The Amateur
Computerist
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/
Summer 2023 Memories of Michael Hauben Volume 36 No. 1
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Page 1
Michael, Computers and the Net. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4
Memories of Michael from Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 10
Memories of Michael from a Friend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15
Michael Hauben. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16
Michael Hauben’s Development of the Concept of Netizens . . . . . . . . Page 25
Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Netizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 32
Democracy: SDS and the Net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 33
Considerations on the Significance of the Net and the Netizens . . . . . Page 48
Culture and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 61
Introduction
Michael Hauben was born May 1, 1973. Had he lived, 2023 would
have been his 50
th
birthday. In his memory and to honor his life and work,
the editors of the Amateur Computerist put together this “Memories of
Michael Hauben” issue.
In the first article, Jay Hauben tells some of the story of the life of
his son, especially focusing on Michael’s first encounters with computers
and Michael’s pioneering research when he was at Columbia University.
The second article is “Memories of Michael from Japan” as told by Mieko
Nagano who Michael first met with her husband Kenichi in 1995 when he
was invited to Japan to speak about netizens. It is a sweet story of people
to people friendship fostered by the Internet but including a reunion in
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NYC. The third article is memories of Yvonne Yen Liu, a friend from the
1990s.
The next article is the text of the Wikipedia entry for “Michael
Hauben.” It tells a bit about Michael’s life and gives an overview of
Michael’s development of the concept of netizens. The process of his
research is highlighted and includes how Michael built on the work of
Margaret Mead, Elizabeth Eisenstein, James Mill and the SDS activists
who wrote the Port Huron Statement. There is a section on the influence
of Michael’s work and a section called “Legacy” which ends with a quote
from Shirley Fedorak, “Hauben coined the term netizens, and he consid-
ered them crucial for building a more democratic human society. These in-
dividuals are empowered through the Internet and use it to solve
sociopolitical problems and to explore ways of improving the world.”
In the article, “An Introduction to Michael Hauben’s Development
of the Concept of Netizens,” Ronda Hauben gives the background that
gave rise to the Netizens book. Michael’s work is then connected with
pioneering vision of JCR Licklider that guided the early development of
the Internet. Strengthened by that vision, Michael opposed the commer-
cialization and privatization that the U.S. government was facilitating in
the 1990s. To the question, “What then for the future?” the author quotes
Michael, “Do not underestimate the power of the Net and the Netizens.”
That statement is from the “Proposed Declaration of the Rights of
Netizens” which is the fifth article in this issue.
In the article, “Participatory Democracy: From the 1960s and SDS
into the Future Online” Michael connects his study of netizens to the
movements for more democracy in the 1960s exemplified by the Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS). He observes that, “An important part of
the SDS program included the understanding of the need for a medium to
make it possible for a community of active citizens to discuss and debate
the issues affecting their lives.” Such a medium did not exist in the 1960s
but Michael saw 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.” The article analyzes the SDS Port Huron
Statement, its criticism of U.S. society and its development of the idea of
participatory democracy. Michael concludes “that the development of the
internet and of Usenet is an investment in a strong force toward making
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direct democracy a reality.”
The article, “Considerations on the Significance of the Net and the
Netizens,” was written in 2017, the 20
th
Anniversary of the Netizen book,
to review the impact and relevancy of the book and the netizens concept.
In those 20 years, the role of netizens in working for social change has
been documented around the world. In particular, the role of netizens in
working for social and political change has been an especially important
aspect of South Korean experience for nearly the past two decades. The
article also looks at contributions which help to provide a conceptual
framework to understand this new social force. Karl Deutsch’s theoretical
understanding of the essential role of a two-way communication necessary
for a well-functioning government is discussed, as is media theorist Mark
Poster’s work about netizens. In particular Poster concludes that the
netizen phenomena, “will likely change the relation of forces around the
globe. In such an eventuality, the figure of the netizen might serve as a
critical concept in the politics of democratization.” An article in the Times
of India by Vinay Kamat observers that, quoting Ronda Hauben, “Not
only is the Internet a laboratory for democracy, but the scale of participa-
tion and contribution is unprecedented. Online discussion makes it
possible for netizens to become active individuals and group actors in
social and public affairs.” Kamat wonders if they will become “a fifth
estate.” Both in theory and in practice netizens are appearing to provide
for the development of more equitable and democratic societies.
The issue ends with Michael's 1997 analysis of effect of the net on
culture, Culture and Communication: The Impact of the Internet on the
Emerging Global Culture. The article explores the emerging participatory
global culture made possible by the Internet. Michael draws on the work
of anthropologist Margaret Mead, who observed that people of all cultures
want to have their culture known around the world. Mead saw the sharing
of cultures was not a homogenization but a new way to preserve diversity.
Michael sees that the Internet makes possible new connections between
people of different cultures which allows each culture to broaden itself
based on the new understandings available from other places. He
concludes that a “new global culture is forming in several ways, none of
which is a generic corporate rubber stamp.” But also that the new culture
allows for, in Margaret Mead’s words, “a vision of a planetary community
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… (where) … there must be no outsiders.”
[Editor’s Note: In the following article the author tells part of the story of the life of his
son, Michael Hauben.]
Michael, Computers and the Net
by Jay Hauben
For my whole family, it was wonderful that Michael was born on
May Day, May 1, 1973 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was one month early
and was born early in the morning as the sun began to rise.
Michael went to nursery school and kindergarten in Boston. For his
5
th
birthday he surprised us by asking for a hand-held calculator as his
birthday present. We bought him one in The Coop at MIT
1
nearby.
Michael and I had great fun using that calculator to do iterations and other
math tricks. Shortly after that we moved to Detroit. There Michael went
to public school for one year. He was the only first grader with an exhibit
in the school’s Science Fair. The school was a rough place and the staff
discouraged Michael from reading. So Ronda and I were his teachers for
another year in what we called “home school.”
He first saw computers in the Ontario Science Center in Toronto in
1980 when he was seven years old. There were hands-on computer
exhibits and an exhibit of computer controlled robots. Michael tried many
of them. He was soon asking for his own computer. By 1983 he bought
himself a Timex Sinclair 1000 computer for $100 out of his birthday
present money. The TS 1000 had 3K of memory. We used a tape recorder
as the storage device and our TV as a monitor. Michael subscribed to
some computer magazines. He typed in some of the “TRY THIS”
programs and learned a lot from them. He and I worked on a program that
used only the 3K memory. Using peeks and pokes, we were able to get
planes to drop bombs on moving ships.
We enrolled him in a TAG (Talented and Gifted) summer program
for junior high school kids (ages 12 and 13) in 1985. The first day, the
instructor (Mrs. Brown) took off the cover of an Apple II computer to
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show that it was just wires and components. She then showed some simple
BASIC commands. That night Michael tried to write a BASIC program.
Michael had us buy The Applesoft Tutorial and he read his way through
that whole book. He succeeded in getting a graphic program to work. He
called it “BOO.” It was a skeleton that blinked its eyes and made faces.
We took Michael once a week to the Wayne County Education Center
where he began to try Apple IIE, Texas Instrument, Atari and Commodore
computers. Mostly he tried to figure out what BASIC commands would
work and asked questions about the features and advantages of each.
Michael made friends with a neighbor, Tom, who was three times his own
age. Tom used Commodore computers. When Tom bought a Commodore
64, Michael bought himself his next Timex machine (Timex Sinclair
2068). But Timex made a deal with Commodore and stopped supporting
the 2068. Michael thought he had the better computer but the deal made
his computer obsolete.
Michael participated in computer clubs and programming competi-
tions in junior high school which must have been around 1986. Ronda had
won a Compaq computer in 1985 in a drawing. She asked for a modem
with the prize rather than a hard drive because she and Michael agreed that
communication was more important than storage. Michael used the
computer and modem to participate in local BBSs.
2
His first handle was
“WizKid.” He was from then on an active participant in the BBS
communities in the Detroit area. To begin with, he was one of their
youngest members. Somehow he found out about an online timesharing
system set up near the University of Michigan, called M-Net.
3
He became
an active member of that community even though the other members were
college students or older.
At first I was opposed to Michael’s being in discussions on M-Net
of how to pick up women or things like that. He realized my opposition
and wrote an essay about censorship in Nazi Germany that convinced me
that censoring him was wrong. His argument was if the Nazi’s had not
been censored by the previous government, Hitler could not have come to
power. The German people would have been inoculated against Nazism
by the debate that would have occurred with it in the earlier days.
From M-NET, Michael heard, in the late 1980s, about Usenet, a
worldwide distributed online discussion system. At some point while still
Page 5
in Michigan, Michael felt he was no longer a kid and changed his handle
to “Sentinel.” After using his handle “Sentinel” for a while, Michael found
a thread on one of the BBSs where posters were wondering whatever
happened to “WizKid,” the poster who made the discussions more serious
and important. I think Michael was very happy to see that thread and he
posted that he was “WizKid,” now called “Sentinel.”
When Michael was 13 or 14 years old he left word in some computer
stores that he was willing to help people who were unsure what to buy and
how to set up their computers. A few people called him and I had to drive
him to his “jobs.” He did not know what to charge but whatever he asked,
his customers always gave him more.
Michael appreciated zoos and museums. One time we were in the
Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. There was an announcement near
closing time of a tour of the museum’s weapons and armor collection.
Michael wanted to go on the tour but Ronda and I were tired, so he went
alone. Almost one hour later, the tour guide and Michael returned. The
guide said to us, “This kid asked more and better questions, than most of
the adults I have taken around.”
In 1987, at age 14, Michael participated in the founding meetings of
the Amateur Computerist. One discussion was what to name the new
newsletter. “Beginning Computerist” was suggested. Michael suggested
that the newsletter would be for all lovers of computing not just beginners.
Since an amateur does something for the love of it, not for financial gain,
his suggestion of Amateur Computerist won the approval of all. Michael
was also one of the most prolific contributors of articles and editorial
suggestions.
From his contacts on M-Net Michael was able for most of his high
school years to work at the Detroit Mercy College. He was well loved for
the care with which he set up computers and taught people how to use
them. Michael went on to earn his Columbia College work-study income
by doing computer support work in the student labs there.
When Michael first dialed into M-Net in the mid 1980s he was
actually using the Internet. He first explored Usenet and took full
advantage of e-mail when he started as a freshman in Sept., 1991 at
Columbia University in NYC. Michael attended Columbia from 1991 to
1997. And, as he has written, that is when he started his research about the
Page 6
value of the net to people. During all his undergraduate years besides his
studies, he was an active employee of the CU computer services depart-
ment. Just before his sophomore year in 1992, he initiated the Usenet
alt.amateur-comp newsgroup on the U.S. Labor Day.
In 1992, Michael started an independent study for one of his courses.
He wanted to know if the net made a difference in people’s lives. He
posted a series of questions which are in the appendix to Chapter One of
his and Ronda’s book. From the responses, he discovered there were
Netizens, people who saw that the newly emerging net held the promise
of a fuller more interesting life for everyone who could get connected.
Michael became very enthusiastic about the Net. It gave him a renewed
personal hope much the way the fall of the Berlin Wall had done three
years earlier. Michael shared his enthusiasm with his professor at
Columbia. The professor told Michael he would fail the course if he did
not rework his data and analysis. The professor did not realize the
importance of what Michael had done. But Michael also shared his
enthusiasm with the online world. He gathered the documentation to prove
his scientific discovery was valid. His work inspired especially Ronda and
that was the genesis of the Netizen book originally called “Netizens and
the Wonderful World of the Net.”
In 1994, Michael and Ronda were excited to put their first draft of
the book Netizens online. They did a book reading on Jan 12, 1994 and
were happily surprised when Michael’s old friend Tom attended. Michael
and Ronda also both spoke at Columbia University about netizens.
In his years at Columbia, Michael did much of his original research
and writing. He was also a DJ of ambient music on WBAR, a student radio
station. Michael was an avid music fan, contributing one of the original
web sites for band listings and reviewed music performances, analyzed
trends in the youth music culture and sent out pointers to upcoming events.
After Michael received his BA in Computer Science in 1995, he was, for
one year, a Columbia e-mail postmaster. He went on to earn a master’s
degree from Teachers College in Technology and Communications in
1997.
Michael’s pioneering research while at Columbia University led to
his being invited to Japan in 1995. At the Hypernetwork '95, Beppu Bay
Conference in Oita, he spoke about “The Netizens and Community
Page 7
Networks.” In Oita and Tokyo, Michael met computer and network
enthusiasts to discuss the growing importance of this new medium and his
vision of netizenship. Michael also appeared in documentaries about the
Internet on TV. A chapter by Michael appeared in Japanese in the 1996
book The Age of Netizens. In 1997, the Japanese translation of the Netizens
book was published. Michael considered it an honor to speak at confer-
ences in Japan, Canada, the U.S. and Greece and to be welcomed by
online people in London and Berlin who knew his work. He took joy in
seeing his work appear in journals and books and in the hardcover edition
of Netizens in 1997.
A Netizens mailing list grew out of Michael’s invitation to speak
about netizens in Japan. One Japanese student reasoned that if there are
netizens there must be some netizens association that was international.
The student asked to join the Netizens Association. Michael answered that
one did not exist. He and the student talked about starting such an
association. Michael suggested that a first step would be a Netizens
Association mailing list. The student’s name is Hiroyuki Takahashi and
.columbia.edu/~hauben/text/netizen-a-call.html.
In the mid 1990s, Michael was overjoyed that the Internet kept
spreading. But he was disappointed with the privatization and commercial-
ization of the net that he had warned about. He continued to use the net for
the purposes he thought was its essence. He was on and contributed to
many mailing lists, especially those having to do with music and the
efforts of young people to form communities around their common
interests in different music genres. On these lists Michael reviewed music
performances, analyzed trends in the youth music culture and sent out
pointers to upcoming events. He also participated actively in the events so
his online life was coupled with his off line life.
For a long time, Michael received inquires and requests for help.
Perhaps averaging one every two weeks, they were from people all over
the world who knew of Michael’s work from online sources and felt he
was the expert or the best source of the help they needed.
Michael watched with interest the spread all over the world of the
concept of net citizens, Netizens. Michael spoke of his hope and plans for
a paperback edition of the book Netizens. He gave thought to a new
Page 8
introduction or epilogue which would begin, “It is now the beginning of
the 21
st
Century … .” His fond wish was that the details of Internet
technology be popularized and that the fight for universal free or low-cost
access to Usenet, e-mail, chat groups and all the other wonders of the net
be continued.
The concept of netizens lives on as Michael’s work is being quoted
today. There is an increasing new interest in Usenet or in Usenet-like
systems as an alternative to the commercial Facebook, Twitter, TikToc,
etc.
4
is being sought. Also, some net users in all country’s critique their
governments, watch their politicians, organize protests, defend free speech
and an open internet and involve themselves in socio-political issues. This
netizenship lives on and is a tribute to Michael and his pioneering
research.
Notes:
1. We did not know it at the time but The Coop at MIT was a business cooperative started
by students in 1882.
2. These early Bulletin Board Systems were in many ways some precursors to what are
now called social networks. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
3. M-Net is a public-access Unix-based computer conferencing system based on software
written by Marcus Watts in 1983. It was the prototype for the important early virtual
community in California, The Well. In the late 1980s, users of M-Net formed a
community that Michael was part of. Today, M-Net is reported to be the world's longest
running public access UNIX system. It is run entirely by volunteers and funded by various
supporters.
4. See, for example, the July 23, 2021 speech “The Tragedy of the Digital Commons” by
Tristan Miller. In his speech, he describes the difference between early cooperative
network platforms like Usenet and more recent commercial and private platforms like
Facebook and Twitter. To describe the difference he quotes the Netizen book referring to
Michael as having chronicled the cooperative culture of Usenet in the 1990s. His speech
can be accessed at:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/the-tragedy-of-the-digital-
commons/
[Editor’s Note: In Fall 1995, Michael Hauben visited various cities in Japan. In Oita
where he spoke at the Hypernetwork '95 Beppu Bay Conference, Michael met Mieko and
Ken Nagano, members of COARA. Mieko and Kan remained friends with Michael from
then on. Following is the text of two blog entries Mieko Nagano made about Michael, his
Page 9
parents and Netizens. The blog entries can be seen at: https://miehp.com/98usa/525h.htm,
https://miehp.com/hauben/hauben.htm and https://miehp.com/hauben/michael.htm. Also
below, following the blog entries, is the text of an email message Mieko and Ken sent to
Michael’s parents for the 2012 celebration of the 15
th
Anniversary of the Netizens book
that Michael and Ronda co-authored.]
Memories of Michael from Japan
by Mieko Nagano
I. Exchange with the Haubens,The Advocates of
Netizenship, May 25, 1998
Three years ago, Mr. Michael Hauben was invited to Beppu Bay
Conference as an advocator of a new concept “Netizen” and made an
impressive speech that fascinated many participants. Until then, I have
been keeping contact with him. Upon my connection through an e-mail,
Jay and Ronda Hauben, Michael’s parent, kindly visited my hotel at ten
in the morning to say hello. Michael himself is busy today because of his
move and will come later. We are guided to Columbia University in N.Y.
from which Mr. Michael Hauben graduated.
Mr. Jay and Mrs. Ronda are involved in computer related works in
the university. I tried to connect COARA’s home page using a computer
open to students. Unfortunately I couldn’t read the content because the
computer doesn’t support Japanese characters. I guessed to call COARA’s
“Seeing is believing” page to show my home page to the Haubens. A
female student kindly took a look at my home page together and took our
picture.
Then we visited Michael’s new apartment in East Village. I am very
glad to see him for the first time in three years. We took commemorative
pictures. Left picture; from the left, Ken wearing a Netizen hat which was
prepared in commemoration of Michael’s visit to Oita three years ago,
Michael Hauben, the inventor of word Netizen, Mieko. Right picture, from
the left, Jay, Michael, and Ronda Hauben.
His original concept of “Netizenship” seems to spread widely under
the help of his parents throughout the Internet. Michael kindly put an
autograph on the spread cover page of his book (Japanese version) written
jointly with his mother, Ronda, titled Netizens.
Page 10
His apartment is just like one appeared in “West side story” movie.
It was a fun for me to learn that the back stair is equipped outside of the
window. He complained the apartment is too small, but I was impressed
to see the apartment is provided perfect with a bed room, a living room,
a working room, a kitchen, and a bathroom.
The Haubens took us to see around East Village which seemed
somewhat uneasy for me alone. I took a look here and there. We took
Afghan style lunch on the street seat, looking passengers. It was an
unusual experience for me.
After the lunch we enjoyed window shopping in SOHO district. In
the evening, we discussed eagerly about the Internet, our governments’
involvement in it, and NTT in Japan over a Vietnamese dishes. We prom-
ised to continue our discussion on 28
th
evening.
II. A Memory of Michael Hauben, the Inventor of
“Netizen,” August 6, 2001
When we got the first news on the sudden death of Michael Hauben,
we heard ourselves saying, “No, we never! We thought, and still think, it
was a false report, as his innocent gentle smile is still alive in our hearts.”
We keep our treasures in our bookshelf. The items on Michael
Hauben are among them. This is an album of October 1995 when we
joined a Hyper Network Conference in Beppu City, Oita Japan. Here are
many pictures of Michael.
The Conference was held November 24-25, 1995. We first met
Michael there after some exchange of e-mails. The main theme of the
Conference was Netizen Revolution and Regional Information Infrastruc-
ture. Michael was invited this Conference as a main guest.
He was the youngest guest speaker among many prominent guests
such as David Faber of Pennsylvania University EFF, Kyong-Hee Yu of
Korean Info-Communications Association, Dr. Harry Saal of Smart Val-
ley, and Howard Rheingold. Michael is second from right in the front line
wearing a dark suit. His presentation was: The Netizens and Community
Networks.
We COARA members prepared such Netizen goods in order to boost
up his presentation in the Conference. The Netizen caps were presented to
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the speakers and stickers were distributed to the participants.
When we learned that Michael became a guest speaker, we soon E-
mailed him saying, We are very happy to see you. We will wait you at the
lobby of the Conference hall. We found a young guy the same age as our
son. This was Michael Hauben. We soon exchanged calling cards.
He brought a lovely cooking book for me all the way from the USA
as a present. I was really delighted. It reads “To Mieko, Thank you very
much for being the first person to welcome me to Japan. See you, Michael
Hauben.” He had visited my home page in advance and leaned I loved
cooking and making cookies. He selected the tiny book for me. I was
deeply moved by his careful consideration. Later, I actually made cookies
illustrated in the book. It was very tasty.
Michael’s presentation was very easy to understand for an ordinary
housewife like me. I was really moved by his thought. He was also
interviewed by a local paper Nisshi-Nippon Press. My husband helped him
in translation. The Press published a special issue on Michael’s Netizen-
ship three days later. My husband translated it and sent it to Michael.
During busy schedule, Michael showed us wonderful bright smiles, yes,
he is really a nice guy.
Howard Rheingold, Mieko Nagano, and Michael Hauben.
After the Conference, COARA members joined a drinking party with
Karaoke. Michael looks like really relaxed after a great work. He wore
Yukata robe with Hanten coat on it and enjoys Japanese Sake. Yes, this is
a Japanese style entertainment.
Page 12
As I was busy in taking pictures, Michael kindly sent me a picture
he took through the hotel window of a beautiful sunset of Beppu Bay.
After the Conference in Oita, another conference was held in Kobe
as Internet Wave '95. Michael made a presentation again. Some of the
COARA members joined the meeting. I also made a presentation on my
home page.
On the Christmas, we got a wonderful card from Michael. A picture
taken in Beppu Conference was beautifully set in it. It reads:
Dear Mieko and Kenichi,
Thank you for the kind welcome to Japan and Oita that you
gave me. It was quite special to meet other Netizens from
across the globe. I hope to meet you both again in Oita and
New York City.
Mata aimasyou [Let’s meet again].
Michael Hauben
Yes, we met him again in New York City together with his parents
in 1998. We have had pleasant two days with them. Michael presented me
a copy of his book (Japanese version) with a autograph on it. Michael’s
signature dated May 25, 1998. We visited his apartment in East Village.
It seems me to be just a couple of days ago that I looked through his old
room.
The Haubens invited me to an ethnic restaurant in Soho district for
lunch. We also had a chance to look through Columbia University from
which Michael graduated. His parents enthusiastically told us on the future
development of Internet and Netizenship.
We understand their deep sorrows completely, as we also had lost
our nine-month-old-son more than 30 years ago. WE PRAY FOR THE
REPOSE OF MICHAEL’s SOUL. Jay and Ronda, please accept our
sincerest condolences.
August 6, 2001. Mieko and Kenichi Nagano; Oita, Japan
III. My Dear Old Memory of Michael Hauben,
15
th
Anniversary of the Hardcover Book Netizens
Celebration. Netizens Around the World Stand With You
Page 13
Now, April 26, 2012
In 1995 April, I heard that Mr. Michael Hauben, the inventor of the
word “Netizens” was scheduled to visit Oita, a small local city in
southwest part of Japan. I was very excited and decided to welcome him.
A boyish-looking young man who has just grown up to an adult appeared
through the conference room door and said hello. It was Mr. Michael
Hauben from the USA.
First, I had sent him a welcome message through the e-mail saying
please come to Oita Japan. Michael kindly checked the Internet in advance
to learn what I was and what I was interested in. He prepared “A little
New York Cookbook” and presented it to me. I was really delighted to see
the lovely, tiny book filled with beautiful illustrations of cookies and other
simple foods. I picked up some of them and actually cooked them in
home. I took the pictures of the dishes and posted to the Internet. Michel
was delighted as well.
New York is my long-cherished city. In 1998, I sent him a message
I would visit NYC and finally could meet not only him but also his parents
in the city. I carried his book Netizens Japanese version with me and asked
him to put the author’s message on it. I also visited his apartment and
exchanged greetings. This was a great memory in my life.
I don’t like to use the subjunctive mood if he were alive, but he had
passed away too early, too young. I wish him to watch the developing
Internet world and network citizens much and much more. If he were here,
he would have invented another new concept of Netizens.
I highly value the memory of Michael Hauben and pay my respects
to Michael’s parents Jay and Ronda who strongly promote the Netizenship
all around the world. I and my husband Ken are very proud of being the
everlasting friends of Michael Hauben who is now smiling and silently
watching us from Heaven. Yes, Michael lives forever in our hearts.
[Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from an email message the author sent to Jay
and Ronda Hauben in response to their invitation to her to a Zoom presentation in honor
of Michael Hauben’s life and his work on May 6, 2023. It is followed by excerpts from
a post the author made on her Facebook account on May 9, 2023. With her post, she
included photos of happier times with Michael. The first two were during his 27
th
birthday
Page 14
celebration with friends and family. The third and fourth picture was at the winter pageant
in the Lower East Side. The last three were from a group trip to a music festival in the
Sahara Desert in Morocco at the turn of the millennium. (Link to the photos on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=802238388137821&set=pcb.8022
38654804461)]
Memories of Michael from a Friend
by Yvonne Yen Liu
From Email Message: To Jay and Ronda Hauben
I can’t believe that yesterday would have been Michael’s 50
th
birthday. I really wish he could have lived to this day and much more. He
was a brilliant thinker, ahead of his time, and a good friend. He deserved
a long life, where he could have developed his ideas around netizens. We
all deserved to have more of Michael in our lives.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever shared this with you both but losing
Michael was a significant turning point in my life. It made me realize that
I need to tread carefully and treat with kindness the people I encounter.
Then, September 11
th
that fall convinced me that I needed to engage
actively and deeply in the world around me, to make it a better place.
I wish you both comfort, consolation, and community during this
time. I hold you both in my thoughts.
From Facebook Post: My Best Friend Michael Hauben
Michael was brilliant; he authored an early book on the civic
impact of the Internet, Netizens.
I met him in the late 1990s through the close-knit raver community
in NYC. Being the geeky ravers we were, we would go to parties and
concerts, and then post lengthy reviews on the NYC raves list.
Michael had an encyclopedian knowledge of music, not just
electronic. He introduced me to many different genres: one of the best
concerts I remember going to was seeing Pharoah Sanders with Michael
at Lincoln Center.
He had an outsized influence on me, a club kid at the time, sharing
for instance the histories of the Port Huron Statement and the Flint
sit-down strike. I didn't appreciate the substance of his intellectual and
Page 15
political work, until after he was gone.
I really wish Michael could have lived to be 50 and much more. He
deserved more time, to receive treatment for his depression, to further his
work on netizens, and to grow old with gray hair. We all deserved more
of Michael in our lives.
Rest in power, my friend. May you found peace.
[Editor’s Note: The following is the text of the Wikipedia entry for Michael Hauben at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hauben. The original of this page was put on
Wikipedia in 2016. An earlier Michael Hauben Wikipedia page disappeared.]
Michael Hauben
Michael Frederick Hauben (May 1, 1973 – June 27, 2001) was an
American Internet theorist and author. He pioneered the study of the social
impact of the Internet. Based on his interactive online research, in 1993 he
coined the term and developed the concept of Netizen to describe an
Internet user who actively contributes toward the development of the Net
and acts as a citizen of the Net and of the world. Along with Ronda
Hauben, he co-authored the 1997 book Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet.
1
Hauben’s work is widely referenced
in many scholarly articles and publications about the social impact of the
Internet.
Early Life
Hauben was born on May 1, 1973, in Boston, Massachusetts, son of
Jay and Ronda Hauben. He was an active participant in the Bulletin Board
System (BBS) communities in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area in Michigan
where his family had moved.
Work and Scholarship
Hauben participated in the founding meetings of the Amateur
Computerist
2
in 1987. From 1991 to 1997 he attended Columbia Univer-
sity (C.U.) in NYC, earning a BA in Computer Science (Columbia College
Page 16
1995) and a MA in Communication (Teachers College 1997). During his
studies at C.U., Hauben did much of his original research and writing. He
was all that time an active employee of the C.U. Academic Information
Systems (AcIS), serving for one year as a Postmaster and Consultant for
Electronic Mail.
Hauben was coauthor of the book Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet, a draft of which was put online in 1994.
Print editions in English (IEEE Computer Society Press) and Japanese
(Chuokoron-Sha, Inc.
3
) were published in 1997. Based on his interactive
online research, Hauben coined the term ‘Netizen’ and introduced it into
popular use. In the Preface to Netizens, Hauben wrote:
My initial research concerned the origins and development of
the global discussion forum Usenet … . I wanted to explore the
larger Net and what it was and its significance. This is when
my research uncovered the remaining details that helped me to
recognize the emergence of Netizens. There are people online
who actively contribute toward the development of the Net.
These people understand the value of collective work and the
communal aspects of public communications. These are the
people who discuss and debate topics in a constructive manner,
who e-mail answers to people and provide help to newcomers,
who maintain FAQ files and other public information reposito-
ries, who maintain mailing lists, and so on. These are people
who discuss the nature and role of this new communications
medium. These are the people who as citizens of the Net I
realized were Netizens. The word citizen suggests a geo-
graphic or national definition of social membership. The word
Netizen reflects the new non geographically based social
membership. So I contracted the phrase net.citizen to Netizen.
4
His 1993 article “Common Sense: The Impact the Net Has on
People’s Lives”
5
was an analysis of responses Hauben received to
questions he posted on newsgroups and mailing lists. The article begins,
Welcome to the 21
st
Century. You are a Netizen (a Net
Citizen), and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to the
global connectivity that the Net makes possible. You consider
everyone as your compatriot. You physically live in one
Page 17
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. Geographical sep-
aration is replaced by existence in the same virtual space.
This article became Chapter One of Netizens.
While still an undergraduate, Hauben began to develop a theoretical
framework for his vision of the social impact of the net and the netizens.
In his article “The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning: Printing and
the Net,”
6
he applied his study of the Printing Revolution especially the
work of Elizabeth Eisenstein to an analysis of the trajectory in which the
Internet and netizens are taking society. He wrote, “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.” Quoting Hauben’s work, one author wrote, “On the
extraordinary explosion of knowledge with the Gutenberg printing press,
see Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. On the
intellectual foundation of the Internet actually being based on the
Gutenberg printing press, see Hauben, ‘The Expanding Commonwealth
of Learning: Printing and the Net.’”
7
Using a similar method of analysis, Hauben found insights about the
Internet in the understandings of the 19
th
Century Scottish philosopher
James Mill about the importance of “liberty of the press.” He argued that
the net was making it possible for citizens as netizens to be the watchdogs
over governments which Mill argued was the function of liberty of the
press. In a footnote to his article “The Computer as a Democratizer,”
8
referring to Usenet, Hauben wrote that “the discussions are very active and
provide a source of information that makes it possible to meet 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.”
Hauben was invited to Japan in 1995 by Shumpei Kumon, sociology
professor and director of GLOCOM (the Japanese Center for Global
Communication).
9
In Japan, Hauben was welcomed in Tokyo at GLO-
COM and then in Oita by members of COARA,
10
the computer network
community in Beppu. At the Hypernet work ‘95 Beppu Bay Conference,
11
Page 18
Hauben spoke about “The Netizens and Community Networks.”
12
He was
interviewed by the local Nisshi-Nippon Press. Then in Kyoto, he attended
two network conferences and was an honored guest at a reception with the
Mayor. Hauben was a speaker also at the GLOCOM Intelprise-Enterprise
Collaboration Program (IECP). Throughout his stay in Japan, Hauben met
Japanese computer and network enthusiasts to discuss the growing
importance of this new medium and his vision of netizenship. Hauben also
appeared in documentaries about the Internet on TV Tokyo and in write-
ups in newspapers in Tokyo and Oita. Prof. Kumon included a chapter by
Hauben in his 1996 book The Age of the Netizen. In 1997, the Japanese
translation of Netizens: On the History and impact of Usenet and the
Internet was published in a run of 5,000 copies.
When he returned home from Japan, Hauben broadened his vision
of the impact the Internet and the netizens would have on society. He saw
in the work of the American anthropologist Margaret Mead that even in
the 1960s a global culture was emerging. Using the writings of Mead, he
countered the critics who claimed that the Internet’s mass culture was
snuffing out cultural differences. He saw instead that “more and more
people of various cultures are understanding the power of the new
communication technologies. More and more people are reacting against
the mass media and corporate dominance and calling for a chance to
express their views and contribute their culture into the global culture.”
Hauben presented his analysis of Internet culture at the 1997 IFIP WG
9.2/9.5 conference in Corfu, Greece.
13
Hauben also explored the question whether participatory democracy
and netizenship are related. He studied the Port Huron Statement created
in 1962 by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other sources
to see what lessons he could learn about the 1960s that would help to
understand the importance of the Internet and the emergence of the
netizens. He opened his analysis with the observation that “the 1960s was
a time of people around the world struggling for more of a say in the
decisions of their society … . People rose up to protest the ways of society
which were out of their control … .” Hauben’s conclusion was that “the
development of the Internet and emergence of the netizens is an invest-
ment in a strong force toward making direct democracy a reality. The new
technologies present the chance to overcome the obstacles preventing the
Page 19
implementation of direct democracy. Online communication forums also
make possible the discussion necessary to identify today’s fundamental
questions.”
14
Hauben was an avid music fan. He was a DJ of ambient techno
music on WBAR,
15
the Barnard College student radio station. With Min-
Yen Kan he developed one of the original web sites for band listings, the
Ever Expanding Web Music Listing!
16
In 1996, an article in The Daily
Herald (Chicago, IL) described the Ever Expanding Web Music Listing
as “probably the World Wide Web’s most comprehensive one-stop
resource for all things musical.”
17
In the late 1990s, Hauben did online
reviews of live music performances in New York City. He was concerned
that the youth music scene in NYC does not slip into drugs and commer-
cial dominance. He analyzed trends in youth music culture and sent out
pointers to upcoming events.
18
He saw peer-to-peer music reviews as an
alternative to commercial advertising.
Influence of Hauben’s Work
In the second half of the 1990s, the Internet rapidly spread around
the world. Online and off-line, the term netizen was becoming widely
used. Scholars began to refer to Hauben’s research. For example, the
Polish scholar and diplomat Leszek Jesien,
19
quoting Hauben, urged the
European political leaders to look at netizenship as a possible model for
a new European citizenship. Boldur Barbat, a Romanian scientist,
reviewed Netizens concluding it is a catalyst for the continuing of
information technology and an optimistic future.
20
Citing Hauben’s work,
Cameroonian sociologist Charly G Mbock
21
saw netizenship as a
necessary component of any fight against corruption and as a sign of hope
for “a more equitable sharing of world resources through efficient
interactions.” Turkish Educator, Dr. E. Özlem Yiðit, and Palestinian
scholar, Khaled Islaih, also referred to Hauben as a source of their
understandings of the importance of netizenship for their respective
communities. Hauben’s work on netizens and the Internet is known in
China and has influenced how some academics and government officials
analyze the impact of the Internet on society.
22
In his study of new media
and social media in the Philippines, Aj Garchitorena, as some of his
theoretical foundation, cited Hauben’s work especially Hauben’s “Theory
Page 20
of the Netizen and the Democratization of Media.”
23
Garchitorena also
built on Hauben’s insight that the net “brings the power of the reporter to
the Netizen.”
With its spread, two general uses of the term netizen developed.
Hauben explained, “The first is a broad usage to refer to anyone who uses
the Net, for whatever purpose … . The second usage is closer to my
understanding, … people who care about Usenet and the bigger Net and
work toward building the cooperative and collective nature which benefits
the larger world. These are people who work toward developing the Net
… . Both uses have spread from the online community, appearing in
newspapers, magazines, television, books and other off-line media. As
more and more people join the online community and contribute toward
the nurturing of the Net and toward the development of a great shared
social wealth, the ideas and values of Netizenship spread. But with the
increasing commercialization and privatization of the Net, Netizenship is
being challenged.” He called on scholars, “to look back at the pioneering
vision and actions that have helped make the Net possible and examine
what lessons they provide.” He argued that is what he and the Netizens
book tried to do.
24
One contributor to the 2004 celebration of the 250
th
Anniversary of
Columbia University in New York City, referring to Hauben’s contribu-
tion wrote, “While the prevalence and universality of the Internet today
may lead some to take it for granted, Michael Hauben did not. A pioneer
in the study of the Internet’s impact on society, Hauben helped identify the
collaborative nature of the Internet and its effects on the global commu-
nity.”
25
Legacy
After sustaining injuries resulting from an accident where he was hit
by a taxi,
26
Hauben died in New York City on June 27, 2001,
27
a victim of
suicide. At the time of his death, he had lost a job, accumulated a large
credit card debt, and was about to lose his apartment.
26
The significance of Hauben’s contribution to the appreciation of the
emergence of the netizen is a deeper sense that the Internet is accompanied
by an expansion of the fullness of human empowerment. In 2012, cultural
anthropologist Shirley Fedorak summed up Hauben’s contribution. She
Page 21
wrote:
Studies have found that greater participation in the political
landscape is influenced by access to information … . Indeed,
Michael Hauben identified a new form of citizenship emerging
from widespread use of the Internet. Hauben coined the term
netizens, and he considered them crucial for building a more
democratic human society. These individuals are empowered
through the Internet and use it to solve socio-political problems
and to explore ways of improving the world.
28
Bibliography
“A New Democratic Medium: The Global Computer Communications Network,” in
HKCUS Quarterly, no. 14 July 1994, p. 26. Special Issue on Hong Kong Media
Facing 1997.
“Birth of Netizens,” chapter in The Age of Netizens, Shumpei Kumon, published 1996 by
NTT Press, ISBN 4-87188-461-9.
Coauthor, “Interview with Henry Spencer: On Usenet News and C News,” chapter in
Internet Secrets, edited by John R. Levine and Carol Baroudi, published 1995 by
IDG Books.
“Culture and Communication,” chapter in The Ethical Global Information Society:
Culture and Democracy Revisited, Jacques Berleur and Diane Whitehouse,
Editors, IFIP, pp. 197–202 published 1997 by Chapman & Hall.
“Exploring New York City’s Online Community,” in CMC Magazine, May 1995.
http://www.ibiblio.org/cmc/mag/1995/may/hauben.html.
“Netizens,” in CMC Magazine, February 1997,
http://www.December.com/cmc/mag
/1997/feb/hauben.html.
“Netizens,” in The Thinker Vol. 2, No. 5 February 2, 1996, p. 1, Stanford University.
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet published May 1997 by
IEEE Computer Society Press. (ISBN 0-8186-7706-6).
“OnLine Public Discussion and the Future of Democracy,” in Proceedings Telecommuni-
ties 95: Equity on the Internet, Victoria, B.C.
“Participatory Democracy From the 1960s and SDS into the Future Online,” 1995
/ACn11-1.pdf.
References
1. Michael Hauben, Ronda Hauben, (1997). Netizens: On the History and Impact of
Usenet and the Internet. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-8186-7706-9.
2. The Amateur Computerist Newsletter 1988-present,
Page 22
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/acnindex2.html.
3. Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet (Japanese),
Chuokoron-Sha, October 1997, ISBN 4120027333.
4. Michael Hauben, “Preface: What is a Netizen?” in Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet, pp. ix-xi,
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.txt.
5. Michael Hauben, “Common Sense: The Net and Netizens,” Part I/III, alt.culture.usenet,
July 6, 1993,
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alt.culture.usenet/M-C3Kq2ssRY
/hY66QIJA_I8J.
6. Michael Hauben, “The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning: Printing and the Net”
in Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, pp. 291-304,
http://www.columbia.edu /~rh120/ch106.x16.
7. Gerald L. Stevens, Revelation: The Past and Future of John’s Apocalypse, Pickwick,
2014 (ISBN 978-1-62564-549-4), p. 131,
https://books.google.com/books?id=JhqQB
AAAQBAJ&pg=PA 131.
8. Michael Hauben, “The Computer as a Democratizer,” in Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet, pp. 315-320,
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben
/ronda2014/demo cratizer.pdf.
9. Center for Global Communications, International University of Japan (GLOCOM),
http://www.glocom.ac.jp/.
10. Mieko and Kenichi Nagano, “A memory of Michael Hauben, the inventor of
NETIZEN,” Oita, Japan, August 6, 2001,
https://miehp.com/hauben/hauben.htm.
11. (Hypernetwork '95 Beppu Bay Conference), Oita, Japan, Nov 23-25, 1995,
http://www.coara.or.jp/BBC/url.html (no longer available).
12. Michael Hauben, “The Netizens and Community Networks,” CMC Magazine,
February 1997,
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/feb/hauben.html.
13. Michael Hauben, (1997). “Culture and communication – the interplay in the new
public commons: Usenet and community networks.” An Ethical Global Information
Society. pp. 197–202. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-35327-2_18. ISBN 978-1-4757-5181-9.
S2CID 150603172.
14 Michael Hauben, “Participatory Democracy From the 1960s and SDS into the Future
On-line,” Columbia University, 1995,
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netdem
ocracy-60s.txt.
15. WBAR: Barnard College Freeform Radio, http://www.wbar.org/.
16. Michael Hauben and Min-Yen Kan, “Ever Expanding Web Music Listing!” (1991-
2001),
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/music/web-music.html.
17. “Cyberspace: The Internet rocks! Here’s your guide to getting plugged in,” The Daily
Herald (Chicago IL), January 26, 1996, p. 56,
https://www.newspapers.com/news
page/12898495/.
18. Michael Hauben, “The Netizens Cyberstop Music Page” (last modified: Oct 19,
1996),
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/music/index.html.
19. Leszek Jesien, “The 1996 IGC: European Citizenship Reconsidered,” Instituts für den
Donauraum und Mitteleuropa (IDM), March 1997,
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben
/Era_of _the_Net izen/resources/European_Citizenship_Reconsidered-LJesien.doc.
Page 23
20. Boldur Barbat, “Review of Netizens,” Studies in Informatics and Control Journal,
Vol. 7 Number 4, Bucharest, December 1998,
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben
/Era_of_the_Netizen/reso urces/Review_of_Netizens-BBarbat.txt.
21. Charly Gabriel Mbock, “Social Sciences and the Social Development Process in
Africa,” in Social Sciences and Innovation, OECD, 2001, pp. 157-172,
.google.com/books ?id=LncFo1_SDxcC&pg=PA157.
22. Tang, Yun; Sun, Lifeng; Qin, Hai; Yang, Shiqiang; Zhong, Y, (2006), “When Most
Quickly Developing Technique Meets with Most Quickly Developing Country: Towards
Understanding Internet in China.”
CiteSeer
X
10.1.1.91.3501 S2CID 12006977
23. Aj Garchitorena, “Pop Culture and the Rise of Social Media in the Philippines: An
Overview,” http://werdsmith.com/p/ARutG2rFJ.
24. Michael Hauben, “Preface: What is a Netizen?,” in Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet, p. xi,
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.txt.
25. Simon Butler, “Michael F. Hauben,” Columbia 250, C250 Celebrates Your
Columbians, 2009,
http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/your_columbians
/michael_hauben.html.
26. John Horvath, (July 27, 2001), “Death of a Netizen,” Heise. Retrieved June 6, 2015,
https://www.telepolis.de/features/Death-of-a-Netizen-3451797.html.
27. Andrew Orlowski, “Michael Hauben, Netizen, dies: Our tribute,” The Register (U.K.),
June 30, 2001,
https://www.the register.co.uk/2001/06/30/michael_hauben_netizen_dies//.
28. Shirley A. Fedorak, Anthropology Matters, Second Edition, University of Toronto
Press, 2012, p. 120,
https://books.google .com/books?id=X5JeG0ZaqBQC&pg=PA120.
External links
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet
(http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/project_book.html)
Table of Contents (online edition)
(http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/)
Michael Hauben Collected Works
(http://www.ais.org/~hauben/cw.html)
The Netizens Cyberstop (Hauben’s original home page)
(http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben)
Ever Expanding Web Music Listing! (1991-2001)
(http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/music/web-music.html)
C250 Celebrates Your Columbians: Michael Hauben
(http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/your_columbians/mic hael_hauben.html )
Internet Pioneer
(http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/IEC/hauben.html)
A Memory of Michael Hauben, the Inventor of NETIZEN
(https://miehp.com/hauben/hauben.htm)
Memorial Page
(http://www.ais.org/~hauben/we_miss_you/)
Page 24
J.C.R. Licklider And The Universal Network
(http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_licklider.htm)
Netizen Participation in Internet Governance
(http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/contributions/izumi-contribution.pdf)
[Editor’s Note: The following is a summary of the author’s prepared keynote speech at
the first International Internet History Workshop held in Hangzhou, China, Nov 7-8,
2022. This summary was presented on May 6, 2023 as part of a “Memories of Michael”
zoom session honoring Michael Hauben’s life and work. Michael was born on May 1,
1973. The year 2023 would have been his 50
th
birthday. The whole prepared keynote
speech can be seen in Amateur Computerist Vol. 35 no. 6, accessible at
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn35-6.pdf.]
An Introduction to Michael Hauben’s
Development of the Concept of Netizens
by Ronda Hauben
Introduction
This past November, Jay Hauben and I were invited to give keynote
presentations via zoom for a history of the Internet conference in China.
1
The organizers raised the question of what were the original intentions of
those creating the Internet and how to get back on the track of those
original intentions. My talk took up this question as the question was
similar to the research and writing Michael and I did to create the Netizens
book.
2
I will summarize some of what I presented about Michael’s
research at this history of the internet conference.
Background
I want to start with a little background.
By 1992, Michael Hauben, one of the coauthor of the Netizens book, was
a student at Columbia University. He had recently written a paper for a class. He
was also online as part of the Columbia University connection to the Internet.
The Internet had been in the process of being built for 20 years by 1992, and by
1992-1993 it was spreading and connecting up people around the world.
Michael posted his paper on a community network for those using what
was known as Usenet which was, at the time, available at some universities and
Page 25
corporations in the U.S., Canada, some European sites, and some Asian sites
(first in South Korea and later in Japan).
Michael’s paper, “Usenet and Democracy,” was about James Mill. The
paper described an article written for the Supplement to the Encyclopedia
Britannica (1825) by James Mill ( who lived from 1773-1836). James Mill was
a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was the
father of John Stuart Mill. The article was about the importance of what Mill
called “Liberty of the Press.”
Michael describes Mill’s argument about the need for people to be able to
keep watch over their government officials. Quoting Mill, Michael writes that
“government will be corrupt if the chance exists and that ‘those in position to rule
would abuse their power.’” In the article Michael proposes that computer
networks will give people a means of publicly evaluating and spreading
information about the government officials in office.
Michael referred to how the experience he was having on the Usenet
community network, was an important example of how to provide for the open
discussion about the workings of government and government officials that Mill
proposed as critical for good government.
A Canadian from Ottawa had downloaded and read Michael’s paper. The
Canadian, Philip Fleisser, wrote Michael that he “agreed with Michael’s views
in the paper and that ‘he would like to see more papers like it.’” Phil proposed
that such articles which he tentatively titled “Readings on the Emergence of a
Better World, Due to the Participatory Nature of Public Computer Networks”
were not at the time commonly written and available to read. Phil suggested that
if such a collection of articles like this was put together, “It might even be a best
seller.”
He asked if Michael had gathered such a set of articles or had any further
references, which he pass on to Phil.
Michael’s article about James Mill and the need for computer networks for
citizens to provide oversight over government officials became the final chapter
titled “The Computer as a Democratizer” in the Netizen book.
I attribute Phil’s encouragement about the need for a book about computer
networks and the struggle for more democracy as some of the encouragement for
the publication of the Netizens book.
A few months later Michael took a class at Columbia in computer ethics.
The professor asked that students do a term project using research beyond
research from books. Michael decided to use the Internet for his project. He
would explore how those online felt about the experience they were having being
connected to this still young new means of communications, the computer
Page 26
communications networks. He put together a post, which he posted on several
mailing lists and on Usenet. In the post he wrote:
The Largest Machine: Where it came from and its importance
to society
I propose to write a paper concerning the development of “The Net.”
I am interested in exploring the forces behind its development and
the fundamental change it represents over previous communications
media … . I wish to come to some understanding of where the net
has come from, so as to be helpful in figuring out where it is going.
(Netizens, p. 36)
He was quite surprised when a number of email responses arrived in his
email account, welcoming his post and responding to it. The 60 people who wrote
him in general shared their experiences online, and their great appreciation of the
value they felt was now possible because they were able to be online. Michael
studied their responses and wrote several other posts and received a number of
other responses. Gathering the responses, he put together a paper which he titled:
“Common Sense: The Net and Netizens.” He wrote: “Welcome to the 21
st
Century. You are a Netizen (a Net Citizen), and you exist as a citizen of the world
thanks to the global connectivity that the Net makes possible … .” Continuing,
he observed, “We are seeing a revitalization of society. The frameworks are being
redesigned from the bottom up. A new, more democratic world is becoming
possible.” (Netizens, p. 2)
He went on to describe a number of the characteristics of this new world
that he had come to understand from his experience online and the research he
had done of others’ experience. Among the observations people had written him
about, he included:
These technologies allow a person to help make the world a better
place by making his or her unique contribution available to the rest
of the world. (Netizens, p. 10)
The Net reintroduces the basic idea of democracy as the
grassroots people power of Netizens. (Netizens, p. 13)
The significance to me of this post, is that Michael recognized that
many of those who had written him document their desire to contribute to
the world as a result of the empowerment they experienced.
Recognizing the empowerment made possible by the Net and
endeavoring to use this empowerment to create a better world, a more
Page 27
democratic world, is one of the important characteristics that I propose
characterize netizens.
As Michael clarified in a talk that he gave at a conference in Japan
in 1995, his view was that not all those online are netizens. Michael
identifies those public-spirited users who contribute to the Net and to the
bigger world it is part of, as the online users that he calls netizens. He
reserved the use of the word netizens to describe such users.
The book Netizens grew out of the experience of this research
Michael was doing and the complementary research I began, influenced
by the fascinating material Michael was gathering and continuing to write
about.
In 1994 we put a draft of a book online. Then in 1997 a print edition
of the Netizens book was published in an English edition in May and in a
Japanese edition in October.
Pioneering Vision
Some of the emails or online posts in response to Michael’s
questions were from computer pioneers who were online. In response to
his question as to where the Net had come from, they pointed him to the
work of a computer pioneer named J C R Licklider who inspired and
successfully set the research direction that made it possible to create the
Internet.
In Chapter V of the Netizens book, “The Vision of Interactive
Computing and the Future,” Michael asks the question: “There is a vision
that guided the origin and development of the Internet, Usenet and the
other associated … networks. What is that vision?”
The chapter points to the community that grew up around the people
who were linked together by computer systems. Trained as a psychologist,
Licklider observed what was happening to the people who were using the
newly created computer communications networking systems. He
observed that communities formed as people interacted and helped each
other. A general phrase Licklider used at the time was “intergalactic
networks.” Exactly what he meant by this has various interpretations. But
it was a phrase that captured the grandeur of Licklider’s vision for the
future network.
Another key aspect of Licklider’s vision was the need for all to be
Page 28
connected if the developing network would represent a benefit to society.
By 1994, the U.S. portion of the Internet was becoming increasingly
commercialized. There was an effort on the part of the U.S. mass media
to promote a “get rich quick” view of the Internet. Many who have come
online since 1995 have not had the experience of the early culture of
interactive participation and sharing that prevailed through the early
1990s. Instead these origins are hidden and the early development of the
Internet is erroneously characterized as a period of “exclusivity.” This is
not an accurate description. By the early 1990s users were finding ways
to spread the Internet through civic efforts like creating community
networks and Freenets and through creating gateways between different
networks like the Unix UUCP network and the Internet and Fidonet. But
by 1994 the U.S. government no longer supported the efforts which would
have continued the sharing and cooperative culture of the early Internet.
Instead there was a vigorous campaign to commercialize and privatize the
U.S. portion of the public Internet. (The way this was done was probably
also in violation of U.S. constitutional provisions with respect to the
necessary public processes to be undertaken before public property is
privatized. However, the commercial pressure to carry out the privatiza-
tion quickly left little time to challenge the process.)
In 1996, Michael wrote that the Net should be like a public utility –
akin to postal/telephone/water. While he did not necessarily favor
regulation, he explained that regulation by government would be
necessary to have equal access available to all to the net. “The market,” he
predicted, “would not make the Internet available to all who wanted
access.”
While the plan to privatize and commercialize the Internet had been
created with various details being worked on for years, on September 15,
1994 the U.S. government officially announced a plan to privatize the NSF
backbone of the Internet. And on May 1, 1995, the privatization decision
was implemented.
Michael recognized the difference between the view toward Usenet
and the Internet that he received in the responses to his research questions
and the view toward the future development of the Net which was being
proposed then by the U.S. government. Describing the two different views,
he writes:
Page 29
The picture of the Internet painted by the U.S. government has
been one of an ‘information superhighway’ or ‘information in-
frastructure’ to which people could connect, download some
data or purchase some goods, and then disconnect. This image
is very different from the … cooperative communications
forums on Usenet where everyone [was welcomed to] contrib-
ute.
Protection
Michael pointed out that both Usenet and the Internet flourished in
their early development because they were protected from commercial
use. He writes:
Usenet has not been allowed to be abused as a profit-making
venture by anyone individual or group. Rather people are
fighting to keep it a resource that is helpful to society as a
whole. (Netizens, p. 55)
Up till 1995, commercial usage was prohibited on the U.S. part of
the emerging Internet known as the NSFnet. “There were Acceptable Use
Policies (AUP) that existed because these networks were initially founded
and financed by public money.”
This protection then extended to the networks from other countries
that connected to the NSFnet. Since on the NSFnet, Michael writes,
“commercial usage was prohibited, which meant it was also discouraged
on other networks that gatewayed into the NSF net backbone.” (Netizens,
p. 29)
Recognizing the need for protection for such a medium, Michael
urges the importance of the net and of protecting the people’s ability to
develop its potential. He writes, “For the people of the world, the Net
provides a powerful means for peaceful assembly. Peaceful assembly
allows people to take control. This power deserves to be appreciated and
protected. Any medium that helps people hold or gain power is something
special that has to be protected.” (Netizens, p. 26)
Not only had government regulation provided a protection from
commercial abuse during the Net’s development, but the developing
network also provided a means for citizens to affect and influence their
governments.
Page 30
What Then for the Future?
Michael and a friend he met when he was invited to Japan proposed
a Netizens Association as a way to take up the challenges of evolving a
network that would support interactive communication and user participa-
tion. Such an association could take on the goals of the Netizen and
netizenship. It could be a help in the struggle to forge a net that will carry
on the vision of an interactive participatory network of networks that
Licklider introduced. In January 1994, Michael put together a Draft
Declaration of the Rights of Netizens which could be a starting point for
a collaboration of Netizens who are committed to the original vision for
the Internet. This vision had made it possible for the Internet to develop
an infrastructure capable of promoting vibrant interactive participation and
resource sharing before the commercialization and privatization of the
Net. Michael writes in the Draft Declaration of the Rights of Netizens:
The Net is not a Service, it is a Right. It is only valuable when
it is collective and universal. Volunteer effort protects the
intellectual and technological commonwealth that is being
created.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE NET
and NETIZENS.
Notes
1. For information about the conference and the full prepared keynote speech see Amateur
Computerist Vol. 35 No. 6, accessible at:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn35-6.pdf
2. Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet.
[Editor’s Note: The following declaration was written as a New Year’s message. It was
posted on Usenet on Jan 2, 1994* by Michael Hauben. It may have appeared earlier,
sometime in 1993. It appears just after p. 344 in the 1997 publication of Netizens: On the
History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet and online at:
https://firstmonday.org
/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/614/535.]
Proposed Declaration of the Rights of
Page 31
Netizens
We Netizens have begun to put together a Declaration of the Rights
of Netizens and are requesting from other Netizens contributions, ideas,
and suggestions of what rights should be included. Following are some
beginning ideas.
The Declaration of the Rights of Netizens:
In recognition that the net represents a revolution in human
communications that was built by a co-operative non-commercial process,
the following Declaration of the Rights of the Netizen is presented for
Netizen comment.
As Netizens are those who take responsibility and care for the Net,
the following are proposed to be their rights:
o Universal access at no or low cost
o Freedom of Electronic Expression to promote the
exchange of knowledge without fear of reprisal
o Uncensored Expression
o Access to Broad Distribution
o Universal and Equal access to knowledge and infor-
mation
o Consideration of one’s ideas on their merits
o No limitation of access to read, to post and to other-
wise contribute
o Equal quality of connection
o Equal time of connection
o No Official Spokesperson
o Uphold the public grassroots purpose and participa-
tion
o Volunteer Contribution – no personal profit from the
contribution freely given by others
o Protection of the public purpose from those who
would use it for their private and money making
purposes
The Net is not a Service, It is a Right. It is only valuable when it is
collective and universal. Volunteer effort protects the intellectual and
Page 32
technological commonwealth that is being created.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE NET and
NETIZENS
Inspiration from: RFC 3 (1969), Thomas Paine, Declaration of
Independence (1776), Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
(1789), NSF Acceptable Use Policy, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the
current cry for democracy world wide.
* The original post can be seen at:
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.politics.misc
/c/yo8e80c0_NE/m/Gr3jhbiUz5IJ where it is followed by this: “I have posted this
message to several newsgroups because it needs broad input and discussion by many
users. Please feel free to circulate this message and post follow-ups accordingly – but
please leave alt.amateur-comp and alt.culture.usenet as part of the discussion.”
[Editor’s Note: The following was written in 1995 for the Columbia University course
“Radical Tradition in America.”]
Participatory Democracy: From the
1960s and SDS into the Future Online
*
by Michael Hauben
The 1960s was a time of people around the world struggling for
more of a say in the decisions of their society. The emergence of the
personal computer in the late 70s and early 80s and the longer gestation
of the new forms of people-controlled communication facilitated by the
internet and Usenet in the late 80s and today are the direct descendants of
1960s.
The era of the 1960s was a special time in America. Masses of
people realized their own potential to affect how the world around them
worked. People rose up to protest the ways of society which were out of
their control, whether to fight against racial segregation, or to gain more
Page 33
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 communi-
cation advances coupled with the availability of computers transform the
spirit of the 1960s into an achievable goal for our times.
SDS and The Need for Participatory Democracy
The early members of SDS found a real problem in American
society. They felt that the United States was a democracy that never
existed, or rather which was transformed into a representative system after
the constitutional convention. The United States society is called a
democracy, but had ceased being democratic after the early beginnings of
American society. SDS felt it is crucial for people to have a part in how
their society is governed. SDS leaders had an understanding of democratic
forms which did not function democratically in the 1960s nor do they
today. This is a real problem which the leaders and members of SDS
intuitively understood and worked to change.
An important part of the SDS program included the understanding
of the need for a medium to make it possible for a community of active
citizens to discuss and debate the issues affecting their lives. While not
available in the 1960s, such a medium exists today in the 1990s. The seeds
for the revival of the 1960s SDS vision of how to bring about a more
democratic society now exists in the personal computer and the Net. These
seeds will be an important element in the battle for winning control for
people as we approach the new millennium.
The Port Huron Statement and Deep
Problems with American Democracy
Page 34
The Port Huron Statement was the foundation on which to build a
movement for participatory democracy in the 1960s. In June 1962, an SDS
national convention was held in a UAW camp located in the backwoods
of Port Huron, Michigan. The original text of the Port Huron Statement
was drafted by Tom Hayden, who was then SDS Field Secretary. The
Statement sets out the theory of SDS’s criticism of American society. The
Port Huron convention was itself a concrete living example of the practice
of participatory democracy.
The Port Huron Statement was originally thought of as a manifesto,
but SDS members moved instead to call it a “statement.” It was prefixed
by an introductory note describing how it was to be a document that
should develop and change with experience: “This document represents
the results of several months of writing and discussion among the
membership, a draft paper, and revision by the Students for a 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 experi-
ences. It is a beginning: in our own debate and education, in our dialogue
with society.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 329)
This note is important in that it signifies that the SDS document was
not defining the definite solution to the problems of society, but was
making suggestions that would be open to experiences toward a better
understanding. This openness is an important precursor to practicing
participatory democracy by asking for the opinions of everyone and
treating these various opinions equally.
The first serious problem inherent in American society identified by
the Port Huron Statement is the myth of a functioning democracy: “For
Americans concerned with the development of democratic societies, the
anti-colonial movements and revolutions in the emerging nations pose
serious problems. We need to face the problems with humility; after 180
years of constitutional government we are still striving for democracy in
our own society.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 361)
This lack of democracy in American society contributes to the
political disillusionment of the population. Tom Hayden and SDS were
deeply influenced by the writings of C. Wright Mills, a philosopher who
was a professor at Columbia University until his death early in 1962.
Page 35
Mills’ thesis was that the “the idea of the community of publics” which
make up a democracy had disappeared as people increasingly got further
away from politics. Mills felt that the disengagement of people from the
State had resulted in control being given to a few who in the 1960s were
no longer valid representatives of the American people. In his book about
SDS, Democracy is in the Streets, James Miller wrote: “Politics became
a spectator sport. The support of voters was marshaled through advertising
campaigns, not direct participation in reasoned debate. A citizen’s chief
sources of political information, the mass media, typically assaulted him
with a barrage of distracting commercial come-ons, feeble entertainments
and hand-me-down glosses on complicated issues.” (Miller, p. 85)
Such fundamental problems with democracy continue today in the
middle of the 1990s. In the Port Huron Statement, SDS was successful in
identifying and understanding the problems which still plague us today.
This is a necessary first step to working toward a solution. The students
involved with SDS understood people were tired of the problems and
wanted to make changes in society. The Port Huron Statement was written
to address these concerns: “… do they not as well produce a yearning to
believe there is an alternative to the present that something can be done to
change circumstances in the school, the work places, the bureaucracies,
the government? It is to this latter yearning, at once the spark and engine
of change, that we direct our present appeal. The search for a truly
democratic alternatives to the present, and a commitment to social
experimentation with them, is a worthy and fulfilling human enterprise,
one which moves us, and we hope, others today.” (Port Huron Statement
in Miller, p. 331)
Describing how the separation of people from power is the means
used to keep people uninterested and apathetic, the Port Huron Statement
explains: “The apathy is, first, subjective – the felt powerlessness of
ordinary people, the resignation before the enormity of events. But
subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective American situation – the
actual structural separation of people from power, from relevant knowl-
edge, from pinnacles of decisionmaking. Just as the university influences
the student way of life, so do major social institutions create the circum-
stances which the isolated citizen will try hopelessly to understand the
world and himself.” (“The Society Beyond” in the Port Huron Statement,
Page 36
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 without 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 frustrated
and quit going along with the electoral system as something which works.
The problem has continued, as we now have all time lows in voter turn-
outs for national and local elections. In a section titled “Politics Without
Publics,” the Statement explains: “The American voter is buffeted from
all directions by pseudo problems, 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 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 authority. The goal of man and
society should be human independence: a concern not with the image of
popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic;
a quality of mind not compulsively driven by a sense of powerlessness,
nor one which unthinkingly adopts status values, nor one which represses
all threats to its habits, but one which easily unites the fragmented parts of
Page 37
personal history, one which openly faces problems which are troubling
and unresolved; one with an intuitive awareness of possibilities, an active
sense of curiosity, an ability and willingness to learn.” (Port Huron
Statement in Miller, p. 332)
Participatory Democracy
Those participating in the Port Huron convention came away with a
sense of the importance of participatory democracy. This sense was in the
air in several ways. The convention itself embodied participatory
democracy through the discussion and debate over the text of the
Statement as several people later explained. The Port Huron State ment
called for the implementation of participatory democracy as a way to bring
people back into decisions about the country in general, and their
individual lives, in particular. One of Tom Hayden’s professors at
University of Michigan, Arnold Kaufman, came to speak about his
thoughts and use of the phrase ‘participatory democracy.’
Miller writes that in a 1960 essay, “Participatory Democracy and
Human Nature,” Kaufman had described a society in which every member
had a “direct responsibility for decisions.” The “main justifying function”
of participatory democracy, quotes Miller, “is and always has been, not the
extent to which it protects or stabilizes a community, but the contribution
it can make to the development of human powers of thought, feeling and
action. In this respect, it differs, and differs quite fundamentally, from a
representative system incorporating all sorts of institutional features
designed to safeguard human rights and ensure social order.” (Miller, p.
94)
“Participation” explained Kaufman, “means both personal initiative
– that men feel obliged to help resolve social problems – and social
opportunity – that society feels obliged to maximize the possibility for
personal initiative to find creative outlets.” (Miller, p. 95)
A participant at the Port Huron convention, Richard Flacks
remembers Arnold Kaufman speaking at the convention, “At one point, he
declared that our job as citizens was not to role-play the President. Our job
was to put forth our own perspective. That was the real meaning of
democracy – press for your own perspective as you see it, not trying to be
a statesman understanding the big picture.” (Miller, p. 111)
Page 38
After identifying participatory democracy as the means of how to
wrest control back from corporate and government bureaucracies, the next
step was to identify the means to having participatory democracy. In the
“Values” section of The Port Huron Statement, the means proposed is a
new media that would make this possible: “As a social system we seek the
establishment of a democracy of individual participation governed by two
central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determin-
ing the quality and direction of his life and the society be organized to
encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common
participation.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 333)
Others in SDS further detailed their understandings of participatory
democracy to mean people becoming active and committed to playing
more of a public role. Miller documents Al Haber’s idea of democracy as
“‘a model, another way of organizing society.’ The emphasis was on a
charge to action. It was how to be out there doing. Rather than an ideology
or a theory.” (Miller, pp. 143-144)
Tom Hayden, Miller writes, understood participatory democracy to
mean: “number one, action; we believed in action. We had behind us the
so-called decade of apathy; we were emerging from apathy. What’s the
opposite of apathy? Active participation. Citizenship. Making history.
Secondly, we were very directly influenced by the civil rights movement
in its student phase, which believed that by personally committing yourself
and taking risks, you could enter history and try to change it after a
hundred years of segregation. And so it was this element of participation
in democracy that was important. Voting was not enough. Having a
democracy in which you have an apathetic citizenship, spoon-fed
information by a monolithic media, periodically voting, was very weak,
a declining form of democracy. And we believed, as an end in itself, to
make the human being whole by becoming an actor in history instead of
just a passive object. Not only as an end in itself, but as a means to change,
the idea of participatory democracy was our central focus.” (Miller, p.
144) Another member of SDS, Sharon Jeffrey understood “Participatory”
to mean “involved in decisions.” She continued, “And I definitely wanted
to be involved in decisions that were going to affect me! How could I let
anyone make a decision about me that I wasn’t involved in?” (Miller, p.
144)
Page 39
It is important to see the value of participatory democracy as a
common understanding among both the leaders and members of SDS.
While the Port Huron Statement contained other criticisms and thoughts,
its major contribution was to highlight the need to more actively involve
the citizens of the U.S. 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 defining participatory democracy is that ‘men
must share in the decisions which effect their lives.’ In other words,
participatory democrats take seriously a vision of man as citizen: and by
taking seriously such a vision, they seek to extend the conception of
citizenship beyond the conventional political sphere to all institutions.
Other ways of stating the core values are to assert the following: each man
has responsibility for the action of the institutions in which he is embed-
ded … .” (Flacks, pp. 397-398)
The Need for Community for Participatory Democracy
The leaders of SDS strove to create forms of participatory democ-
racy within its structure and organization as a prototype and as leadership
for the student protest movement and society in general. Al Haber, the
University of Michigan graduate student who was the first SDS national
officer, describes the need for a communication system to provide the
foundation for the movement: “The challenge ahead is to appraise and
evolve radical alternatives to the inadequate society of today, and to
develop an institutionalized communication system that will give
perspective to our immediate actions. We will then have the groundwork
for a radical student movement in America.” (Sale, p. 25)
He understood the general society would be the last place to
approach. There was a need to start smaller among the elements of society
that was becoming more active in the 1960s or the students. Haber
outlined his idea of where to start: “We do not now have such a public
[interaction in a functioning community] in America. Perhaps, among the
students, we are beginning to approach it on the left. It is now the major
task before liberals, radicals, socialists and democrats. It is a task in which
the SDS should play a major role.” (Miller, p. 69)
The Port Huron Statement defines ‘community’ to mean: “Human
Page 40
relations should involve fraternity and honesty. Human interdependence
is a contemporary fact; … . ‘Personal links between man and man are
needed.’” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 332)
Prior to his full time involvement with SDS, Hayden wrote an article
for the Michigan Daily describing how democratic decision making is a
necessary first step toward creating community. Hayden’s focus was on
the University when he wrote, “If decisions are the sole work of an
isolated few rather than of a participating many, alienation from the
University complex will emerge, because the University will be just that:
a complex, not a community.” However, this sentiment persisted in
Hayden’s and others thoughts about community and democracy for the
whole country. (Miller, p. 54)
This feeling about community is represented in the Port Huron
Statement’s conclusion. The Statement calls for the communal sharing of
problems to see that they are public and not private problems. Only by
communicating and sharing these problems through a community will it
be a chance to solve them together. SDS called for the new left to
“transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt
close-up by every human being.” The statement continues, “It must give
form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so people may see
the political, social and economic sources of their private troubles and
organize to change society … .’” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 374)
The theory of participatory democracy was engaging. However, the
actual practice of giving everyone a say within the SDS structures made
the value of participatory democracy clear. The Port Huron Convention
was a real life example of how the principles were refreshing and capable
of bringing American citizens back into political process. The community
created among SDS members brought this new spirit to light. C. Wright
Mills writings spoke about “the scattered little circles of face-to-face cit-
izens discussing their public business.” Al Haber’s hope for this to happen
among students was demonstrated at Port Huron. SDS members saw this
as proof of Mills’ hope for democracy. This was to be the first example of
many among SDS gatherings and meetings. Richard Flacks highlighted
what made Port Huron special. He found a “mutual discovery of like
minds.” Flacks continued, “You felt isolated before, because you had these
political interests and values and suddenly you were discovering not only
Page 41
like minds, but the possibility of actually creating something together.” It
was also exciting because, “it was our thing: we were there at the begin-
ning.” (Miller, p. 118)
The Means For Change
SDS succeeded in doing several things. First, they clearly identified
the crucial problem in American democracy. Next, they came up with an
understanding of what theory would make a difference. All that remained
was to find the means to make this change manifest. They discovered how
to create changes in their own lives and these changes affected the world
around them. However, something more was needed to bring change to all
of American society.
Al Haber understood this something more would be an open
communication system or media which people could use to communicate.
He understood that, “the challenge ahead is to appraise and evolve radical
alternatives to the inadequate society of today, and to develop an
institutionalized communication system that will give perspective to our
immediate actions.” (Sale, p. 25) This system would lay the “the ground-
work for a radical student movement in America.” (Sale, p. 25) Haber and
Hayden understood SDS to be this, “a national 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 communication
network needed to be built to keep the public’s voice out in the open.
Members of SDS partially understood this, and put forth the
following two points in the Port Huron Statement section on “Toward
American Democracy”:
– “Mechanisms of voluntary association must be created through which
political information can be imparted and political participation encour-
aged.”
– “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)
Page 42
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 facilitate human communi-
cation in a fundamentally different way than already existing public
communications networks like the telephone or television networks. The
ARPAnet, which was a prototype for today’s internet, and Usenet, which
continues to grow and expand around the world, are parts of the Net, or the
worldwide global computer communication networks. Another important
step toward the development of an international communication network
was the personal computer movement, which took place in the middle to
late 1970s. This movement created the personal computer which makes it
affordable for an individual to purchase the means to connect to this public
network.
However, the network cannot simply be created. SDS understood
that “democracy and freedom do not magically occur, but have roots in
historical experience; they cannot always be demanded for any society at
any time, but must be nurtured and facilitated.” (Port Huron Statement in
Miller, p. 361)
Participants on the ARPAnet, internet and Usenet inherently
understood this, and built a social and knowledge network from the
ground up. As Usenet was created to help students who did not have
access to the ARPAnet, or a chance to communicate in a similar way, they
came to it in full force. In “Culture and Communication: The Interplay in
the New Public Commons,” Michael Hauben writes that the online user
is part of a global culture and considers him or she to be a global citizen.
This global citizen is a net citizen, or a Netizen. The world which has
developed is based on communal effort to make a cooperative community.
Those who have become Netizens have gained more control of their lives
and the world around them. However, access to this world needs to spread
in order to have the largest possible effect for the most number of people.
In addition, as some efforts to spread the net become more commercial,
some of the values important to the net are being challenged.
Page 43
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 anyone who
comes online, and they are especially not people who come online for
isolated gain or profit. They are not people who come to the net thinking
it is a service. Rather, they are people who understand it takes effort and
action on each and every ones part to make the net a regenerative and
vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide to
devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our world, a
better place.” (Hauben, Hypernetwork '95 speech)
The net is a technological and social development which is in the
spirit of the theory clearly defined by the Students for a Democratic
Society. This understanding could help in the fight to keep the net a
uncommercialized public common (Felsenstein). This many to many
medium provides the tools necessary to bring the open commons needed
to make participatory democracy a reality. It is important now to spread
access to this medium to all who understand they could benefit.
The net brings power to people’s lives because it is a public forum.
The airing of real problems and concerns in the open brings help toward
the solution and makes those responsible accountable to the general
public. The net is the public distribution of people’s muckraking and
whistle blowing. It is also just a damn good way for people to come
together to communicate about common interests and to come into contact
with people with similar and differing ideas.
The lack of control over the events surrounding an individual’s life
was a common concern of protesters in the 1960s. The Port Huron
Statement gave this as a reason for the reforms SDS was calling for. The
section titled “The Society Beyond” included that “Americans are in
withdrawal from public life, from any collective efforts at directing their
own affairs.” (Port Huron Statement in Miller, p. 335)
Hayden echoed C. Wright Mills when he wrote, “What experience
we have is our own, not vicarious or inherited.” Hayden continued, “We
keep believing that people need to control, or try to control, their work and
their life. Otherwise, they are without intensity, without the subjective
creative consciousness of themselves which is the root of free and secure
Page 44
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 paid the
university to educate them, should have the power to influence decisions
concerning their university lives.” (Haskins and Benson, p. 55) This desire
was also a common motivator of the personal computer movement.
The Personal Computer Movement
The personal computer movement immediately picked up after the
protest movements of the 1960s died down. Hobbyist computer enthusi-
asts wanted to provide access to computing power to the people. People
across the United States picked up circuit boards and worked on making
a personal minicomputer or mainframe which previously only large corp-
orations and educational institutions could afford. Magazines, such as
Creative Computing, Byte and Dr. Dobbs’ Journal, and clubs, such as the
Homebrew Club, formed cooperative communities of people working
toward solving the technical problems of building a personal and
inexpensive computer.
Several pioneers of the personal computer movement contributed to
the tenth anniversary issue of Creative Computing Magazine. Some of
their impressions follow: “The people involved were people with vision,
people who stubbornly clung to the idea that the computers could offer
individuals advantages previously available only to large 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 com-
puter 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 informa-
tion and power jealously guarded by the Fortune 500 owners of multimil-
lion dollar IBM mainframes. A feeling that the world would never be the
same once ‘hobby computers’ really caught on.” (Marsh, p. 110) “There
was a strong feeling [at the Homebrew Club] that we were subversives.
Page 45
We were subverting the way the giant corporations had run things. We
were upsetting the establishment, forcing our mores into the industry. I
was amazed that we could continue to meet without people arriving with
bayonets to arrest the lot of us.”
The Net and Conclusion
The development of the internet and of Usenet is an investment in a
strong force toward making direct democracy a reality. These new
technologies present the chance to overcome the obstacles preventing the
implementation of direct democracy. Online communication forums also
make possible the discussion necessary to identify today’s fundamental
questions. One criticism is that it would be impossible to assemble the
body politic in person at a single time. The net allows for a meeting which
takes place on each person’s own time, rather than all at one time. Usenet
newsgroups are discussion forums where questions are raised, and people
can leave comments when convenient, rather than at a particular time and
at a particular place. As a computer discussion forum, individuals can
connect from their own computers, or from publicly accessible computers
across the nation to participate in a particular debate. The discussion takes
place in one concrete time and place, while the discussants can be
dispersed. Current Usenet 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 communicate
peacefully after assembling. Online discussions do not have the same
characteristics as in-person meetings. As people connect to the discussion
forum when they wish, and when they have time, they can be thoughtful
in their responses to the discussion. Whereas in a traditional meeting,
participants have to think quickly to respond. In addition, online discus-
sions 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 necessary
computer and communications infrastructure are in stalled. Future
Page 46
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 participa-
tion in government. Netizens are watching various government institutions
on various newsgroups and mailing lists through out the global computer
communications network. People’s thoughts about and criticisms of their
respective governments are being aired on the currently uncensored
networks.
These networks can revitalize the concept of a democratic “Town
Meeting” via online communication and discussion. Discussions involve
people interacting with others. Voting involves the isolated thoughts of an
individual on an issue, and then his or her acts on those thoughts in a
private vote. In society where people live together, it is important for
people to communicate with each other about their situations to best
understand the world from the broadest possible view point.
The individuals involved with SDS, the personal computer move-
ment and the pioneers involved with the development of the net under-
stood they were a part of history. This spirit helped them to push forward
in the hard struggle needed to bring the movements to fruition. The
invention of the personal computer was one step that made it possible for
people to afford the means to connect to the Net. The internet has just
begun to emerge as a tool available to the public. It is important that the
combination of the personal computer and the net be spread and made
widely available at low or no costs to people around the world. It is im-
portant 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 communica-
tions medium, I encourage people to take up the struggle which continues
in the great American radical tradition.
Bibliography
Felsenstein, Lee. “The Commons of Information.” In Dr. Dobbs’ Journal. May 1993.
Flacks, Richard. “On the Uses of Participatory Democracy.” In Dissent. No. 13.
November 1966. Pp. 701-708. Reprinted in The American Left. Edited by Loren
Baritz. Pp. 397-405.
Freiberger, Paul and Michael Swaine. Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal
Page 47
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. Los Alamitos, CA. IEEE Computer Society Press. 1997. Also
available (1994):
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/net book/
Hauben, Michael. “Netizens and Community Networks.” Presentation at Hyper network
'95, Beppu Bay Conference. November 24, 1995. Beppu Bay, Oita Prefecture,
Japan.
Leyland, Diane Asher. “As We Were.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10 no. 11. November
1984. Pp. 111-112.
Marsh, Robert. “1975: Ancient History.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10 no. 11.
November 1984. Pp. 108-110.
Miller, James. Democracy is in the Streets. Simon and Schuster. New York. 1987.
Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. Vintage Books. New York, 1974.
SDS. Port Huron Statement. June 15, 1962. As found in Miller. Pp. 329-374.
Terrell, Paul. “A Guided Tour of Personal Computing.” In Creative Computing. Vol. 10
no. 11. November 1984. Pp. 100-104.
* This article is online at:
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netdemocracy-60s.txt
[Editor’s Note: This article was written in 2017. It is a revised version of a presentation
made on May 1, 2012 in honor of the 15
th
Anniversary of the print edition of the book
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. A version was published
in Rhetoric and Communications E-Journal, Issue 27 March 2017. It can be accessed at:
http://journal.rhetoric.bg /?p=1179.]
Considerations on the Significance of
the Net and the Netizens
by Ronda Hauben
Introduction
With the introduction of the Internet, the question has been raised as
to what its impact will be on society. One significant result of the impact
already is the emergence of the netizen. Michael Hauben’s work in the
Page 48
1990s recognized the significant impact not only of the development of the
Internet but also of the role of the netizen in forging new social and
political forms and processes.
While the role of netizens in working for social change has been
documented around the world, the role of netizens in working for social
and political change has been an especially important aspect of South
Korean experience for nearly the past two decades. Recently, however,
widespread political and economic corruption at the highest levels of the
South Korean society has led citizens and netizens to take part in peaceful
but massive candlelight demonstrations advocating the need for funda-
mental change in the political and economic structures of South Korean
society. The question has been raised whether there are models for such
change. In such an environment there is a need to consider the importance
of the Internet and of the Netizen in helping to forge the new forms for
grassroots participation in the governing structures of society. At such a
time it seems appropriate to consider the conceptual framework for the
role of the netizen in contributing to a new governing model for society
These developments in South Korea come at a time [2017] when the
book Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet
celebrates the 20
th
anniversary since its publication in 1997, making a
review of the significant contribution of the book particularly relevant to
the events of our time.
Looking Back
Twenty years ago in May 1997, the print edition of Netizens: On the
History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet was published in English.
Later that year, in October, a Japanese translation of the book was
published. In 2017, we are celebrating the occasion of the 20
th
Anniversary
of these publications.
In honor of this occasion I want to both look back and forward
toward trying to assess the significance of the book and of Michael
Hauben’s discovery of the emergence of the netizen. I want to begin to
consider what has happened in these 20 years toward trying to understand
the nature of this advance and the developments the advance makes
possible.
By the early 1990s, Hauben recognized that the Internet was a
Page 49
significant new development and that it would have an impact on our
world. He was curious about what that impact would be and what could
help it to be a beneficial impact. He had raised a series of questions about
the online experience. He received responses to these questions from a
number of people. Reading and analyzing the responses he explained,
There are people online who actively contribute to the devel-
opment of the Net. These people understand the value of
collective work and the communal aspects of public communi-
cations. These are the people who discuss and debate topics in
a constructive manner, who e-mail answers to people and
provide help to newcomers, who maintain FAQ files and other
public information repositories, who maintain mailing lists,
and so on. These are the people who discuss the nature and
role of this new communications medium. These are the
people who as citizens of the Net I realized were Netizens.
The book was compiled from a series of articles written by Hauben
and his co-author Ronda Hauben which were posted on the Net as they
were written and which sometimes led to substantial comments and
discussion.
The most important article in the book was Hauben’s article, “The
Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net Has on People’s Lives.” Hauben
opened the article with the prophetic words, which appeared online first
in 1993:
Welcome to the 21
st
Century. You are a Netizen (a Net
Citizen) and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to the
global connectivity that the Net makes possible. You consider
everyone as your compatriot. You physically live in one
country but you are in contact with much of the world via the
global computer network. Virtually, you live next door to
every other single Netizen in the world. Geographical separa-
tion is replaced by existence in the same virtual space.
1
Hauben goes on to explain that what he is predicting is not yet the
reality. In fact, many people around the world were just becoming
connected to the Internet during the period in which these words were
written and posted on various different networks that existed at the time.
But now twenty years after the publication of the print edition of
Page 50
Netizens, this description is very much the reality for our time and for
many it is hard to remember or understand the world without the Net.
Similarly, in his articles that are collected in the Netizens book,
Hauben looked at the pioneering vision that gave birth to the Internet. He
looked at the role of computer science in the building of the earlier
network called the ARPAnet. He looked at the potential impact that the
Net and Netizen would have on politics, on journalism, and on the
revolution in ideas that the Net and Netizen would bring about, comparing
this to the advance brought about by the printing press. The last chapter of
the book is an article Hauben wrote early on about the need for a watchdog
function over government in order to make democracy possible.
By the time the book was published in a print edition, it had been
freely available online for three years. This was a period when the U.S.
government was determined to change the nature of the Net from the
public and scientific infrastructure that had been built with public and
educational funding around the world to a commercially driven entity.
While there were people online at the time promoting the privatization and
commercialization of the Internet, the concept of netizen was embraced by
others, many of whom supported the public and collaborative nature of the
Internet and who wanted this aspect to grow and flourish.
The article “The Net and Netizens” grew out of a research project
that Hauben had done for a class at Columbia University in Computer
Ethics. Hauben was interested in the impact of the Net and so he formu-
lated several questions and sent them out online. This was a pioneering
project at the time and the results he got back helped to establish the fact
that already in 1993 the Net was having a profound impact on the lives of
a number of people.
Hauben put together the results of his research in the article “The Net
and Netizens” and posted it online. This helped the concept of netizen to
spread and to be embraced around the world. The netizen, it is important
to clarify, was not intended to describe every net user. Rather netizen was
the conceptualization of those on the Net who took up to support the
public and collaborative nature of the Net and to help it to grow and
flourish. Netizens at the time often had the hope that their efforts online
would be helpful toward creating a better world.
Hauben described this experience in a speech he gave at a conference
Page 51
in Japan. Subsequently in 1997, his description became the Preface to the
Netizens book, Hauben explained:
In conducting research five years ago online to determine
people’s uses of the global computer communications network,
I became aware that there was a new social institution, an
electronic commons, developing. It was exciting to explore
this new social institution. Others online shared this excite-
ment. I discovered from those who wrote me that the people I
was writing about were citizens of the Net or Netizens.
2
Hauben’s work which is included in the book and the subsequent
work he did recognized the advance made possible by the Internet and the
emergence of the Netizen.
The book is not only about what is wrong with the old politics, or
media, but more importantly, the implications for the emergence of new
developments, of a new politics, of a new form of citizenship, and of what
Hauben called the “poor man’s version of the mass media.” He focused on
what was new or emerging and recognized the promise for the future
represented by what was only at the time in an early stage of development.
For example, Hauben recognized that the collaborative contributions
for a new media would far exceed what the old media had achieved. “As
people continue to connect to Usenet and other discussion forums,” he
wrote, “the collective population will contribute back to the human
community this new form of news.”
3
In order to consider the impact of Hauben’s work and of the
publication of the book, both in its online form and in the print edition, I
want to look at some of the implications of what has been written since
about netizens.
Mark Poster on the Implications of the Concept of Netizen
One interesting example is in a book on the impact of the Internet
and globalization by Mark Poster, a media theorist. The book’s title is
Information Please. The book was published in 2006. While Poster does
not make any explicit reference to the book Netizens, he finds the concept
of the netizen that he has seen used online to be an important one. He
offers some theoretical discussion on the use of the “netizen” concept.
Referring to the concept of citizen, Poster is interested in the
Page 52
relationship of the citizen to government, and in the empowering of the
citizen to be able to affect the actions of one’s government. He considers
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen as a monument from
the French Revolution of 1789. He explains that the idea of the Rights of
Man was one effort to empower people to deal with governments. But this
was not adequate though the concept of the rights of the citizen, he
recognizes, was an important democratic milestone.
“Human rights and citizenship,” he writes, “are tied together and
reinforce each other in the battle against the ruling classes.”
4
He proposes
that “these rights are ensured by their inscription in constitutions that
found governments and they persist in their association with those
governments as the ground of political authority.”
5
But with the coming of what he calls the age of globalization, Poster
wonders if the concept “citizen” can continue to signify democracy. He
wonders if the concept is up to the task.
“The conditions of globalization and networked media,” he writes,
“present a new register in which the human is recast and along with it the
citizen.”
6
“The deepening of globalization processes strips the citizen of
power,” he writes. “As economic processes become globalized, the nation-
state loses its ability to protect its population. The citizen thereby loses her
ability to elect leaders who effectively pursue her interests.”
7
In this situation, “the figure of the citizen is placed in a defensive
position.”
8
To succeed in the struggle against globalization he recognizes
that there is a need to find instead of a defensive position, an offensive
one.
Also he is interested in the media and its role in this new paradigm.
“We need to examine the role of the media in globalizing practices that
construct new subjects,” Poster writes. “We need especially to examine
those media that cross national boundaries and to inquire if they form or
may form the basis for a new set of political relations.”
9
In this context, for the new media, “the important questions, rather,
are these:” he proposes, “Can the new media promote the construction of
new political forms not tied to historical, territorial powers? What are the
characteristics of new media that promote new political relations and new
political subjects? How can these be furthered or enhanced by political
action?”
10
Page 53
“In contrast to the citizen of the nation,” Poster notices, the name
often given to the political subject constituted on the Net is “netizen.”
While Poster makes it seem that the consciousness among some online of
themselves as “netizens” just appeared online spontaneously, this is not
accurate.
Before Hauben’s work, netizen as a concept was rarely if ever
referred to. The paper “The Net and Netizens” introduced and developed
the concept of “netizen.” This paper was widely circulated online.
Gradually the use of the concept of netizen became increasingly common.
Hauben’s work was a process of doing research online, summarizing the
research, analyzing it while welcoming online comments at various stages
of the process and then putting the research back online, and of people
embracing it. This was the process by which the foundation for the
concept of “netizen” was interactively established.
Considering this background, the observations that Poster makes of
how the concept of “netizen” is used online represents a recognition of the
significant role for the netizen in the future development of the body
politic. “The netizen,” Poster writes, “might be the formative figure in a
new kind of political relation, one that shares allegiance to the nation with
allegiance to the Net and to the planetary political spaces it inaugurates.”
11
This new phenomena, Poster concludes, “will likely change the
relation of forces around the globe. In such an eventuality, the figure of the
netizen might serve as a critical concept in the politics of democratiza-
tion.”
12
The Era of the Netizen
Poster characterizes the current times as the age of globalization. I
want to offer a different view, the view that we are in an era demarcated
by the creation of the Internet and the emergence of the netizen. Therefore,
a more accurate characterization of this period is as the “Era of the
Netizen.”
The years since the publication of the book Netizens have been
marked by many interesting developments that have been made possible
by the growth and development of the Internet and the spread of netizens
around the world. I will refer to a few examples to give a flavor of the kind
of developments I am referring to.
Page 54
An article by Vinay Kamat in the Reader’s Opinion section of the
Times of India referred to something I had written. Quoting the article
“The Rise of Netizen Democracy,” the Times of India article said, “Not
only is the Internet a laboratory for democracy, but the scale of participa-
tion and contribution is unprecedented. Online discussion makes it
possible for netizens to become active individuals and group actors in
social and public affairs. The Internet makes it possible for netizens to
speak out independently of institutions or officials.”
13
Kamat points to the growing number of netizens in China and India
and the large proportion of the population in South Korea who are
connected to the Internet. “Will it evolve into a fifth estate?” Kamat asks,
contrasting netizens’ discussion online with the power of the 4
th
estate, i.e.,
the mainstream media.
“Will social and political discussion in social media grow into
deliberation?” asks Kamat. “Will opinions expressed be merely ‘rabble
rousing’ or will they be ‘reflective’ instead of ‘impulsive’?”
One must recognize, Kamat explains, the new situation online and
the fact that it is important to understand the nature of this new media and
not merely look at it through the lens of the old media. What is the nature
of this new media and how does it differ from the old? This is an
important area for further research and discussion.
Looking for a Model
When visiting South Korea in 2008, I was asked by a colleague if
there is a model for democracy that could be helpful for South Korea – a
model implemented in some country, perhaps in Scandinavia. Thinking
about the question I realized it was more complex than it seemed on the
surface.
I realized that one cannot just take a model from the period before
the Internet, from before the emergence of the netizen. It is instead
necessary that models for a more democratic society or nation, in our
times, be models that include netizen participation in the society. Both
South Korea and China are places where the role not only of citizens but
also of netizens is important in building more democratic structures for the
society. South Korea appears to be the most advanced in grassroots efforts
to create examples of netizen forms for a more participatory government
Page 55
decision making process.
14
But China is also a place where there are
significant developments because of the Internet and netizens.
15
In China there have been a large number of issues that netizens have
taken up online which have then had an impact on the mainstream media
and where the online discussion has helped to bring about a change in
government policy.
In looking for other models to learn from, however, I also realized
that there is another relevant area of development. This is the actual
process of building the Net, a prototype which is helpful to consider when
seeking to understand the nature and particularity of the evolving new
models for development and participation represented in the Era of the
Netizen.
16
In particular, I want to point to a paper by the research scientist who
many computer and networking pioneers credit with providing the vision
to inspire the scientific work to create the Internet. This scientist is JCR
Licklider, an experimental psychologist who was particularly interested
in the processes of the brain and in communication research.
In a paper Licklider wrote with another psychologist, Robert Taylor,
in 1968 a vision was set out to guide the development of the Internet. The
title of the paper was “The Computer as a Communication Device.”
17
The
paper proposed that essential to the processes of communication is the
creation and sharing of models. That the human mind is adept at creating
models, but that the models created in a single mind are not helpful in
themselves. Instead it is critical that models be shared and a process of
cooperative modeling be developed in order to be able to create something
that many people will respect.
18
Nerves of Government
In his article comparing the impact of the Net with the important
impact the printing press had on society, Hauben wrote, “The Net has
opened a channel for talking to the whole world to an even wider set of
people than did printed books.”
19
I want to focus a bit on the significance
of this characteristic, on the notion that the Net has opened a communica-
tion channel available to a wide set of people.
In order to have a conceptual framework to understand the impor-
tance of this characteristic, I recommend the book by Karl Deutsch titled,
Page 56
The Nerves of Government. In the preface to this book, Deutsch writes:
This book suggests that it might be preferable to look upon
government somewhat less as a problem of power and some-
what more as a problem of steering; and it tries to show that
steering is decisively a matter of communication.
20
To look at the question of government not as a problem of power,
but as one of steering, of communication, I want to propose is a fundamen-
tal paradigm shift.
What is the difference?
Political power has to do with the ability to exert force on something
so as to affect its direction and action. Steering and communication,
however, are related to the process of the transmission of a signal through
a channel. The communication process is one related to whether a signal
is transmitted in a manner that distorts the signal or whether it is possible
to transmit the signal accurately. The communication process and the
steering that it makes possible through feedback mechanisms are an
underlying framework to consider in seeking to understand what Deutsch
calls the “Nerves of Government.”
According to Deutsch, a nation can be looked at as a self-steering
communication system of a certain kind and the messages that are used to
steer it are transmitted via certain channels.
Some of the important challenges of our times relate to the exposure
of the distortions of the information being spread. For example, the
misrepresentations by the mainstream media about what happened in
Libya in 2011 or what has been happening in Syria since 2011.
21
The
creation and dissemination of channels of communication that make
possible “the essential two-way flow of information” are essential for the
functioning of an autonomous learning organization, which is the form
Deutsch proposes for a well-functioning system.
To look at this phenomenon in a more practical way, I want to offer
some considerations raised in a speech given to honor a Philippine
librarian, a speech given by Zosio Lee. Lee refers to the kind of informa-
tion that is transmitted as essential to the well being of a society. In
considering the impact of netizens and the form of information that is
being transmitted, Lee asks the question, “How do we detect if we are
Page 57
being manipulated or deceived?”
22
The importance of this question, he explains, is that, “We would not
have survived for so long if all the information we needed to make valid
judgments were all false or unreliable.” Also, he proposes that “informa-
tion has to be processed and discussed for it to acquire full meaning and
significance.”
23
“When information is free, available and truthful, we are
better able to make appropriate judgments, including whether existing
governments fulfill their mandate to govern for the benefit of the people,”
Lee writes.
24
In his article “The Computer as a Democratizer,” Hauben similarly
explores the need for accurate information about how government is
functioning. He writes, “Without information being available to them, the
people may elect candidates as bad as or worse than the incumbents.
Therefore, there is a need to prevent government from censoring the
information available to people.”
25
Hauben adds that, “The public needs accurate information as to how
their representatives are fulfilling their role. Once these representatives
have abused their power, the principles established by [Thomas Paine] and
[James] Mill require that the public have the ability to replace the
abusers.”
26
Channels of accurate communication are critical in order to share the
information needed to determine the nature of one’s government.
27
Conclusion
The candlelight revolution is still in process in South Korea. It is
demonstrating in practice that we are in a period when the old forms of
government are outmoded. The paper by Licklider and Taylor proposes
that the computer is a splendid facilitator for cooperative modeling. It is
such a process of cooperative modeling that offers the potential for
creating not only new technical and institutional forms, but also new
political forms. Such new political forms are more likely to provide for the
democratic processes that are needed for the 21
st
century. Hence it is the
efforts of citizens and netizens who are involved in collaborative modeling
to create the more participatory forms and structures as is happening
during the candlelight processes being explored in South Korea that
provide for the development of a more equitable and democratic society.
28
Page 58
Bibliography
Deutsch, K. (1966). Nerves of Government. New York: The Free Press, New York.
Hauben, Michael & Hauben, Ronda. (1997). Netizens: On the History and Impact of
Usenet and the Internet. Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society Press. Online
edition:
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120, Retrieved on Jan. 11, 2017.
Hauben, Ronda. (2005). The Rise of Netizen Democracy: A Case Study of Netizens’
Impact on Democracy in South Korea. Unpublished paper. Retrieved from
http://www.columbia .edu/~hauben/ronda2014/Rise_of_Netizen_Democracy .pdf,
Retrieved on Jan. 11, 2017.
Komat, V. (2011, December 16, p. 2). Reader’s Opinion: We’re Looking at the Fifth
Estate, Times of India. Retrieved from
page/ampnbspWe-are-looking-at-the-fifth-estate/articleshow/11133662.cms ,
Retrieved on Jan. 11, 2017.
Lee, Z. E. (2011) Truthfulness and the Information Revolution, Journal of Philippine
Librarianship, 31, 101-109.
File /2779/2597. Retrieved on Jan. 11, 2017.
Licklider, JCR, & Taylor, R. The Computer as a Communication Device (1968, April)
Science and Technology.
http:// memex.org/licklider.pdf, 21-41. Retrieved Jan. 21,
2017.
Poster, M. (2006). Information Please. Durham: Duke University Press.
Notes
1. Hauben, M., R. Hauben. (1997). Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and
the Internet. Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society Press, p. 3. Also online in an earlier
draft version,
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/. Retrieved on Jan. 18, 2017.
2. IBID., p. ix.
3. IBID., p. 233.
4. Poster, M., (2006). Information Please. Durham: Duke University Press, p.68.
5. IBID.
6. IBID., p. 70.
7. IBID., p. 71.
8. IBID.
9. IBID., p. 77.
10. IBID., p. 78.
11. IBID.
12. IBID., p. 83.
13. Kamat, V. (2011, December 16). “We are looking at the Fifth Estate.” Reader’s
Opinion, Times of India, p. 2.
http://timesofindia .indiatimes.com/edit-page/ampnbspWe-
are-looking-at-the-fifth-estate/articleshow/11133662.cms, Retrieved 0n Jan. 10, 2017. The
quote is taken from, Hauben, R. The Rise of Netizen Democracy: A Case Study of
Page 59
/other/misc/korean-democracy.txt, Retrieved on Jan. 10, 2017.
14. In South Korea there are many interesting examples of new organizational forms or
events created by netizens. For example, Nosamo combined the model of an online fan
club and off line gathering of supporters who worked to get Roh Moo-hyun elected as
President in South Korea in 2002. Also, OhmyNews, an online newspaper, helped to make
the election of Roh Moo-hyun possible. Science mailing lists and discussion networks
contributed to by netizens helped to expose the fraudulent scientific work of a leading
South Korean scientist. And in 2008 there were 106 days of candlelight demonstrations
contributed to by people online and off to protest the South Korean government’s
adoption of a weakened set of regulations about the import of poorly inspected U.S. beef
into South Korea. The debate on June 10-11, 2008 over the form the demonstration
should take involved both online and offline discussion and demonstrated the generative
nature of serious communication. See for example, Hauben, R. “On Grassroots
Journalism and Participatory Democracy.”
http://wwwcolumbia.edu/~rh120/other/net
izens_draft.pdf, Retrieved on Jan. 10, 2017.
15. Some examples include the Anti-CNN web site that was set up to counter the
inaccurate press reports in the western media about the riot in Tibet. The murder case of
a Chinese waitress who killed a Communist Party official in self defense. The case of the
Chongqing Nail House and the online discussion about the issues involved. See for
example Hauben, R. (2010, February 14). “China in the Era of the Netizen.”
https://blogs.taz.de/china_in _the_era_of_the_netizen/, Retrieved on Jan. 10, 2017.
16. IBID., Netizens.
17. “The Computer as a Communication Device.” (1968, April) Science and Technology.
http://memex.org/licklider.pdf, 21-41. Retrieved Jan. 21, 2017.
18. The Licklider and Taylor paper also points out that the sharing of models is essential
to facilitate communication. If two people have different models and do not find a way
to share them, there will be no communication between them.
19. IBID., Netizens, p. 299
20. Deutsch, K. (1966). Nerves of Government. New York: The Free Press, p. xxvii.
21. See for example, Hauben, Ronda. (2012, Winter). “Libya, the UN and Netizen
Journalism,” The Amateur Computerist, Vol. 21, no. 1.
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn
/ACn21-1.pdf, Retrieved Jan. 10, 2017 and Hauben, Jay. (2007). “On the 15
th
Anniversary
of Netizens: Netizens Expose Distortions and Fabrication.” http://www.columbia.edu
/~hauben/Book_Anniversary/presentation_2 .doc, Retrieved on Jan. 10, 2017.
22. Lee, Z. (2011). “Truthfulness and the Information Revolution.” JPL 31, p. 105.
23. IBID., p. 106.
24. IBID., p. 108.
25. IBID., Netizens, p. 316.
26. IBID., Netizens, p. 317.
27. Hauben explains: “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.” (Netizens, Chapter 18, p. 316)
28. Hauben, Ronda. (2016, December 21). “Ban Ki-moon’s Idea of Leadership or the
Page 60
moons-idea-of-leadership-or-the-candlelight-model-for-more-democracy.
[Editor’s Note: The following is an expanded and updated version of a paper prepared for
the IFIP-WG 9.2/9.5 Working Conference on Culture and Democracy Revisited in the
Global Information Society, May 8-10, 1997, Corfu (Greece). A version appears as
Chapter 17, in An Ethical Global Information Society: Culture and Democracy Revisited,
Jacques Berleur and Diane Whitehouse, Editors, IFIP, 1997, pp. 197-202.]
Culture and Communication:
The Impact of the Internet on the
Emerging Global Culture
by Michael Hauben
Any document that attempts to cover an emerging culture is
doomed to be incomplete. Even more so if the culture has no
overt identity (at least none outside virtual space). But the
other side of that coin presents us with the opportunity to
document the ebb and flow, the moments of growth and defeat,
the development of this young culture. (John Frost, Cyber-
poet’s Guide to Virtual Culture, 1993)
ABSTRACT
As we approached the new millennium, social relationships were changing
radically. Even in 1969, the anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote of an
“approaching worldwide culture.” While she wrote of a global culture
made possible by the electronic and transportation advances of her day,
her words actually foresaw fundamental changes that have been substan-
tially enhanced by the computer communication networks that were just
beginning. A new culture is being formed out of a universal desire for
communication. This culture is partly formed and formulated by new
technology and by social desires. People are dissatisfied with their
conditions, whether traditional or modern. Much of the new communica-
tion technology facilitates new global connections. This article will
Page 61
explore the emerging culture and the influence of the net on this new
participatory global culture.
I. – The Emerging Globalization of Everyday Life
The concept of a global culture arises from the extensive develop-
ment of transportation and communication technologies in the twentieth
century. These developments have linked the world together in ways
which make it relatively simple to travel or communicate with peoples and
cultures around the world. The daily exposure of the world’s peoples to
various cultures makes it impossible for almost any individual to envision
the world consisting of only his or her culture (Mead, 1978, p. 69). We
really are moving into a new global age which affects most aspects of
human life. For example, world trade has become extensive, more and
more words are shared across languages, people are aware of political
situations around the world and how these situations affect their own, and
sports and entertainment are viewed simultaneously by global audiences.
The exposure to media and forms of communication helps spread many of
these cultural elements. While television and radio connect people with the
rest of the world in a rather removed and often passive fashion, computer
networks are increasingly bringing people of various cultures together in
a much more intimate and grassroots manner. A global culture is
developing, and the Internet is strongly contributing to its development.
Culture is a difficult concept to define. Tim North has gathered six
different definitions in his unpublished Masters thesis:
1. Culture: The shared behavior learned by members of a society, the way
of life of a group of people (Barnouw, 1987, p. 423).
2. A culture is the way of life of a group of people, the complex of shared
concepts and patterns of learned behavior that are handed down from one
generation to the next through the means of language and imitation
(Barnouw, 1987, p. 4).
3. Culture: The set of learned behaviors, beliefs, attitudes and ideals that
are characteristic of a particular society or population (Ember and Ember,
1990, p. 357).
4. Culture … taken in its wide ethnographic sense is that complex whole
that includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of a society (Tyler,
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1871; cited in Harris 1988, p. 122).
5. Culture: The customary manner in which human groups learn to
organize their behavior in relation to their environment (Howard, 1989, p.
452).
6. Culture (general): The learned and shared kinds of behavior that make
up the major instrument of human adaption. Culture (particular): The way
of life characteristic of a particular human society (Nanda, 1991, p. G-3).
(North, 1994, chapter 4.2.1)
One common category in some of these definitions is the passing of
previously learned behavior from one generation to the next. Another
common category in North’s definitions of culture is the importance of
experience and patterns of behavior being shared among a group of
people.
Historically, during most periods, culture has changed slowly and
has been passed on from generation to generation. In the last half of the
twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, for most
peoples the normal rate of cultural evolution has been accelerating. Mead
(1978, p. 64) writes that while in the past, culture was transmitted from the
older generation to the younger with slow change from generation to
generation, today the younger generation learn from both their elders and
their peers. The learning from peers is then shared with their elders.
Human culture gets set by how people live their lives (Graham, 1995).
Culture is created and re-enforced through how that person lives in context
of society and social movements. One is taught the culture of his or her
society while growing up, but those perceptions change as he or she
matures, develops and lives an adult life. Culture is not statically defined.
Rather a person grows up into a culture and then can contribute to its
change as time progresses. (Mead, 1956)
People are increasingly living a more global lifestyle, whether
mediated through television, radio and newspapers, travel or actual
experience. This global experience is facilitated by the ability of the
individual to interact with people from other cultures and countries on a
personal level. Images and thoughts available via mass media show that
other cultures exist. But when people actually get a chance to talk and
interact, then the differences become less of an oddity and more of an
opportunity (Uncapher, 1992). Professor Dennis Sumara observes the
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formation of self-identity is influenced by relations with others. He writes:
The sense of self-identity … emerges … from our symbiotic
relations with others. In coming to know others we learn about
ourselves. It is important to note, however, that it is not a static
or unified self that we come to know, for in the coming-to-
know – we are changed. We evolve through our relations with
others … . (Sumara, 1996, p. 56) That implies that people and
cultures change from the interaction with other people’s
cultures. This new interaction and subsequent change is part of
the formation of a global culture.
There are critics (Appadurai, 1990: etc.) who claim this global
culture, or mass culture is snuffing out individual differences for a pre-
packaged commercial culture. These critics call for the isolation of
communities from each other so that uniqueness can be preserved. This
criticism misses that human culture is a dynamic element of society, and
freezing it would produce a museum of human society. Uncapher (1992)
correctly points out that what these critics do not recognize is that more
and more people of various cultures are understanding the power of the
new communication technologies. More and more people are reacting
against the mass media and corporate dominance and calling for a chance
to express their views and contribute their culture into the global culture.
As an example, Margaret Mead tells a story (1978, pp 5-6) of returning to
a village in New Guinea which she had visited three decades earlier. She
wrote:
In the 1930s, when one arrived in a New Guinea village, the
first requests were for medicine … and for trade goods. The
European was expected to bring material objects from the
outside world … but in 1967 the first conversation went:
“Have you got a tape recorder?”
“Yes, why?”
“We have heard other people’s singing on the radio and we
want other people to hear ours.” (Mead, 1978, p. 5)
The presence of radios made the villagers aware of the music of
others, and they wanted a part of their culture broadcast around the world.
Mead understood the importance of diversity to the survival and
strength of a species, whether human or animal. However, she also
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understood that part of the global commonality was through the spread of
scientific understandings and technological developments. The desire for
technology is strong among those who have only heard about their
advantages. She wrote, “People who have only seen airplanes in the sky
and heard the wonderful ways of radio, satellites, telescopes, microscopes,
engines, and script are eager to experience these things for themselves.”
(Mead, 1978, p. 121)
The Internet is one of the new technological advances of today, and
can be seen to fit with the above examples but for more advanced
societies. It is important to understand that coupled with the desire for the
technological advances is the understanding of the need to control the
introduction of such technology and participate to have its use benefit the
particular peoples in their particular needs. The peoples of the world
understand that with the implementation of technology comes a responsi-
bility for the management and careful handling of that technology. Mead
writes about this:
… the very burgeoning of science that has resulted in world-
wide diffusion of a monotonous modern culture has also
stimulated people throughout the world to demand participa-
tion. And through this demand for participation in the benefits
of a monotonous, homogeneous technology, we have actually
generated new ways to preserve diversity. (Mead, 1978, pp.
153-154)
Even in the primitive communities that Mead studied in the Pacific
Islands, she recorded that these people adopted democracy and the use of
technology with their own variations and new aspects that served their
own needs. The new advances in communication technologies facilitate
new democratic processes. People are discovering new ways to participate
and add their cultural contributions to a larger world. Efforts to communi-
cate require the acceptance of technological standards and the building of
a common technical framework. The growth of communications networks
and standards at the same time allows diverse cultures to share and spread
their varying cultures with others.
II. – Global Contact over Computer Networks
The new media of forums, newsgroups, email, chat rooms, blogs,
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webpages and social media on the internet facilitate the growth of global
interactive communities. These electronic communication forms are made
available through community networks, universities, the workplace,
portals and internet access providers (Hauben & Hauben, 1997, p. 8).
Human culture is ever evolving and developing, and the new public
commons that these technologies make possible is of a global nature. A
growing number of people are coming together online and living more
time of their daily lives with people from around the world. Through the
sharing of these moments by people, their cultures are coming to
encompass more of the world not before immediately available. Mead
(1978, p. 88) understood that a global community and awareness would
require the development of a new kind of communication that depended
on the participation of those who previously had no access to such power
or such a voice.
Newsgroups and forums are a relatively young medium of human
discourse and communication. The Usenet technology, one of the first
broad newsgroup networks, was developed by graduate students in the late
1970s as a way to promote the sharing of information and to spread
communication between university campuses. Their design highlighted the
importance of the contribution by individuals to the community. The
content of Usenet was produced by members of the community for the
whole of the community. Active participation was required for Usenet to
have anything available on it. It was the opposite of a for-pay service that
provides content and information. On Usenet, the users produced the
content, i.e., talk, debate, discussion, flames, reportage, nonsense, and
scientific breakthroughs filled the space. Usenet was a public communica-
tions technology framework which was open. The users participated in
determining what newsgroups were created, and then filled those
newsgroups with messages that were the content of Usenet. In forming
this public space, or commons, people were encouraged to share their
views, thoughts, and questions with others (Hauben & Hauben, 1997, p.
4). The chance to contribute and interact with other people spread Usenet
to become a truly global community of people hooking their computers
together to communicate. People both desire to talk and to communicate
with other people (Graham, 1995; Woodbury, 1994). Usenet was created
to make that communication happen. In time it also gave a public voice to
Page 66
those who would not have had the opportunity otherwise to have their
voice heard. By promoting a democratic medium, these graduate students
who created Usenet were helping to create the kind of medium Mead
believed was an important condition toward the development of a global
culture.
In a study about the global online culture, Tim North (1994, chapter
5.2) asked the question “is there an online culture and society on Usenet?”
His conclusion was that there was a definite Usenet culture. He listed four
of the important defining aspects of this unique online culture:
1. The conventions of the culture are freely discussed.
2. The culture is not closed to outsiders and welcomes new
members.
3. There is a strong sense of community within the Net culture.
4. It’s what you say, not who you are.
North described the Usenet culture as open and welcoming of
newcomers even if there was an occasional unfriendliness to “newbies.”
He focused on how the online culture was documented and available so
newcomers could figure out how the community functioned and more
easily join it. But also not only was the documentation available online to
learn from, it was open for discussion.
Another researcher in the 1990s, Bruce Jones described the fullness
of net culture:
… the Usenet network of computers and users constitutes a
community and a culture, bounded by its own set of norms and
conventions, marked by its own linguistic jargon and sense of
humor and accumulating its own folklore. (p. 2)
Jones elaborates on what he saw to be an egalitarian tendency or
tendency to contribute to the community’s benefit. Jones wrote:
… the people of the net owe something to each other. While
not bound by formal, written agreements, people nevertheless
are required by convention to observe certain amenities
because they serve the greater common interest of the net.
These aspects of voluntary association are the elements of
culture and community that bind the people of Usenet together.
(p. 4)
While North proposed that Usenet was a distinct culture, he argued
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that it could not be considered a separate society. Rather Usenet was “a
superstructural society that spans many mainstream societies and is
dependent upon them for its continued existence” (North, 1994, chap.
4.2.2).
North argued that the Net does not need to provide the physical
needs made possible by a society. He wrote:
In this superstructural view, the Net is freed of the responsibili-
ties of providing certain of the features provided by other
societies (e.g., reproduction, food and shelter) by virtue of the
fact that its members are also members of traditional mains-
tream societies that do supply them. (North, 1994, chap. 4.2.2)
Rather, those who use the Net live in their daily offline society, and
come to the Net for reasons other than physical needs. Others (Avis, 1995;
Graham, 1995; Jones, 1991) also studied this new online culture and its
connection to the growing global culture. They saw there are a distinct
online culture and a distinct offline global culture. While the online culture
strongly contributes to the developing global culture offline, it is not the
sole contributing factor. The contribution of the online culture to the
global culture through such technologies as forums and electronic mailing
lists is important as the online media requires participation of the users to
exist. Since as media forums, newsgroups and social websites encourage
participation, they support the contributions of many diverse people and
cultures to the broader global culture.
Both the technological design of opening one’s computer up to
accept contributions of others and the desire to communicate led to the
creation of an egalitarian culture (Jones, 1991; North, 1994; Woodbury,
1994). People have both a chance to introduce and share their own culture
and a chance to broaden themselves through exposures to various other
cultures. As such, the online culture is an example of a global culture
which is not a reflection of purely one culture. Instead, it both incorporates
cultural elements from many nations and builds a new culture (North,
1994). Self-identity evolves through relations with others. (Sumara, 1996,
p.56) The new connections between people of different cultures allows
each culture to broaden itself based on the new understandings available
from other places; culture changes through the exchange with new ways
of understanding and life. And this change and shared changes gets shared
Page 68
around the world.
III. – Community Networks Making Online Access
Available
Being a relatively young medium, the Net is available to a subset of
the world. However, this is rapidly changing. Projects are extending the
connections to undeveloped countries and the basic technology needed to
gain access is as simple as a computer and modem connected to the local
telephone or amateur radio network or use of Internet connectivity
available from an Internet service provider. More and more people around
the world are getting online via mobile devices. Another hurdle to
overcome is technical training. However, the democratic ethos of the Net
spreads through the help that users offer each other online. A large number
of people who are on the Net want more people to be able to use computer
technology. Many are helpful and take the time and effort to spread their
knowledge to others who desire to learn. Similarly everyone online at one
point was new and learning. This experience of “newbie”ness provides a
common heritage to unite people. The problems encountered in implemen-
ting and using new technology encourages people to connect to others
using the technology. This is an incentive to hook into the Internet where
such people can be contacted. The commonality of people participating in
the same technology creates a basis to develop commonality toward other
interests.
Community networks in the 1990s provided a way for citizens of a
locality to hook into these global communities for little or no cost
(Graham, 1995). Community networks also provided a way for communi-
ties to truly represent themselves to others connected online (Graham,
1995; Weston, 1994). Without access made available through community
networks, through publicly available computer terminals or local dial-in
phone numbers, only those who could have afforded the cost of a
computer and the monthly charges of commercial Internet service
providers (ISPs) or online services or who had access through work or
school would represent themselves (Avis, 1995). Particular portraits of
various cultures would thus be only partially represented. Also, when
access is available and open to all, a greater wealth of contributions can be
Page 69
made. For example, there was a strong push in Canada and Canadian
communities to get online. A lot of grassroots community network
building took place. A Canadian national organization, Telecommunities
Canada, stressed the importance of contributing Canada’s various cultures
to the online community and in this way made a contribution to the whole
community (Graham, 1995; Weston, 1994). In a similar way, Izumi Aizu
(1995, p. 6) says that Japan had “an opportunity to bring its own cultural
value to the open world.” He continues, “It also opens the possibility of
changing Japan into a less rigid, more decentralized society, following the
network paradigm exercised by the distributed nature of the Internet itself”
(Aizu, 1995, p. 6).
There is something to be said about the attraction of representing
one’s self to the greater community. The many-to-many form of communi-
cation where an individual can broadcast to the community and get re-
sponses back from other individuals is an empowering experience. No
longer do you have to be rich and powerful to communicate broadly to
others and to represent yourself and your own views. This power is mak-
ing it possible for individuals to communicate with others of similar and
differing interests around the world. Grass-roots organization is boosted
and even the formation of local community groups is all accelerated.
Development of the commons to the exclusion of the big media represen-
tations makes this an electronic grassroots medium, or a new enlarged
public commons (Felsenstein, 1993).
The online culture is primarily a written one, but there are an
increasing number of videos and podcasts, although much of the text is
written generally in an informal, almost off-the-cuff fashion. While people
will post papers and well thought-out ideas, much of the conversation is
generated in an immediate response to others’ messages. This text can feel
like a conversation, or a written version of oral culture. Stories akin to the
great stories of the pre-history come about. Legends and urban myths
circulate and are disseminated (Jones, 1991). Pictures and other non-text
items can be posted or sent in messages. These nontext items are primarily
transferred and not modified, thought upon or communally worked on as
are the textual ideas, but the comments often resemble a conversation.
Graphics and graphical communication and collaboration occur more on
websites, although they are still a less effective communication medium.
Page 70
The common shared online language was in the beginning English (Aizu).
That has changed. Other languages exist in country hierarchies and
newsgroups and in mailing lists, along with chat rooms, search engines
and web pages. Moreover, all these developments, textual or graphic or
video, make possible a global conversation of diverse views. Mead
recognizes that “True communication is a dialogue.” (Mead, 1978, p.77)
She points out that real communication occurs “… in a world in which
conflicting points of view, rather than orthodoxies, are prevalent and
accessible.” (Mead, 1978, p. 80)
IV. – Conclusion
The new global culture is forming in several ways, none of which is
a generic corporate rubber stamp. People are taking charge. They are
bringing their own cultures into the global culture and spreading this new
culture around the world. This is taking on a general form and an online
form. The online form provides a strong means by which people can
spread their ideas and culture which in turn affects the broader global
culture. This broader global culture also has an effect on newsgroups or
online media. The ability to express oneself to the rest of the world is
addictive and the rapid increase of new people joining the online global
community makes that manifest. “The voice-less and the oppressed in
every part of the world have begun to demand more power … . The secure
belief that those who knew had authority over those who did not has been
shaken” (Mead, 1978, p.5). Mead states later, “There are new technologi-
cal conditions within which a new initiative for the human race is possible.
But it will not be found without a vision.” To the former call for brother-
hood and sisterhood or of loyalty to kin and one’s ancestors, Mead
proposes, “we can now add a vision of a planetary community.” She
explains that “Within such a vision, the contributions of each culture …
can become complementary.” However, Mead emphasizes, “but within the
new vision there must be no outsiders.” (pp. 147-148)
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