From the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), Sunday 10/26/97 issue, p. 14.
 
                            Netizens
                    Michael and Ronda Hauben
 
There are new groups of people who are called Netizens or 
networkers emerging in Japan due to the popularity of the 
Internet.  These are a new species of Homo sapiens who can use 
the PC on their own and can express themselves through the 
Net. Netizens is the name of citizens who live on the Net. 
 
According to the authors of the book Netizens, there are two 
different uses of the word. One in general are working users of 
the Internet and the other are the people who work cooperatively 
with all the people on the Net and coordinate the work they do 
all over the world through the Net. This book focuses on the 
latter group. The authors find the evidence through the Net to 
explain how these Netizens behave and why the Internet has become 
so popular.
 
The Internet was started by the United States Department of Defense
ARPA project for the purpose of defending the country. But through 
that process they had noticed that a special kind of human relationship
or human interaction developed through the Net. In other words, on the
Internet people become more elegant than they are and are drawn to each
other more strongly than they are in society. The authors found these
characteristics in Usenet which is the grass roots of the Internet at a
younger stage. They give a detailed analysis of it. Other people say 
that the coming down of the Berlin Wall was brought about by the mass
media, such as TV, but the authors point out that the Internet had 
already helped the revolution even at that time. The authors say on the 
Internet individuals send and receive the information which is more 
democratic and becomes a stronger power than the mass media which is 
controlled by a small group of people.
 
Shumpei Kumon, Director of the Global Communications Institute at 
the International University gives the translation of Netizens as 
"wisdom people". He uses the analogy with the role of citizens 
that contributed to industrialization. He says netizens are the 
people who are taking on to make the Information Revolution. By 
reading this book the readers in Japan will be able to learn how
they can hear the voice from Netizens for today's administrative 
reforms.

Translated by Hiroki Inoue and [  ] Koayashi
Published Tokyo: Chuokoron-Sha, 1997
Reviewed by Waichi Sekiguchi, a senior staff writer of Nikkei Newspaper.