electronic mail and the Internet facili-

tate the growth of global interactive communities. These forums are

Page 40

made available through community networks, universities, the work

place, Internet access providers, and other public access locations

(Hauben & Hauben, 1994). Human culture is ever evolving and de-

veloping, and the new public commons are of a global nature. People

are coming together and living more 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.

Usenet newsgroups are a relatively young medium of human dis-

course and communication.

Studies are just being completed on the

global online culture. A recent thesis by Tim North (1994) asked the

question “is there an online culture and society on Usenet?” His con-

clusion was that there is a definite Usenet culture, but that Usenet can

not be considered a separate society. Rather Usenet is “a super-struc-

tural society that spans many main-stream societies and is dependent

upon them for its continued existence.” (North, chap. 4.2.2, p. 4) Oth-

ers (Avis, 1995; Graham; Jones; etc.) are studying the online culture

and the connection to the growing global culture.

The Usenet technology 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. This design

highlights the importance of the contribution by individuals to the

community. Thus the content of Usenet is produced by elements of

the community for the whole of the community. In forming of this

public space, or commons, people are encouraged to share their

views, thoughts, and questions with others (Hauben & Hauben). 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 communi-

cate with other people (Graham; Woodbury).

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; North; Woodbury). Peo-

ple have both a chance to introduce and share their own culture and a

chance to broaden themselves through exposures to these various cul-

tures. As such, the Usenet culture is an example of a global culture

Page 41

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

incorporates cultural elements from many nations and builds a new

online culture (North).

Community networks provide a way for citizens of a locality to

hook into these global communities for little or no cost (Graham).

Community networks also provide a way for communities to truly

represent themselves to others connected online (Graham; Weston).

Without access made available through community networks, through

publicly available computer terminals or local dial-in phone numbers,

only those who could afford the monthly charges or who have access

through work or school would represent themselves (Avis). 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. There is a strong push in Canada and Ca-

nadian communities to get online. A lot of grass-roots community

network building is taking place. A grass-roots organization,

Telecommunities Canada, stresses the importance of contributing

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

make a contribution to the whole community (Graham, Weston). In a

similar way, Izumi Aizu (1995, p. 6) says that Japan has “an opportu-

nity 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” (ibid.).

There’s something to be said about the attraction of representing

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

munication where an individual can broadcast to the community and

get responses back from other individuals is an empowering experi-

ence. 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 oth-

ers with similar interests (and different interests) around the world.

Grassroots organization is boosted and even the formation of local

community groups is accelerated. Development of the commons to

the exclusion of the big media representations makes this a grassroots

medium, or a new enlarged public commons (Felsenstein, 1993).

Page 42

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

the text is written generally in a non-formal almost off the cuff type of

nature. 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-his-

tory come about. Legends and urban myths circulate and are dissemi-

nated (Jones). Pictures and other non-text items can be sent in Usenet

messages, but these non-text items are primarily transferred and not

modified, thought upon or communally worked on as are the textual

ideas. The common shared online language is English (Azumi). How-

ever, other languages exist in country hierarchies and newsgroups and

in mailing lists. Along with IRC channels, gopher sites and World

Wide Web pages.

Text also means that body language and other non-verbal clues

need to be spelled out. Extra-sensory emoticons

have been invented

(e.g., <grin>, <laugh>, etc.) along with smileys. Smileys are textual

drawings of a person’s face with a smile or grin rotated 90 degrees

counter-clockwise to be typeable and printable on computer text

screens and printouts.

North writes on how there is a distinct Usenet culture, and that

this culture is opening and welcoming of new-comers. He also notes

when there is unfriendliness to “newbies”, but focuses on how the

online culture is documented and available for people to learn from

documents available online.

This definition of culture and Netiquette

(the online word for net etiquette) is available to learn from and open

for discussion. Bruce Jones sums up the net culture, “…the Usenet

network of computers and users constitutes a community and a cul-

ture, bounded by its own set of norms and conventions, marked by its

own linguistic jargon and sense of humor and accumulating its own

folklore.” (p. 2)

Both North and Jones elaborate on what they see to be an egali-

tarian tendency or tendency to contribute to the community’s benefit.

Jones writes, “…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

Page 43

serve the greater common interest of the net. These aspects of volun-

tary association are the elements of culture and community that bind

the people of Usenet together.” (p. 4)

The global culture is formed 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 peo-

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

global culture. This broader global culture also affects 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 op-

pressed 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, p. 5).

Notes

1. Usenet was initiated in 1979.

2. Emoticons are “icons” which are used to include emotion and other meta-messages other-

wise not transmittable in written online communication forms.

3. Examples include :-) traditional smile ;-) wink, etc. See Sanderson, 1992 for more exam-

ples.

4. The online culture is described and written about in FAQ (frequently asked question) files

in various newsgroups, the various news.newuser newsgroups and in other readily available

files (North).

References

Aizu, Izumi. (1995). Cultural Impact on Network Evolution in Japan Emer-

gence of Netizens [Online]. Institute for HyperNetwork Society. Center for Global

Communications (GLOCOM), International University of Japan. Available:

WWW:http://www.glocom.ac.jp/Publications/Aizu/nete&c.html

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

Economy.” Public Culture, 2 1–24.

Page 44

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

Community Networks [Online]. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Calgary,

Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Available:

WWW:http://www.ucalgary.ca/~aavis/

thesis/thesis.html

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

Journal 18–22.

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

WWW:http://homepage.seas.upenn.edu/~mengwong /cyber/ 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 [Online]. Available:

WWW:http://www.freenet.mb.ca/tc/crtc.brief .html

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

Usenet and the Internet. Manuscript submitted for publication. Also available:

(1994):

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

Jones, Bruce. (1991) An Ethnography of the Usenet Computer Network: Pro-

posal for a Ph.D. Dissertation in Communications [Online]. University of Califor-

nia, San Diego. Dept. of Communication. Available ftp: weber.ucsd.edu, Directory:

/Usenet.Hist/, File: diss.proposal

Mead, Margaret (1978). Culture and Commitment: The New Relationships Be-

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

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

investigation of their culture and its effects on new users [Online]. Unpublished mas-

ter’s thesis, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. Available:

WWW:http://foo.curtin.edu.au/Thesis/

Sanderson, David W. (Ed.). (1993). Smileys. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly & As-

sociates.

Uncapher, Willard. (1992). Between Local and Global: Placing the Media-

scape in the Transnational Cultural Flow [Online]. Available:

W WW: ht tp:/ /www. eff.org//pub/Ne t_c u lt ure /Gl o b al _ vil lage/ b etwe en

_global_and_local.paper

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

lution of Community Networking. [Online]. Paper presented at the Free Speech and

Page 45

Privacy In The Information Age Symposium: University of Waterloo, Canada

Available

WWW:http://www.nptn.org/cyber.serv/ tdp/jweston

Woodbury, Gregory G. (1994, Fall). “Net Cultural Assumptions.” [Online].

Amateur Computerist Newsletter, 6-2 Available ftp: wuarchive.wustl.edu Directory:

/doc/misc/acn/ File: acn6–2.txt

This article is online at

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

[Editor’s Note: The following was posted on Usenet in Fall 1963. A

later version appeared as Chapter 16 of Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet.]

The Expanding Commonwealth of

Learning: Printing and the Net

by Michael Hauben

A revolution in human communications is happening. People

around the world are connecting to each other via the new computer

telecommunication networks now known as the Net. The Net, in a

significant way, is a continuation of the important technological de-

velopment of the printing press. The printing press might seem to be

an unlikely choice for such a comparison considering the similarity

that might be seen between the Net and, for example, television, the

telephone, radio, or the news media. That is why it is important to

compare the current networking developments with the history of

printing to understand why the printing press should be seen as the

forefather of the currently developing computer networks.

With the invention of the printing press in the second half of the

fifteenth century, there arose print shops and printing trades. Printing

and the distribution of printed works grew rapidly. In the last quarter

of the twentieth century, a global computer network has emerged

which gives users the ability to post and distribute their views and

Page 46

news broadly and inexpensively. Comparing the emergence of the

printing press to the emergence of the global computer network will

reveal some of the fascinating parallels which demonstrate how the

Net is continuing the important social revolution that the printing

press had begun.

The printing press developed out of a scribal culture surrounding

the hand-copying of texts. 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. There were

very few copies of books as each copy of a book had to be laboriously

hand-copied from a previous copy. Relying on scribal culture for ac-

cess to and distribution of knowledge caused many problems. Texts

were often inaccurate as scribes made mistakes while copying them.

Since a single scribe usually had access to only one copy of the text

he was copying, he had no way to know if he was duplicating mis-

takes other scribes had made before him. The effect of copying mis-

takes, or non-exact copies, led to numerous “versions” of the same

text. Also, scholars who wanted to use various texts had to travel in

order to have a good variety of material to study. The majority of peo-

ple could not afford, nor did they have the time to pursue scholarly

pursuits. In her book, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Eu-

rope, Elizabeth Eisenstein writes: “[one] needs to recall the condi-

tions before texts could be set to type. No manuscript, however useful

as a reference guide, could be preserved for long without undergoing

corruption by copyists, and even this sort of ‘preservation’ rested pre-

cariously on the shifting demands of local elites and a fluctuating in-

cidence of trained scribal labor…wear and tear...moisture, vermin,

theft or threat.”

Under such conditions, scribal efforts did not pre-

serve many valuable texts. Plenty did not survive.

Just as the printing press essentially replaced the hand-copying of

books in the Renaissance, people using computer networks are essen-

tially creating a new method of production and distribution of creative

and intellectual written works today.

Around the same time that computer communications networks

started to emerge from computer communications research communi-

ties in the early 1970s, the personal computer (PC) was developed by

Page 47

students, hobbyists, and proponents of the free-speech movement on

the West Coast of the United States. The personal computer became

widely available at prices many people could afford. The PC made the

power of the multipurpose computer available to a wider cross section

of people who otherwise would not have had access to time on a

larger minicomputer or mainframe computer which were then owned

by universities, businesses and the government. The personal com-

puter movement made computers available to the mass of people in

the United States. As computers are multipurpose, they can be used to

accomplish many things. A PC can be made to duplicate the functions

of a printing press, with the user having little or no professional print-

ing experience. In the past, a skilled printer combined movable type

and engravings (woodcut, or otherwise) to mass produce copies of a

page combining varied images (text, graphics, etc). The personal

computer brings this power from the master printer to the average

individual – both in price and availability. The personal computer

(e.g., Apple II family, Commodore, Atari, TRS-80, etc. leading to the

IBM PC family, the Apple Macintosh family, Amiga, etc.) linked to

an electronic printer (first dot-matrix and daisy-wheel, later laser

printers) and even more recently to scanners which convert images

into usable data – make the production and reproduction of informa-

tion a common task available to all. Even if one does not own a PC,

one can rent time on one in a store. Copy shops (in themselves part of

the continual process that made publishing ubiquitous) have begun to

have PCs available to rent time on. These advances make the act of

publication immensely easier. The personal computer, printers and

scanners, however, do not solve the problem of distribution.

The recent development, standardization and interconnection of

computers via computer communications networks help to solve the

problem of distribution. Examples of on-line utilities include file

transfer (ftp), remote login to other computers (Telnet), remote execu-

tion of programs, electronic mail (e-mail), access to various informa-

tion data bases (gopher, WWW), other information searching utilities

(archie, veronica, Lycos), real-time chat (irc), and a distributed news

service which allows people to share information publicly and be-

come citizen reporters (Netnews). The two utilities most relevant to

Page 48

this revolution in human communication are e-mail and Netnews (or

Usenet). E-mail allows for the private and semi-private distribution of

information and communications through messages to a particular

person or persons, or to a designated set of people via electronic mail-

ing lists. Netnews allows for the public dissemination of information,

opinions and questions in an open forum. When a Netizen makes a

contribution to any of the many defined subject areas (newsgroups),

anyone from around the world who chooses to read that particular

newsgroup will have a chance to read that message. Usenet’s poten-

tial for inexpensive global distribution represents one major advance

of Usenet beyond the printing press.

The printing press developed sometime in the 1460s and spread

quickly throughout Europe. The broad distribution of presses ended

the age of the scribal culture and ushered in the age of printing. “Un-

known anywhere in Europe before the mid-fifteenth century,”

Eisenstein writes, “printer’s workshops would be found in every im-

portant municipal center by 1500.”

Eisenstein points out that the printing press dramatically in-

creased the total number of books, while at the same time decreasing

the number of hours of labor necessary to create books. She argues

that this made the transition from hand-copied manuscripts to ma-

chine-produced books one of a revolutionary nature, and not evolu-

tionary as claimed in much of the literature about this transformation.

Understanding how the printing press unleashed a communications

revolution provides a basis to assess if the establishment of world-

wide computer communication networking is the next communication

revolution.

New communication technologies facilitate new ways of organiz-

ing information and of thinking. The invention of the printing press

changed the way texts were handled. From its outset, the men who

controlled the presses, the printers, experimented with ways to use the

printing press to change texts. Textual techniques such as “graduated

types, running heads…footnotes…table of contents…superior figures,

cross references…”

are examples of the ways in which the press

broke through some boundaries which had previously limited the pro-

duction of books in scribal culture.

Page 49

Moreover, the new technologies changed the way books were

written. The establishment of printing shops in the major European

cities formed a common meeting place for scholars and authors from

across the continent. The great number of printing presses and print-

ing shops enabled more people to write books and produce works that

would be duplicated by the presses. When these new authors traveled

they would gather in printing shops to meet other writers and schol-

ars. Thus the printing press facilitated the meeting of minds pursuing

intellectual pursuits. The interconnection of people led to the quicken-

ing of the development of ideas and knowledge. These progenitors of

the printing trade were in the forefront of the sweeping intellectual

changes which the presses made possible.

Similar connections

among people are taking place on the Net today at a much faster rate.

And, just as the printers were in the forefront of the printing revolu-

tion, so today the developers of computer communications software

and hardware and netusers are the first to experience the increased

connectivity with other people around the world afforded by the com-

puter networks.

As printing spread, publishers realized the value of utilizing input

from readers to improve their product. Since the press could turn out

multiple copies of a first edition quickly, many people would see the

first edition and could send by letter their comments, corrections and

criticisms. Publishers and authors could then use this feedback to

write and print second, and third editions, and so on. Mistakes would

be caught by careful readers, and printers thus “were also able to im-

prove on themselves.” Eisenstein explains that copied mistakes and

mistakes in copying common with scribal copies now could be caught

by the increasing number of readers. She writes, “the immemorial

drift of scribal culture had been not merely arrested but actually re-

versed.”

The Net likewise provides a ready mechanism for the interaction

between authors and readers. On the Net, people often keep track of

knowledge, such as lists of a musician’s records (discographies), or

FAQ files of answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Authors of

these works often act as both editor and compiler. People send further

information, which the keeper of the file often adds. This makes for a

Page 50

communal base of information which is often available to anyone

minimally connected to the Net by at least electronic mail. The con-

stant updating of information on the Net continues the tradition of

revising intellectual work introduced by the printing press.

Eisenstein’s description of how communal information was gath-

ered is similar to how such procedures work on the Net. She writes:

“But others created a vast network of correspondents and solicited

criticism of each edition, sometimes publicly promising to mention

the names of readers who sent in new information or who spotted the

errors which would be weeded out.”

People who ask questions on the

discussion sections of the Net (either Netnews or Mailing lists) often

summarize the answers they receive and post this summary back to

the Net. When doing this, many compilers include acknowledgments

to the people who supplied the information. Also when people send in

corrections to an FAQ, the keeper of the FAQ often makes a list at the

end thanking these individuals.

Eisenstein details these networks of correspondence in an exam-

ple of a particular text titled the “Theatrum.”

By the simple expedient of being honest with his readers and in-

viting criticism and suggestions, Ortelius made his Theatrum a sort of

cooperative enterprise on an international basis. He received helpful

suggestions from far and wide, and cartographers stumbled over

themselves to send him their latest maps of regions not covered in the

Theatrum.

On Usenet, too, making a contribution is an integral part of

Netizen behavior. Netizens make a point of being helpful to others.

Often the Net has made a positive difference in their lives and they

return the favor by making their own contribution, perhaps by an-

swering the questions of others or developing an archive. These indi-

vidual and increasingly group contributions are what have built the

Net from a connection of computers and computing resources into a

vast resource of people and knowledge. People who use the Net have

access to Net resources and can contribute to them. Thus the culture

of the Net has been shaped by people actively contributing to the

growth and development of the Net. The tale of the Theatrum shows

Page 51

there is a historical precedent in human nature for this “stumbling

over oneself” in order to try and be helpful.

The flow of information to the publishers of the Theatrum meant

that at least 28 editions were published by the time of the publisher

Ortelius’ death in 1598.

In a similar way, Usenet is by its very na-

ture constantly evolving. The basic element of Usenet is the post

whose life is temporary. The Usenet software is designed to “expire”

or delete messages after a certain time period. Without constant new

contributions from people to Netnews, there would be no messages to

read or discussions to take part in. So there is a constant evolution of

Usenet. But, also the material in the more permanent information de-

positories is often updated so they evolve as well.

During the early days of the printing press, publishers’ requests

for information led to people starting their own research and work.

“Thus a knowledge explosion was set off,” Eisenstein exclaims.

The

Net follows in the tradition of the press, by having one set of people

asking questions, leading to another set of people conducting re-

search. In this sense the Net can serve the role as a thinktank for the

ordinary person. So the advanced possibilities the printing press made

possible in the sixteenth century is being replicated many times more

by the Net today. It is important to recognize and value Netnews for

its contribution to human society and the advancement of knowledge.

Eisenstein observed that the art of printing opened people’s eyes

to their previous ignorance. She quotes the German historian, Johann

Sleidan, in his “Address to the Estates of the Empire” of 1542, de-

scribing the impact printing had in Germany, “[The] art of printing

[has] opened German eyes even as it is now bringing enlightenment

to other countries. Each man became eager for knowledge, not with-

out feeling a sense of amazement at his former blindness.”

This sen-

timent has been echoed by many Netizens on Usenet and in other

on-line conversations. People have been amazed at what the Net made

possible and how it was changing their lives.

Eisenstein comments in her book on the role of feedback to early

authors and print publishers. She wrote that feedback helped to “de-

fine the difference between data collection before and after the com-

munications shift. After printing, large-scale data collection did be-

Page 52

come subject to new forms of feedback which had not been possible

in the age of the scribes.”

Computer networks likewise make possi-

ble very easy and natural feedback. Once one reads a message (either

public or private), a simple keystroke allows the composition of an

answer or response, and another keystroke is often all it takes to send

the response. This takes less effort than writing to a publishing house

or calling a television station. Since responding to other messages

becomes such a natural part of the on-line process, the procedure be-

comes almost automatic.

Many people who use Usenet find television dull rather than

thought provoking. Doug Thompson, a user of Usenet, wrote “TV is

so bloody tame and boring in comparison to Usenet.” Others, too,

have described how they have completely stopped watching TV and

reading the newspaper because of Usenet.

Eisenstein refers to the process of constant improvement which

printing made possible, as observed by the Scottish philosopher David

Hume, “The Power which Printing gives us of continually improving

and correcting our Works in successive Editions appears to me the

chief advantage of that art.”

Eisenstein expands on this idea adding,

“The future seem[ed] to hold more promise of enlightenment than the

past.”

This promise of a better future is also seen by those on the Net.

People on-line are being enlightened by the interconnection of peo-

ples around the world. The Net helps people to make social connec-

tions which were never before possible, or which were relatively hard

to achieve. Geography and time no longer are boundaries. Social limi-

tations and conventions no longer prevent potential friendships or

partnerships. In this manner Netizens are meeting other Netizens from

far-away and close by that they might never have met without the

Net.

Eisenstein reports that the printing press too helped people inter-

act with other people who they would not have met before its inven-

tion. “Vicarious participation in more distant events was enhanced,”

she writes, “and even while local ties were loosened, links to larger

collective units were being forged.”

Improvement of information

about other parts of the world “by the output of more uniform maps

Page 53

containing more uniform boundaries and place names” helped people

to know more of the facts of the world. “Similar developments af-

fected local customs, laws, languages, and costumes.”

The Net similarly provides people with a broader view of the

world by introducing them to other people’s ideas and opinions. The

Net makes it possible to access more and differing viewpoints than

were normally available in a person’s daily life.

Much as printer’s houses in the sixteenth century served as places

to stop when traveling, computers and phone lines connect people

around the world as in our times. Eisenstein describes how such print

shops, “point to the formation of polygot households in scattered ur-

ban centers upon the continent.” She observes that during the six-

teenth century, “such printing shops represented miniature ‘interna-

tional houses.’ They provided wandering scholars with a meeting

place, message center, sanctuary, and cultural center all in one. The

new industry encouraged not only the formation of syndicates and

far-flung trade networks, similar to those extended by merchants en-

gaged in the cloth trade, or in other large-scale enterprises during

early modern times. It also encouraged the formation of an ethos

which was specifically associated with the Commonwealth of Learn-

ing – ecumenical and tolerant without being secular, genuinely pious

yet opposed to fanaticism, often combining outward conformity to

diverse established churches with inner fidelity to heterodox

creeds.”

The social networks made possible by Usenet and the emergence

of the printing press are very similar. Even though Netnews has no

official guiding body, Netizens have developed social rules which

control and mediate the medium. As the forum is democratic, there

will be people who have nothing intelligent to add, or only want to be

disruptive or offensive. Others will often debate these troublemakers

and through argumentation and the posting of opposite opinions help

others to make up their own minds as to the value of the original post-

ings.

The printing press facilitated new cross-cultural networks which

encouraged “forms of combinatory activity which were social as well

as intellectual.”

Differing ideas were more easily set against one

Page 54

another. The theories of Arabists were set against the theories of

Galenists and those of Aristoteleans against Ptolemaists. Eisenstein

writes: “Not only was confidence in old theories weakened, but an

enriched reading matter also encouraged the development of new in-

tellectual combinations and permutations. Combinatory intellectual

activity… nspires many creative acts.”

The Net helps people communicate with each other who might

not have communicated before. Strangers meet each other because of

interest in each other’s ideas and this leads to new intellectual collab-

orations and combinations.

The connection of differing ideas and people meant the first cen-

tury of printing is recognized for “intellectual ferment” and by what

Eisenstein writes was a “’somewhat wide-angled, unfocused scholar-

ship.’”

The new availability of different theories or opinions about the

same topics led Eisenstein to conclude that the contribution a scientist

like Copernicus was able to make was not that he produced a new

theory, but rather he was “confronting the next generation with a

problem to be solved rather than a solution to be learned.”

Lastly on

this subject, Eisenstein equates the quickening of science toward a

“cognitive breakthrough of an unprecedented kind.”

The Net is con-

tinuing and accelerating that advance.

The lure of being able to produce numerous copies of books

cheaply, was that an author’s words could be spread around the

world. This proved to be powerful. Eisenstein quotes Maurice Gravier

on the power the press presented to the Protestant reformers: “The

theses…were said to be known throughout Germany in a fortnight

and throughout Europe in a month…. Printing was recognized as a

new power and publicity came into its own. In doing for Luther what

copyists had done for Wycliffe, the printing press transformed the

field of communications and fathered an international revolt. It was a

revolution. The advent of printing was an important precondition for

the Protestant Reformation taken as a whole; for without it one could

not implement ‘a priesthood of all believers.’ At the same time, how-

ever, the new medium also acted as a precipitant. It provided the

‘stroke of magic’ by which an obscure theologian in Wittenberg man-

Page 55

aged to shake Saint Peter’s throne.”

This idea is repeated by the

English writer Daniel Defoe (1660-1732), whom Eisenstein quotes,

when he wrote “The preaching of sermons is speaking to a few of

mankind, printing books is talking to the whole world.”

The Net has

opened up a channel for “talking to the whole world” to an even

wider set of people than did printed books.

A social role which grew to be crucial in this new world of print-

ing was that of the master printer. His was the business of running a

print shop, and finding and promoting potential authors. In the course

of this work his workshop became a center of intellectual excitement.

Eisenstein explains that the master printer’s “workshop became a ver-

itable cultural center attracting local literati and celebrated foreigners,

providing both a meeting place and message center for an expanding

Commonwealth of Learning.”

This development of an intellectual family started to bring the

world closer together. “In the late sixteenth century,” Eisenstein

maintains, “for the first time in the history of any civilization, the

concept of a Concordia Mundi was being developed on a truly global

scale and the ‘family of man’ was being extended to encompass all

the peoples of the world.”

The hospitality which the printers pro-

vided to travelers and intellectuals helped to make this happen.

The Net continues in this tradition of uniting the world. It is easy

to hold conversations and develop relationships with others from

around the world. The Net speeds this transaction as the conversation

is brought from the print shop into a Netizen’s home. A major ad-

vancement which the personal computer and the Net make possible is

accessibility of publishing. Anyone who owns a personal computer

can develop and print their own books, pamphlets, signs, and so forth.

The Net comes in to help with distribution.

Eisenstein talks about one result that standardization of printing

brought about. “One might consider,” she writes, “the emergence of a

new sense of individualism as a by-product of the new forms of stan-

dardization. The more standardized the type, indeed, the more com-

pelling the sense of an idiosyncratic personal self.”

Similarly, be-

cause Usenet and mailing lists only present people via their ideas and

writing styles, people have to write the way they want themselves to

Page 56

be viewed. Thus people develop their own styles. Reading posts can

therefore at times be an enjoyable experience. A famous cartoon

printed in the New Yorker magazine in 1993 show a dog at a com-

puter. He says to another dog, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re

a dog.” In fact, no one knows if you are white or black, yellow or pur-

ple, ugly or beautiful, short or tall. Discrimination based on appear-

ance and visual impressions loses its basis. People can still be ver-

bally harassed if they act stupid, or prove unhelpful to the Net. One

problem, however, which has not yet been solved is harassment based

on user name. For example, women with user names that are clearly

identifiable as a woman’s still receive some attention and sometimes

harassment.

The printing revolution affected both tool making and symbol

manipulation, which led to new ways of thinking. As Eisenstein

notes, “The decisions made by early printers, however, directly af-

fected both tool making and symbol making. Their products reshaped

powers to manipulate objects, to perceive and think about varied phe-

nomena.” Computers, too, are in general directly affecting tool pro-

duction and symbol manipulation. The tools on the Net are new tools

– and thus lead to radical ways of thinking and dealing with informa-

tion. People’s thought processes can expand and develop in original

ways. New ways of manipulating information, such as Unix tools,

hypertext media and search engines for searching distributed data

sources foster new means of intellectual activity.

Printing made consultation of various texts much easier – no lon-

ger did someone have to be able to be a “Wandering Scholar” to gain

access to various information. With the development of the Net, in-

formation access becomes much more varied and widespread. The

local public library, along with libraries around the world, other data

banks and knowledgeable people are becoming accessible via the Net,

for some netusers even from their homes. Only a few libraries cur-

rently offer electronic access to any of the actual texts of their hold-

ings, but that is rapidly changing. Undertakings such as Project

Gutenberg and various digital library initiatives are trying to make

library resources available from any computer hooked into the Net.

Page 57

Both the printing revolution and the Net revolution have been a

catalyst for increased intellectual activity. Such activity tends to pro-

vide pressure for more democracy. When people have the chance and

the means to start thinking, ideas of self-rule appear. Eisenstein de-

scribes how, “Puritan tradesman who had learned to talk to God in the

presence of their apprentices, wives, and children were already on

their way to self-government.”

Many social and political questions

are being discussed on Usenet newsgroups especially questions like

censorship and Net access which affect the Net directly. Based on

these discussions, Netizens are exerting pressure on their govern-

ments to form new democratic structures like the NTIA on-line con-

ference.

Mass production via printing makes it possible to have sufficient

books so that everyone who wants a copy can borrow one from a li-

brary or buy one. Eisenstein presents Thomas Jefferson’s view of this

“democratizing aspect of the preservative powers of print which se-

cured precious documents not by putting them under lock and key but

by removing them from chests and duplicating them for all to see.”

According to Eisenstein, “The notion that valuable data could be pre-

served best by being made public, rather than being kept secret, ran

counter to tradition, led to clashes with new censors, and was central

both to early modern science and to Enlightenment thought.”

The

democratizing power and effect of the printing revolution, Eisenstein

contends, is overlooked in most historical writings.

With the advent of printing, the Law was affected by the onset of

the ability to duplicate numerous copies of a single document

cheaply. People saw that this capability would be helpful in making

the Law available for the common person to read and understand, and

therefore the common person would be able to watch carefully if it

was administered fairly. John Liburne, a person who lived in England

during the Stuart Monarchy felt that legal documents should be freed

from the confines of Latin and old French so that “every Freeman

may read it as well as the lawyers.” People like him also held that

knowledge which had been esoteric, “rare, and difficult,” should be

transformed into a form where it could be useful to all. Eisenstein also

quotes Florio, who made translations and dictionaries in English. He

Page 58

symbolized the democratic possibilities of the printing press saying,

“Learning cannot be too common and the commoner the better….

Why but the vulgar should not know all.”

Legal decisions are now being made available on the Net so that

anyone with a computer and modem and net connection will have

access to them. Also there are legal newsgroups on Usenet like

misc.legal where various laws are examined and discussed. This pro-

vides a helpful perspective for understanding the value of the Net.

The culture that is currently characteristic of the Net supports the

principle that much of it should be available openly for the rest of the

world to use. There is a collective communal democratic aspect of it,

too. The simple fact of the matter is that every single person who is

connected to the Net and has Usenet access can make a post to

Netnews and every net user can send electronic mail to any other per-

son who is on-line.

The scribal tradition restricted who made the choice of what was

copied to the Church or those who had substantial property. “As long

as texts could be duplicated only by hand, perpetuation of the classi-

cal heritage rested precariously on the shifting requirements of local

elites.”

With the spread of the printing press, the monopoly of these

elites was broken. Netnews is a similar advance over today’s mass

media. In the ‘traditional’ forms of mass media, the content is decided

by the national ‘elites’. However, on Netnews there is no control over

the whole and the content is contributed to by every single person

who is active on the Net.

Eisenstein compares this control of elites over what manuscripts

were copied to the role of the printer and publisher who have it in

their interest to unleash all sorts of books. Eisenstein writes: “The

politics of censorship made [the printers] the natural opponents not

only of church officials but also of lay bureaucrats, regulations and

red tape. As independent agents, they supplied organs of publicity and

covert support to a ‘third force’ that was not affiliated with any one

church or one state. This third force was, however, obviously affili-

ated with the interests of early modern capitalists.”

These publishers were “the natural enemy of narrow minds,” and

“encouraged the adoption of a new ethos which was cosmopolitan,

Page 59

ecumenical, and tolerant without being secular, incredulous or neces-

sarily Protestant….”

The Net has offered a parallel encouragement

by providing a new kind of public space separate from either com-

mercial purposes or religious or political limitations or ideas.

The printing press provided a new way for people to challenge

the status quo. Eisenstein asks the question, “Did printing at first

serve prelates and patricians as a ‘divine art,’ or should one think of it

rather as the ‘poor man’s friend’?”

She answers it might have served

in both roles, but that literacy seemed more “compatible” with the life

of a peasant than that of a noble or lord.

We can pose the same question about the Net. Should one think

about the Net as a ‘poor man’s friend’? If we think of the Net as an

alternative to the current media of Television, Radio, and Newspapers

and Magazines – the answer is yes. People who have a lot of money

can afford to own a segment of the mass media described above, and

control the content of that media, whereas the Net is controlled by the

mass of people connected to it, so it is ‘the poor man’s’ version of the

mass media.

The printing revolution fostered the spread of education. Books

were used by apprentices and students to learn more than was offered

by their teachers. The Net similarly makes multiple resources avail-

able for people interested in learning. People can access more infor-

mation resources and, even more important, other people. This in-

creased accessibility of people to each other means we can all gain

and learn from the interests and knowledge of others, more so than

from any single teacher.

The impact of the new print technology on science was enor-

mous. Collaboration and cooperation over longer distances were

made possible by the power of print. In particular, Eisenstein refers to

the impact on the science of Astronomy. The change she sees hap-

pened within Copernicus’s lifetime. “Copernicus was not supplied, as

Tycho’s successors would be, with precisely recorded fresh data,” she

notes. “But he was supplied, as Regiomontaus’s successor and Aldus

Manutius’s contemporary, with guidance to technical literature care-

fully culled from the best Renaissance Greek manuscript collections,

and for the first time, made available outside library walls.”

Page 60

The progress of science is much faster because of the speed of

communication afforded by the Net. Articles to be published in scien-

tific journals are often available as electronic preprints – and thus

have wider distribution earlier than was the norm before the Net. An

outstanding example of this increased speed of scientific activity oc-

curred when researchers all over the world tried to reproduce the re-

sult of the two University of Utah researchers who had announced

that they had achieved cold fusion. A newsgroup sci.physics.fusion

was very quickly set up and researchers’ questions and results and

problems were posted regularly and feverishly. As a result, what

might have taken years to retest and figure out was sorted out in a

three or four month period. The physicists found the rapid exchange

of data and results invigorating and encouraging and felt they were

more productive and sharper in their work because of the Net. Also,

they argued that the use of the Net saved much valuable research time

which might have been wasted if the original claims had not been

shown to have been faulty in such a short amount of time and to such

a wide body of scientists.

The invention of the printing press, which led to many develop-

ments not possible before the power of printing, “laid the basis for

modern science…and remains indispensable for humanistic scholar-

ship.” Eisenstein poignantly claims that printing is responsible for

“our museum without walls.”

As a storehouse of information and

living information contained in other people, the Net could also be

seen as a living “museum without walls.” In her conclusion Eisenstein

states that “Cumulative processes were set in motion in the

mid-fifteenth century, and they have not ceased to gather momentum

in the age of the computer printout and the television guide.”

We,

too, are in an age of amazing changes in communications technolo-

gies, 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.

Page 61

Notes

1. Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Cam-

bridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, p. 78.

2. Ibid., p. 12.

3. Ibid., p. 13.

4. Ibid., p. 22.

5. Ibid., p. 45.

6. Ibid., p. 73.

7. Ibid., p. 74.

8. Ibid.

9. See “The Net and the Netizens”, Chapter 1 in Netizens: On the History and Im-

pact of Usenet and the Internet.

10. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, p. 74.

11. Ibid., p. 75.

12. Ibid., p. 150.

13. Ibid., p. 76.

14. Ibid., p. 77.

15. Ibid., p. 78.

16. Ibid., p. 95.

17. Ibid., p. 56.

18. Ibid., p. 101.

19. Ibid., p. 45.

20. Ibid., p. 44.

21. Ibid., p. 45.

22. Ibid., p. 223.

23. Ibid., p. 225.

24. Ibid., p. 154.

25. Ibid., p. 157.

26. Ibid., p. 25.

27. Ibid., p. 182.

28. Ibid., p. 56.

29. Ibid., p. 64.

30. Ibid., p. 167.

31. See “The Net and the Future of Politics,” Chapter 13 in Netizens: On the History

and Impact of Usenet and the Internet.

32. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, p. 81.

33. Ibid., Chapter 1, “An Unacknowledged Revolution.”

34. Ibid., p. 165.

35. See “The Computer as Democratizer,” Chapter 18 in Netizens: On the History

and Impact of Usenet and the Internet.

36. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, p. 125.

37. Ibid., p. 178.

38. Ibid., pp. 177, 178.

Page 62

39. Ibid., p. 31.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid., p. 209.

42. Ibid., p. 275.

43. Ibid., p. 276.

This article can be seen online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x16

[Editor’s Note: The following was written in 1995. A major compo-

nent of the internet in the 1980s and early 1990s was the Usenet sys-

tem of forums and discussion groups. A later version of this appeared

as Chapter 13 of the book Netizens: On the History and Impact of

Usenet and the Internet co-authored by Michael Hauben and Ronda

Hauben.]

The Effect of the Net on the

Professional News Media:

The USENET Collective —

The Man-Computer News Symbiosis

by Michael Hauben

“The archdeacon contemplated the gigantic cathedral for a time

in silence, then he sighed and stretched out his right hand to-

wards the printed book lying open on his table and his left hand

toward Notre Dame, and he looked sadly from the book to the

church: ‘Alas,’ he said, ‘this will kill that.’”

Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris

I. Media Criticism

Will this kill that? Will the new online forms of discourse de-

throne the professional news media?

Page 63

The French writer Victor Hugo observed that the printed book

rose to replace the cathedral and the church as the conveyor of impor-

tant ideas in the 15

century. Will Usenet and other young online dis-

cussion forums develop to replace the current news media? Various

people throughout society are currently discussing this question.

The role of modern journalism is being reconsidered in a variety

of ways. There are journalists and media critics, like the late Professor

Christopher Lasch, who have challenged the fundamental premises of

professional journalism. There are other journalists like Wall Street

Journal reporter Jared Sandberg, who cover an online beat, and are

learning quickly about the growing online public forums. These two

approaches are beginning to converge to make it possible to under-

stand the changes in the role of the media in our society brought about

by the development of the Internet and Usenet.

Media critics like Christopher Lasch have established a theoreti-

cal foundation that makes it possible to critique the news media and

challenge the current practice of these media. In “Journalism, Public-

ity, and the Lost Art of Argument,” Lasch argued: “What democracy

requires is public debate, and not information. Of course, it needs in-

formation, too, but the kind of information it needs can be generated

only by vigorous popular debate.”

Applying his critique to the press, Lasch wrote: “From these con-

siderations it follows the job of the press is to encourage debate, not

to supply the public with information. But as things now stand the

press generates information in abundance, and nobody pays any atten-

tion.”

Lasch explained that more and more people are getting less and

less interested in the press because, “Much of the press…now delivers

an abundance of useless, indigestible information that nobody wants,

most of which ends up as unread waste.”

Reporters like Jared Sandberg of the Wall Street Journal, on the

other hand, recognize that more and more of the information that the

public is interested in, is starting to come from people other than pro-

fessional journalists. In an article about the April 1995 Oklahoma

Federal Building explosion, Sandberg writes: “In times of crisis, the

Internet has become the medium of choice for users to learn more

Page 64

about breaking news, often faster than many news organizations can

deliver it.”

People curious and concerned about relatives and others present

on the scene turned to the Net to find out timely information about

survivors and to discuss the questions raised by the event. Soon after

the explosion, it was reported and discussed live on Internet Relay

Chat, in newsgroups on Usenet such as alt.current-events.amfb-explo-

sion and on various Web sites. Sandberg noted that many logged onto

the Internet to get news from first-hand observers rather than turning

on the TV to CNN or comparable news sources.

Along with the broader strata of the population that has begun to

report and discuss the news via the Internet and Usenet, a definition

of who is a media critic is developing. Journalists and media critics

like Martha Fitzsimon and Lawrence T. McGill present such a

broader definition of media critics when they write, “Everyone who

watches television, listens to a radio or reads…passes judgment on

what they see, hear or read.”

Acknowledging the public’s discontent

with the traditional forms of the media, they note that, “the evalua-

tions of the media put forward by the public are grim and getting

worse.”

Other journalists have written about public criticism of the news

media. In his article, “Encounters Online”, Thomas Valovic recog-

nizes some of the advantages inherent in the new online form of criti-

cism. Unlike old criticism, the new type “fosters dialogue between

reporters and readers.”

He observes how this dialogue “can subject

reporters to interrogations by experts that undermine journalists’

claim to speak with authority.”

Changes are taking place in the field of journalism, and these

changes are apparent to some, but not all journalists and media critics.

Tom Goldstein, Dean of the University of California at Berkeley

Journalism School, observes that change is occurring, but the results

are not fully understood.

II. Examining the role of Internet/Usenet and the press

There are discussions online about the role of the press and the

role of online discussion forums. The debate is active. There are those

Page 65

who believe the printed press is here to stay, while others contend that

interactive discussion forums are likely to replace the authority of the

print news media. Those who argue for the dominance of the online

media present impassioned arguments. Their comments are much

more persuasive than those who defend the traditional role of the print

media as something that is handy to read over breakfast or on the

train. In a newsgroup thread discussing the future of print journalism,

Gloria Stern stated: “My experience is that I have garnered more in-

formation from the Internet than I ever could from any newspaper.

Topical or not, it has given me community that I never had before. I

touch base with more informed kindred souls than any tonnage of pa-

per could ever bring me.”

Regularly, people are commenting on how they have stopped

reading newspapers. Even those who continue to read printed newspa-

pers note that Usenet has become one of the important sources for

their news. For example, a user wrote: “I do get the NY Times every

day, and the Post and the Washington Times and the Wall Street Jour-

nal (along with about 100 other hard-copy publications), and I still

find Usenet a valuable source of in-depth news reporting.”

More and more people on Usenet have announced their discon-

tent with the traditional one-way media, often leading to their refusal

to seriously read newspapers again. In a discussion about a Time mag-

azine article about the Internet and Usenet, Elizabeth Fischer wrote:

“The point of the whole exercise is that for us, most of us, paper me-

dia is a dead issue (so to speak).”

In the same thread, Jim Zoes stated the challenge posed by the

online media for reporters: “This writer believes that you (the tradi-

tional press) face the same challenge that the monks in the monastery

faced when Gutenberg started printing Bibles.”

Describing why the new media represent such a formidable foe,

Zoes continued: “Your top-down model of journalism allows tradi-

tional media to control the debate, and even if you provide opportu-

nity for opposing views, the editor always had the last word.… In the

new paradigm, not only do you not necessarily have the last word,

you no longer even control the flow of the debate.”

Page 66

He concludes with his understanding of the value of Usenet to

society: “The growth and acceptance of e-mail, coupled with discus-

sion groups (Usenet) and mail lists provide for a ‘market place of

ideas’ hitherto not possible since perhaps the days of the classic Athe-

nians.”

Others present their views on a more personal level. One poster

writes: “I will not purchase another issue of Newsweek. I won’t even

glance through their magazine if it’s lying around now given what a

shoddy job they did on that article.”

Another explains: “My husband brought [the article] home… for

me to read and [I] said, ‘Where is that damn follow up key? ARGH!’

I’ve pretty much quit reading mainstream media except when some-

one puts something in front of me or I’m riding the bus to work….”

These responses are just some of the recent examples of people

voicing their discontent with the professional news media. The online

forum provides a public way of sharing this discontent with others. It

is in sharing ideas and understandings with others with similar views

that grassroots efforts begin to attempt to change society.

While some Net users have stopped reading the professional

news media, others are interested in influencing the media to more

accurately portray the Net. Many are critical of the news media’s re-

porting of the Internet, and other events. Users of the Internet are in-

terested in protecting the Internet. They do this by watch-dogging pol-

iticians and journalists. Concern with the coverage of the Internet in

the press comes from first-hand experience with the Internet. One

Net-user expressing such dissatisfaction writes: “The Net is a special

problem for reporters, because bad reporting in other areas is pro-

tected by distance. If someone reports to the Times from Croatia,

you're not going to have a better source unless you’ve been there

(imagine how many people in that part of the world could correct the

reports we read). All points of Usenet are equidistant from the user

and the reporter – we can check their accuracy at every move. And

what do we notice? Not the parts that the reporter gets right, just the

errors. And Usenet is such a complete culture that no reporter, absent

some form of formal training or total immersion in the Net, is going

to get it all right.”

Page 67

Another online critic writes: “It’s scary when you actually are

familiar with what a journalist is writing about. Kinda punches a

whole bunch of holes in the ‘facts’. Unfortunately it’s been going on

for a looong time…we, the general viewing public, just aren’t up to

speed on the majority of issues. That whole ‘faith in media’ thing.

Yick. I can’t even trust the damn AP wire anymore after reading an

enormous amount of total crap on it during the first few hours of the

Oklahoma bombing.”

In Usenet’s formation of a community, that community has de-

veloped the self-awareness to respond to and reject an outside de-

scription of the Net. If the Net was just the telephone lines and com-

puter infrastructure making up a machine, that very machine could

not object and scold journalists for describing it as a spreader of por-

nography or a bomb-production press. Wesley Howard believes that

the critical online commentary is having a healthy effect on the press:

“The coverage has become more accurate and less sloppy in its cover-

age of the Net because it (the Net) has become more defined itself

from a cultural point of view. Partly because of growth and partly be-

cause of what the media was saying fed debates and caused a firmer

definition within itself. This does not mean the print media was in any

way responsible for the Net’s self definition, but was one influence of

many.”

Another person, writing from Japan, believed that journalists

should be more responsible, urging that “all journalists should be

forced to have an e-mail address.” He explained: “Journalists usually

have a much bigger audience than their critics. I often feel a sense of

helplessness in trying to counter the damage they cause when they

abuse their privilege. Often it is impossible even to get the attention

of the persons responsible for the lies and distortions.”

Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists provide a media where peo-

ple are in control. People who are online understand the value of this

control and are trying to articulate their understandings. Some of this

discussion is being carried on on Usenet. Having the ability to control

the mass media also encourages people to try to affect other media.

The proposal to require print journalists to acquire and publicize an

Page 68

e-mail address is an example of how online users are trying to apply

the lessons learned from the online media to change the print media.

III. People as critics: the role the Net is playing and will

play in the future

People online are excited, and this is not an exaggeration. The

various discussion forums connected to the global computer commu-

nications network (or the Net) are the prototype for a new public form

of communication. This new form of human communication will ei-

ther supplement the current forms of news or replace them. One per-

son on a newsgroup succinctly stated: “The real news is right here.

And it can’t get any newer because I watch it as it happens.”

The very concept of news is being reinvented as people come to

realize that they can provide the news about the environment they live

in; that people can contribute their real-life conditions and this infor-

mation proves worthwhile for others. The post continued: “As other

segments of society come online, we will have less and less need for

some commercially driven entity that gathers the news for me, filters

it, and then delivers it to me, hoping fervently that I’ll find enough of

interest to keep paying for it.”

Such sentiment represents a fundamental challenge to the profes-

sional creation and dissemination of news. The online discussion fo-

rums allow open and free discourse. Individuals outside of the tradi-

tional power structures are finding a forum in which to contribute,

where those contributions are welcomed. Describing the importance

of the open forum available on the Net, Dolores Dege wrote: “The

most important and eventually most powerful aspect of the Net will

be the effect(s) of having access to alternative viewpoints to the pub-

lished and usually (although not always either intentionally or con-

sciously) biased local news media. This access to differing ‘truths’ is

similar to the communication revolution which occurred when the

first printing presses made knowledge available to the common popu-

lace, instead of held in the tight fists of the clergy and ruling

classes.”

Page 69

This change in who makes the news is also apparent to Keith

Cowing: “How one becomes a ‘provider’ and ‘receiver’ of informa-

tion is being totally revamped. The status quo hasn’t quite noticed S

yet S this is what is so interesting.”

While this openness also encourages different conspiracy theo-

rists and crackpots to write messages, their contributions are scruti-

nized as much as any other posting. This uncensored environment

leads to a sorting out of mis-truths from thoughtful convictions. Many

people online keep their wits about them and seek to refute half-truths

and lies. A post from Australia notes that it is common to post refuta-

tions of inaccurate posts: “One of the good things about Usenet is the

propensity of people to post refutations of false information that oth-

ers have posted.”

As the online media are in the control of many people, no one

person can come online and drastically alter the flow or quality of

discussion. The multiplicity of ideas and opinions make Usenet and

mailing lists the opposite of a free-for-all.

IV. Qualities of this new medium

A common assumption of the ethic of individualism is that the

individual is in control and is the prime mover of society. Others be-

lieve that it is not the individual who is in control, but that society is

being controlled by people organized around the various large corpo-

rations that own so much of our society – whether those corporations

are the media, manufacturers, etc. The global computer communica-

tions networks currently allow uncensored expression from the indi-

vidual at a bottom rung of society. The grassroots connection of peo-

ple around the world and in local communities based on common in-

terests is an important step in bringing people more control over their

lives. Lisa Pease wrote in alt.journalism: “The net… requires no per-

missions, no groveling to authority, no editors to deal with – no one

basically to say ‘no don’t say that.’ As a result, far more has been said

here publicly than has probably been said in a hundred years about

issues that really matter – political prisoners, democratic uprisings,

exposure of disinformation – this is what makes the net more valuable

than any other news source.”

Page 70

Similar views are expressed by others about the power of the

Internet to work in favor of people rather than commercial conglom-

erates: “The Internet is our last hope for a medium that will enable

individuals to combat the overpowering influence of the commercial

media to shape public opinion, voter attitudes, select candidates, in-

fluence legislation, etc….”

People are beginning to be empowered by the open communica-

tions the online media provide. This empowerment is beginning to

lead toward more active involvement by people in the societal issues

they care about.

V. The Pentium story

In discussions about the future of the online media, people have

observed how Usenet makes it possible to challenge the privileges

inherent in the traditional news media. John Pike started a thread de-

scribing the challenge the Net presents to the former content provid-

ers: “To me this is the really exciting opportunity for Usenet, namely

that the professional content providers will be directly confronted

with and by their audience. The prevailing info-structure privileges

certain individuals by virtue of institutional affiliation. But cyber-

space is a far more meritocractic environment – the free exchange of

ideas can take place regardless of institutional affiliation.”

Pike continues by arguing that online forums are becoming a

place where “news” is both made and reported, and thus traditional

sources are often scooped. He writes: “This has tremendously exciting

possibilities for democratizing the info-structure, as the ‘official’

hardcopy implementations are increasingly lagging cyberspace in

breaking news.”

An example of news being made online occurred when Intel, the

computer chip manufacturer, was forced to recall faulty Pentium

chips because of the online pressure and the effect of that pressure on

computer manufacturers such as IBM and Gateway. These companies

put pressure on Intel because people using Usenet discovered prob-

lems with the Pentium. The online discussion led to people becoming

active and getting the manufacturers of their computers, and Intel to

fix the problems.

Page 71

In the article “Online Snits Fomenting Public Storms,” Wall

Street Journal reporters Bart Ziegler and Jared Sandberg commented:

“Some industry insiders say that had the Pentium flub occurred five

years ago, before the Internet got hot and the media caught on, Intel

might have escaped a public flogging and avoided a costly recall.”

Buried in the report is the acknowledgment that the traditional

press would not have caught the defect in the Pentium chip, but that

the online media forced the traditional media to respond. The original

reporting about the problem was done in the Usenet newsgroup

comp.sys.intel and further online discussion took place in that

newsgroup and other newsgroups and on Internet mailing lists. The

Wall Street Journal reporters recognized their debt to news that peo-

ple were posting online to come up with a story that dealt with a ma-

jor computer company and with the real-world role that Usenet

played.

In another article in the Wall Street Journal, reporter Fara

Warner focused on the impact of the online news on Intel. “[Intel]

offered consumers a promise of reliability and quality, and now that

promise has been called into question,” she writes, quoting the CEO

of a consulting firm.

The people who did this questioning were the

users of the computers with the faulty chips. Communicating about

the problem online, these users were able to have an impact not other-

wise possible. Ziegler and Sandberg noted that the discussions were

online rather than in “traditional public forums like trade journals,

newspapers or the electronic media.”

Online users were able to work

together to deal with a problem, instead of depending on other forums

traditionally associated with reporting dissatisfaction with consumer

goods. After all of the criticisms, Intel had to replace faulty chips to

keep their reputation viable. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times

and other newspapers and magazines played second fiddle to what

was happening online. In their article, Ziegler and Sandberg quote

Dean Tom Goldstein: “It’s absolutely changing how journalism is

practiced in ways that aren’t fully developed.”

These journalists acknowledge that the field of journalism is

changing as a result of the existence of the online complaints. The

Page 72

online connection of people is forming a large and important social

force.

An Australian reporter, John Hilvert, commented on the value of

being online: “[Usenet] can be a great source of leads about the mood

of the Net. The recent GIF-Unisys-CompuServe row and the Intel

Pentium bug are examples of Usenet taking an activist and educative

role.”

Although it is hard to rely on any single piece of information,

Usenet is not about ideas in a vacuum. Usenet is about discussion and

discourse. The great number and range of the unedited posts on

Usenet bring up the question of whether editors are needed to deal

with the amount of information. Discussing the need to take time to

deal with the growing amount of information, a post on

alt.internet.media-coverage explained, “The difference being that for

the first time in human history, the general populace has the ability to

determine what it finds important, rather than relying on the whims of

those who knew how to write, or controlled the printing presses. It

means that we as individuals are going to have to deal with sifting

through a lot of information on our own, but in the end I believe that

we will all benefit from it.”

Such posts lead to the question of what is meant by the notion of

the general populace and a popular press. The point is important, as

those who are on the Net make up but a small percentage of the total

population of either the United States or the world. However, that on-

line population makes up a significant body of people connecting to

each other online.

The fast rate of growth also makes one take note

of the trends and developments. Defining what is meant by ‘general

populace and a popular press’ the post continues: “By general popu-

lace, I mean those who can actually afford a computer, and a connec-

tion to the Net, or have access to a public terminal. As computer

prices go down, the amount of people who fit this description will

increase. At any rate, comparing the 5S10 million people with Usenet

access, to the handful who control the mass media shows that even in

a nascent stage, Usenet is far more the ‘people’s voice’ than any me-

dia conglomerate could ever be.”

Page 73

Computer pioneers like Norbert Wiener, J. C. R. Licklider and

John Kemeny discussed the need for man-computer symbiosis to help

humans deal with the growing problems of our times.

The online

discussion forums provide a new form of man-computer symbiosis.

They are helpful intellectual exercises. It is healthy for society if all

members think and make active use of their brains – and Usenet is

conducive to thinking. It is not the role of journalists to provide an-

swers. Even if everybody’s life is busy, what happens when they

come to depend on the opinions and summaries of others as their

own? Usenet is helping to create a mass community that works com-

munally to aid the individual to come to his or her own opinions.

Usenet works via the active involvement and thoughtful contribu-

tions of each user. The Usenet software facilitates the creation of a

community whose thought processes can accumulate and benefit the

entire community. The creation of the printed book helped to increase

the speed of the accumulation of ideas. Usenet now speeds up that

process to help accumulate the thoughts of the moment. The resulting

discussion seen on Usenet could not have been produced beforehand

as the work of one individual. The bias or the point of view of any

one individual or group is no longer presented as the whole truth.

Karl Krueger describes some of the value of Usenet in a post:

“Over time, Usenetters get better at being parts of the Usenet matrix –

because their own condensations support Usenet’s, and this helps

other users. In a way, Usenet is a ‘meta-symbiont’ with each user –

the user is a part of Usenet and benefits Usenet (with a few excep-

tions…), and Usenet includes the user and benefits him/her.”

Krueger points out how experienced Usenet users contribute to

the Usenet community. He writes: “As time increases normally, the

experienced Usenet user uses Usenet to make himself more knowl-

edgeable and successful. Experienced users also contribute back to

Usenet, primarily in the forms of conveying knowledge (answering

questions, compiling FAQs), conveying experience (being part of the

environment a newbie interacts with), and protecting Usenet (uphold-

ing responsible and non-destructive use, canceling potentially damag-

ing SPAMs, fighting ‘newsgroup invasions,’ etc.).”

Page 74

As each new user connects to Usenet, and learns from others, the

Usenet collective grows and becomes one person richer. Krueger con-

tinues: “Provided that all users are willing to spend the minimal

amount of effort to gain some basic Usenet experience then they can

be added to this loop. In Usenet, old users gain their benefits from

other old users, while simultaneously bringing new users into the old-

users group to gain benefits.”

The collective body of people, assisted by the Usenet software,

has grown larger than any individual newspaper. As people continue

to connect to Usenet and other discussion forums, the collective

global population will contribute back to the human community in

this new form of news.

VI. Conclusion

Newspapers and magazines are a convenient form for dealing

with information transfer. People have grown accustomed to reading

newspapers and magazines wherever and whenever they please. The

growing dissatisfaction with the print media is more with the content

than with the form. There is a significant criticism that the current

print media do not allow for a dynamic response or follow-up to the

articles in hand. One possible direction would be toward online distri-

bution and home or on-site printing of online discussion groups. This

would allow for the convenience of the traditional newspaper and

magazine form to be connected to the dynamic conversation that on-

line Netnews allows. The reader could choose at what point in the

conversation or how much of the discussion to make a part of the

printed form. But this leaves out the element of interactivity. Still, it

could be a temporary solution until the time when ubiquitous slate

computers with mobile networks would allow the combination of a

light, easy to handle screen, with a continuous connection with the

Internet from any location.

Newspapers could continue to provide entertainment in the form

of crossword puzzles, comics, classified ads, and entertainment sec-

tions (e.g., entertainment, lifestyles, sports, fashion, gossip, reviews,

coupons, and so on). However, the real challenge comes in what is

traditionally known as news, or information and newly breaking

Page 75

events from around the world. Citizen, or now Netizen reporters are

challenging the premise that authoritative professional reporters are

the only possible reporters of the news. The news of the day is biased

and opinionated no matter how many claims for objectivity exist in

the world of the reporter. In addition, the choice of what becomes

news is clearly subjective. Now that more people are gaining a voice

on the open public electronic discussion forums, previously unheard

“news” is being made available. The current professional news report-

ing is not really reporting the news, rather it is reporting the news as

decided by a certain set of economic or political interests. Todd

Masco contrasts the two contending forms of the news media: “Free

communication is essential to the proper functioning of an open, free

society such as ours. In recent years, the functioning of this society

has been impaired by the monolithic control of our means of commu-

nication and news gathering (through television and conglomerate-

owned newspapers). This monolithic control allows issues to be talk-

ed about only really in terms that only the people who control the me-

dia and access to same can frame. Usenet, and [online] News in gen-

eral, changes this: it allows real debate on issues, allowing perspec-

tives from all sides to be seen.”

Journalists may survive, but they will be secondary to the symbi-

osis that the combination of the Usenet software and computers with

the Usenet community produces. Karl Krueger observes how the

Usenet collective is evolving to join man and machine into a news-

gathering, sorting and disseminating body. He writes: “There is no

need for Official Summarizers (a.k.a. journalists) on Usenet, because

everyone does it – by cross-posting, following-up, forwarding rele-

vant articles to other places, maintaining ftp archives and WWW in-

dexes of Usenet articles.”

He continues: “Journalists will never replace software. The pur-

pose of journalists is similar to scribes in medieval times: to provide

an information service when there is insufficient technology or insuf-

ficient general skill at using it. I’m not insulting journalism; it is a

respectable profession and useful. But you won’t need a journalist

when you have a good enough newsreader/browser and know how to

use it.”

Page 76

These online commentators echo Victor Hugo’s description of

how the printed book grew up to replace the authority that architec-

ture had held in earlier times. Hugo writes: “This was the presenti-

ment that as human ideas changed their form they would change their

mode of expression, that the crucial idea of each generation would no

longer be written in the same material or in the same way, that the

book of stone, so solid and durable, would give way to the book of

paper, which was more solid and durable still.”

Today, similarly, the need for a broader, and more cooperative

gathering and reporting of the news has helped to create the new on-

line media that are gradually supplanting the traditional forms of jour-

nalism. Professional media critics writing in the Freedom Forum Me-

dia Studies Journal acknowledge that online critics and news gather-

ers are presenting a challenge to the professional news media that can

lead to their overthrow when they write: “News organizations can

weather the blasts of professional media critics, but their credibility

cannot survive if they lose the trust of the multitude of citizens critics

throughout the United States.”

As more and more people come online, and realize the grassroots

power of becoming a Netizen reporter, the professional news media

must evolve a new role or will be increasingly marginalized.

Notes

1. Christopher Lasch, “Journalism, Publicity, and the Lost Art of Argument,” Media Studies

Journal, Vol 9 no 1, Winter 1995, p. 81.

2. ibid.

3. ibid., p. 91.

4. Jared Sandberg, “Oklahoma City Blast Turns Users Onto Internet for Facts, Some Fic-

tion,” Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1995, p. A6.

5. Martha Fitzsimon and Lawrence T. McGill, “The Citizen as Media Critic,” Media Studies

Journal, Vol 9 no 2, Spring 1995, p. 91.

6. ibid.

7. Thomas S. Volovic, “Encounters Online,” Media Studies Journal, Vol 9 no 2, Spring

1995, p. 115.

8. ibid.

9. Bart Ziegler and Jared Sandberg, “Online Snits Fomenting Public Storms,” Wall Street

Journal, December 23, 1994.

10. From: Gloria Stern

Date: 7 April 1995

Page 77

Subject: Re: Future of print journalism

Newsgroups: alt.journalism

11. From: John Pike

Date: 24 April 1995

Subject: Re: Usenet’s political power (was Re: Content Providers — Professionals versus

Amateurs on Usenet)

Newsgroups: alt.culture.usenet

12. From: Elizabeth Fischer

Date: 20 July 1994

Subject: Re: Time Cover Story: pipeline to editors

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

13. From: Jim Zoes

Date: 22 July, 1994

Subject: Re: Time Cover Story: pipeline to editors

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

14. ibid.

15. ibid.

16. From: Catherine Stanton

Date: 21 July 1994

Subject: Re: Time Cover Story: pipeline to editors

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

17. From: Abby Franquemont-Guillory

Date: 22 July 1994 13:45:19 -0500

Subject: Re: Time Cover Story: pipeline to editors

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

18. From: The Nutty Professor

Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 13:35:34 GMT

Subject: Re: Reporter Seeking Net-Abuse Comments

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

19. From: Mikez

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 95 03:58:55 GMT

Subject: Re: Mass media exploiting ‘cyberspace’ for ratings

Newsgroups: alt.journalism.criticism

20. From: Wesley Howard

Date: 8 Apr 1995 05:39:43 GMT

Subject: Re: Does Usenet have an effect on the print news media?

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

21. From: John DeHoog

Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 20:01:24 +0900

Subject: Make journalists get an e-mail address!

Newsgroups: alt.journalism

22. Message-Id: <elknox.35.00091823@bsu.idbsu.edu>

23. ibid.

24. Delores Dege, “Re: Impact of the Net on Society,” e-mail message, 21 February 1995.

25. From: Keith L. Cowing

Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 12:33:23 -0500

Subject: Re: Content Providers — Professionals versus Amateurs on Usenet

Newsgroups: alt.culture.internet

Page 78

26. From: William Logan Lee

Subject: Re: Is hobby computing dead? (was Creative

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers

27. From: Lisa Pease

Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 23:17:24 GMT

Subject: Re: Future of print journalism

Newsgroups: alt.journalism

28. From: Norman

Date: 20 Mar 1995 21:05:54 -0500

Subject: Re: Impact of the Net on Society

Newsgroups: alt.culture.internet

29. From: John Pike

Date: 17 Apr 1995 12:21:49 GMT

Subject: Content Providers — Professionals versus Amateurs on Usenet

30. ibid.

31. Bart Ziegler and Jared Sandberg.

32. Fara Warner, “Experts Surprised Intel Isn’t Reaching Out To Consumers More,” Wall

Street Journal, 14 December 1994.

33. Bart Ziegler and Jared Sandberg.

34. ibid.

35. From: John Hilvert

Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 03:40:57 GMT

Subject: Re: Does Usenet have an effect on the print news media?

Newsgroups: alt.culture.usenet

36. From: Miskatonic Gryn.

Date: 17 Apr 1995 15:31:22 -0400

Subject: Re: Cliff Stoll

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

37. The number of people accessible via e-mail was placed at 27.5 million as of October

1994 according to John Quarterman and MIDS at

http://www.tic.com/mids/howbig.html

38. From: Miskatonic Gryn.

39. See John Kemeny, Man and the Computer, J. C. R. Licklider, “Man Computer Symbio-

sis,” Norbert Wiener, God & Golem, Inc.

40. From: Karl A. Krueger

Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 08:58:33 GMT

Subject: Re: Special Issue of Time: Welcome to Cyberspace

Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage

41. ibid.

42. ibid.

43. From: L. Todd Masco

Newsgroups: news.future, comp.society.futures, ny.general

(No subject line)

44. Karl A. Krueger.

45. ibid.

46. Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris, translated by John Sturrock, Penguin Books, London,

1978, p. 189.

47. Fitzsimon and McGill, p. 201.

Page 79

[Editor’s Note: The following was put online in January 1997.

Netnews is another name for Usenet]

New York City Civic Culture from

“The Friendly Club” in the Eighteenth

Century to Netnews Today

by Michael Hauben

The birth of intellectual thought in New York City during the

eighteenth century mirrored the intellectual ferment of the time in

Edinburgh and London. Thomas Bender in New York Intellect (Alfred

A. Knopf Inc, New York, 1987) describes this intellectual climate as a

civic culture. Prior to the development of such an active culture,

America needed to develop a critical mass of people. As residential

density is greater in the city, the city had the potential to be more in-

tellectually exciting than the country. However, during the first half

of the eighteenth century thoughtful people in American cities still

felt isolated. This isolation came about from the lack of the ability to

communicate and discuss ideas with others. It is hard to be able to

improve upon one’s thoughts if there is no outside commentary or

criticism. Also, the best ideas often come about from the meshing and

interaction of two or more minds. The mixing of different sources

usually lead to new and robust creations. New Yorkers felt isolated as

they knew they were on the periphery of the world, far away from the

cultural centers of Europe. However, these people sought to develop a

community which would welcome the discussion and creation of

ideas.

Civic culture describes a possible city life in which public life

and intellectual life merge and overlap, rather than when these life-

styles are lived by two sets of different people. In London, people

would often meet in coffeehouses to get together in order to exchange

and discuss ideas. These discussions were different from past intellec-

Page 80

tual exchanges by being secular in nature and taking on, at times, very

defined forms. The essay provided a way of both thinking about a

topic and writing it down in a concrete form. (Thomas Bender, New

York Intellect, p. 10) The essay provided thoughtful material to dis-

cuss upon meeting other people. Bender writes that this culture in

New York developed “a distinctive metropolitan character by the con-

junction of literary and practical affairs.” (p. 10)

During the time of the birth of this new American intellectual

culture, colleges existed, but were different from today’s academic

institutions. American colleges in the eighteenth century existed as

traditional centers of denominational religious education. An impor-

tant figure in the beginning of New York City’s intellectual life was

William Livingston. Livingston graduated from Yale as part of a first

generation of non-ministerial college graduates. (p. 17) Livingston

and colleagues met together in New York City in a group which

Livingston described to a friend as a “Society for Improving Them-

selves in Useful Knowledge.” (p. 17) This was just one of many bur-

geoning social civic societies. These societies represented a life which

was not possible in a more rural area. Gradually, the purpose of these

societies evolved from the social to the intellectual. Participants be-

came interested in further increasing their knowledge of the world

and of ideas.

By 1754, two general institutions were formed which would help

to spread this intellectual milieu throughout the city. The New York

Society Library was opened to help promote “a spirit of inquiry

among the people.” (p. 18) As such, it was intended to help any indi-

vidual who would be interested in expanding his or her mind. In addi-

tion to providing access to books, the Library was to function as a

museum and a research institute. (p. 18) Kings College, later renamed

Columbia College, was also formed to make advanced intellectual

study a possibility for New Yorkers.

The social circles in the community continued to grow and en-

courage intellectual association. A prominent example was “The

Friendly Club” formed in 1793. These circles started concentrating on

the discussion and criticism of literature. This discussion often took

place in the form of conversation at weekly meetings. The partici-

Page 81

pants likened these meetings as their connection to the growing “re-

public of intellect.” (p. 31) Today’s intellectual activity differs in that

much of it relies on printed publications rather than on on-going con-

versations.

Some involved in these weekly societies would note with disdain

that others tended to have less time for concentrating on the discus-

sion because of their growing interest in commerce. This seemed to

pave the way for the development in New York City of what Bender

calls a literary culture, and later the academic culture. Both represent

the narrowing of who would consider themselves part of the intellec-

tual culture of the times. Whereas the businessmen, lawyers and me-

chanics among others would participate in the civic culture, writers

and others made up the literary milieu. Lastly, the university repre-

sents the total separation of intellectual study from any other profes-

sion. Bender notes this as the academicization of knowledge. He con-

cludes his book by calling for the liberation of knowledge and intel-

lectual thought from the privileged university into the democratic

mass of the general city.

The civic culture of the eighteenth century has reemerged in the

late twentieth century in the form of discussion groups facilitated by

the interconnection of computers and computer networks. Computer

facilitated communications take the form of Netnews, mailing lists

and real-time discussion groups in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) or con-

ferences. Bender described some of the intellectual activity pursued

by the eighteenth century societies as “the gathering of information

and its distribution.” (p. 32) The most important of the new develop-

ments I listed above, Netnews, technically does just that. Usenet was

created to provide an automated and cost-effective way of distributing

information between early Unix computer sites. This allows for peo-

ple to contribute some information in the form of a post or article, and

have the system distribute it to the next Usenet site up the stream. The

next site continues the distribution and so on until the article has gone

around the world. Local newsgroups which discuss New York City

and its environs include nyc.general, nyc.announce and nyc.seminar,

which is used to announced seminars, meetings and other such “soci-

eties.”

Page 82

Other similarities abound. Bender wrote how intellectual life in

the eighteenth century was founded on conversation. (p. 39) He then

contrasted that with today’s reliance on books and journals as a means

for intellectual life. Usenet removes the boundary between conversa-

tion and the structured form of the printed word. A contribution to

Netnews is in the form of a post. A post is a message contributed to

any one or combination of newsgroups or subject areas of discussion.

A person’s post is either a reply to a previous post, or the beginning

of a new thread of discussion. In either case, a person’s contribution

can include a short or longer reply written in a conversational style, or

it can be a more structured answer as in the form of an essay, pam-

phlet, or paper. The Usenet “Post” thus bridges the gap between the

conversations of the eighteenth century and the publications of the

twentieth century.

In New York Intellect, Bender discussed how growing concern

about people’s money making efforts helped lead to the

professionalization of intellectual thinking. This concern about one’s

profession meant some people spent less time outside of work trying

to expand their mind. (p. 120) This is a very contemporary issue with

the computer networks. The physical connection of multiple comput-

ers and networks, often called the “Net,” was originally developed

and funded through public monies. The future of who will run the Net

is currently in question. However, one thing which ties in with this is

the culture of the Net. It has developed as a culture of sharing, where

people contribute to the greater whole. This culture of sharing was

facilitated by the fact that there were no charges to connect to Usenet

or the ARPAnet outside of the normal operational costs and a possi-

bly a local phone call. If profit would begin to run the Net, sharing

might not continue to be a part of the picture. Users might come to

understand the Net as a service which they demand certain outcomes

from, and not as a community to both gain from and contribute to at

the same time.

The concept of a ‘civic intellectual culture’ is a very interesting

idea. It describes a progressive way of gathering people in today’s

society and cities together to help solve the problems which seem to

plague today’s cities. Today’s technologies provide a way to realize

Page 83

civic culture. Only through the facilitation of uncentralized discussion

based on peoples varying schedules and commitments can such a con-

versation actually take place. To make civic culture feasible, connec-

tions into the computer networks need to be made easily available. It

is impossible to assume that everyone should have a computer to

hook into the conversation. As such, the placement of public termi-

nals into community centers and libraries would be a possible solu-

tion. And for those who do have personal computers and modems in

their homes, a local bank of phone numbers should be available to

facilitate the conversation. Thomas Bender foresaw the need to move

intellectual discussions out from the University into the broader com-

munity, and today’s technology has started this process. In order to

improve our future, we need to spread access to the general public to

make the discussion on the Net fully democratic in form and avail-

ability. A New York Freenet

would help make this vision a reality.

Notes:

1. Freenet is an experimental community computer networking program. The first

freenet was opened in Cleveland with support from Case Western Reserve Univer-

sity and the Cleveland Public Hospital. The Cleveland Freenet is open and available

for free to all Cleveland residents (and anyone willing to call a Cleveland phone

number or with access to the Internet). It provides the capability of communicating

with local governmental officials, other freenet users, and e-mail users around the

world. In addition, access is given to many international Netnews newsgroups.

Freenets have started to be established across the U.S.A. and the world.

This article can be seen online at:

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

Page 84

[Editor’s Note: The following was put online in December 1992. It is

not scientifically correct because it suggests incorrectly that acquired

biological characteristics can be passed on to future generations. On

the other hand, beneficial cultural characteristics (for example labor

saving inventions, or speech or writing) can be and are passed on

from generation to generation. That is the ‘progress’ the author argues

results from technology.]

Does Progress Result

from Technology?

by Michael Hauben

What does progress mean to the human species? Progress is the

gradual betterment or development of mankind. Technology is a basis

for progress. We can figure out if this is correct by looking at the very

dawn of mankind some four or five million years ago. The beginnings

of a phenomena display the easiest understandable form. From its

early form, we should be better able to understand the influence tech-

nology has had on progress. In the nineteenth Century, two substantial

thinkers produced works on this idea. Lewis Henry Morgan, an ama-

teur anthropologist wrote Ancient Society (1877), and Frederick

Engels, who in this case might be considered an amateur archeologist,

wrote an article entitled “The Part Played by Labor in the Transition

from Ape to Man” (1884).

Both Morgan and Engels agree that humans started without any

technical prowess, and gradually developed technology through ex-

perimentation. Engels starts his paper describing the human ancestor

as an anthropoid ape, and of the biological process that led to a man

without technology. Morgan wrote: “The latest investigations respect-

ing the early condition of the human race, are tending to the conclu-

sion that mankind commenced their career at the bottom of the scale

and worked their way up from savagery to civilization through the

slow accumulations of experimental knowledge.” (Morgan, p. 3)

Engels pinpoints bipedalism as the decisive transition from ape to

man. He writes: “Climbing assigns different functions to the hands

Page 85

and feet, and when their mode of life involved locomotion on level

ground, these apes gradually got out of the habit of using their hands

[in walking] and adopted a more and more erect posture. This was the

decisive step in the transition from ape to man.” (Engels, p. 251)

Early primates emerged from the tree environment and entered

onto the savanna. Bipedalism was the next development. The slow

biological evolution paved the path for the much faster cultural evolu-

tion. “Handedness” developed as man’s ancestors walked on only two

feet. The least competitive food source was available by foraging

plants. Free hands were naturally better to forage with. Naturally se-

lected bipedalism allowed the hands freedom to develop. Engels talks

about the development: “But the decisive step had to be taken, the

hand had become free and could henceforth attain ever greater dexter-

ity; the greater flexibility thus acquired was inherited and increased

from generation to generation.” (Engels, p. 251) The hand freed from

climbing could evolve by natural selection to do more successful non

tree-climbing activities. So Engels had the correct sense, but the

wrong mechanism in mind.

Once the hand was freed from walking or climbing through evo-

lution, more useful or varied purposes could be developed. Engels

explains: “Thus the hand is not only the organ of labor, it is also the

product of labor. Labor, adaption to ever new operations, the inheri-

tance of muscles, ligaments, and, over longer periods of time, bones

that had undergone special development and the ever renewed em-

ployment of this inherited finesse in new, more and more complicated

operations.” (Engels, p. 252)

What happened next is unknown, but with the hand freed to de-

velop, the first technology emerged. Man’s earliest ancestors (Homo

habilis, or maybe even one of the australopithecine species) were the

first to make and use stone tools. Most likely natural stones were first

picked up and found to be strong and usable to achieve a goal faster.

Increasing use of stones, made possible by the uniquely evolved hand

of man, led to the advantage of increasing flexibility of the hand. As

stones were picked up and used, either accidently or through experi-

mentation, broken or “crafted” rocks were found to be even more use-

ful. Here stands the beginnings of tool-making. The use of the hands

Page 86

in conjunction with rocks allowed the brain to develop through the

experimentation and use of the hand. Experience with using the hand

led to development of the brain. The experimentation with the hand

lead to the evolution of the brain. Those with biologically developed

hands had increased flexibility. These individuals had an increased

advantage via natural selection. The offspring of these individuals had

a biological advantage over those without the increased flexibility.

Engels describes tool-making as a clue to the transition from ape to

man: “Labor begins with the making of tools. And what are the most

ancient tools that we find – the most ancient judging by heirlooms of

prehistoric man that have been discovered, and by the rawest of con-

temporary savages? They are hunting and fishing implements, the

former serving at the same time as weapons. But hunting and fishing

presuppose the transition from an exclusively vegetable diet to the

concomitant use of meat, and this is another important transition from

ape to man.” (Engels, p. 256)

Progress of stone tool development is an important technology to

follow. The evidence of increasing intricacy and complexity of stone

tools in the archeological record leads to an interesting question. Does

the advancement in stone tool technology demonstrate tool usages

effect on the brain, or vice versa? The continued experimentation

pushed the degree to which man had to expand his mind. This was a

totally cultural development. New discoveries were likely to have

been shared and this allowed for a continued communal cultural de-

velopment.

The development of tool-making is the first example of techno-

logical development pushing our ancestors to further develop an idea

and in the process challenging the brain which helped development.

The brain did not develop by itself. Instead, the experimentation with

certain ideas and concepts led to development. Morgan explains the

importance of constant experimentation to human progress: “With the

production of inventions and discoveries, and with the growth of in-

stitutions, the human mind necessarily grew and expanded; and we

are led to recognize a gradual enlargement of the brain itself, particu-

larly of the cerebral portion.” (Morgan, p. 37) The question that is not

taken up is how natural selection works in respect to the brain. In ad-

Page 87

dition the influence of the development of the hand to the brain has

not been successfully understood. However, this is an important ques-

tion.

This “playfulness” was necessary in order for continued develop-

ment to happen. Today the human species constantly is at work push-

ing the technological envelope never being satisfied. This is a good

direction, because this also pushes the continued development of the

intellect. The continued development of the mental processes helps

improve the standard of society. This is what is meant by progress.

There is no finished “plateau” of total achievement.

The earliest development was the slowest, because it was rela-

tively the greatest. Morgan writes: “The slowness of this mental

growth was inevitable, in the period of savagery, from the extreme

difficultly of compassing the simplest invention out of nothing, or

with next to nothing to assist mental effort; and of discovering any

substance or force in nature available in such a rude condition of life.”

(Morgan, p. 37)

Development was not always progressively increasing. There

were periods of stagnation. Morgan explains how development was

held back. The next step could be elusive. The development of do-

mestication of animals and later of the smelting of iron ore were cru-

cial steps. Morgan explains: “The most advanced portion of the hu-

man race were halted, so to express it, at certain stages of progress,

until some great invention or discovery, such as the domestication of

animals, or the smelting of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse

forward.” (Morgan, p. 39)

Man’s developments that differentiated him from other animals

are numerous. Man gradually added different foods to his diet. The

development of tools to forage led to the development of tools to

scavenge. As man added scavenged meat to his diet, it was seen that

there was plenty more live meat about. This live game needed to be

killed before being edible. The further development of tools made this

possible. Constant development of technology allowed man to further

define his environment. Engels describes this process: “Just as man

learned to consume everything edible, he also learned to live in any

Page 88

climate. He spread over the whole of habitable world, being the only

animal fully able to do so of its own accord.” (Engels, p. 258)

Fire was probably the next invention of great importance. Fire

made control over environment possible. Fire provided warmth for

colder regions, and made subsistence easier. Engels elaborates on the

second of these points: “[Fire] still further shortened the digestive

process, as it provided the mouth with food already, as it were, half

digested” (Engels, p. 257)

Man is a part of nature, but learned how to deal with nature. Man

learned how to control nature for his advantage. This represents the

ultimate difference from other animals. Engels first tells how man is

part of nature: “In nature nothing takes place in isolation. Everything

affects and is affected by every other thing.” (Engels, p. 259) Man’s

ability over nature is his next point. Engels writes: “In short, the ani-

mal merely uses its environment, and brings about changes in it sim-

ply by his presence; man by his changes makes it serve his ends, mas-

ters it. This is the final, essential difference between man and other

animals, and once again it is labor that brings about the distinction.”

(Engels, p. 260)

Two patterns of thought disagree with technological progress.

Religion and creationism holds that man was given superiority by liv-

ing in paradise in the Garden of Eden. After the original sin, man was

kicked out and made to start over again. Not very helpful when man

in fact started out with nothing. Constant experimentation led to tech-

nological and intellectual development and the constant progress of

the human species. The other pattern is from an environmentalist

point of view. Human use of technology is said to destroy the envi-

ronment, when in fact technology is the main reason we are not still

in a primitive stage.

Progress in man’s beginnings meant gaining control of the envi-

ronment in order to be able to make the decisions that would help

with survival. This was made possible through the development of

technology of man. Biological evolution produced bipedalism, which

provided our early ancestors with an advantage and thus set the plat-

form for further developments. First stone tool use, then stone tool

production helped to encourage intellectual development of the spe-

Page 89

cies. Next came better control over subsistence. Fire helped, but ani-

mal domestication and agriculture allowed for steady flow of food for

a set rate of work. Presumably at some point in the various stages

spoken language developed. Speech meant man was able to commu-

nicate and make decisions as a group. Now, control was stabilized

and gave room for written language.

Written language made future development much easier. What

was developed could not be yet recorded for posterity and communi-

cated in all its detail to future generations until there was written lan-

guage. Morgan says with this development civilization commences.

Written language was the foundation for most of modern advances.

We are at this point in the world development through the driving

force of technology. New tools and inventions have led to a progres-

sively better developed ability to provide the needed sustenance and

livelihood to the human species. Those who deny the role played by

inventions and discoveries in the progressive evolution of the human

species deny the long evolution of advancement from prehistory to

the modern era.

Bibliography

Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient Society. New York: 1877, Henry Holt and Company.

Engels, Frederick. “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,”

in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. N.Y.: 1975. Interna-

tional Publishers.

This article is online at:

http://www.ais.org/~hauben/Michael_Hauben/Collected_Works/Articles/Does_Prog

ress_Result_From_Technology.txt

Page 90

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 91