Can the Internet Change Politics?
                      Netizens and the New News
                                by Ronda Hauben

The debate over the Internet and its potential rages on, both in the US,
and around the world. Will the Internet make it possible for people to
have a greater impact on their society and the decisions made by the
political officials? Or is the Internet a new way to maintain the old
institutions and power alignments? This is a question that is being
explored around the globe. One of the most contested terrains is the news
media. It exerts a significant impact on political processes and
institutional forms. Can the Internet make it possible for citizens to
have more control over the news media and their political institutions and
officials? In a year when the eyes of the world are focused on the
upcoming 2004 Presidential election in the US the question of who controls
the news, and what is the news that people want and need is a question in
the minds of many.

In their book Politics As Usual, Michael Margolis and David Resnick
explore whether the Internet has the potential to impact politics.(1) They
begin a chapter in their book with a quote about the growing impact of the
Internet. They quote the co-author of Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet(2), Michael Hauben. Hauben writes(3):

   People on-line are excited, and this is not an exaggeration. The
   various discussion forums connected to the global computer
   communications network (or the Net) are the prototype for a new
   public form of communication. This new form of human communication
   will either supplement the current forms of News or replace them.

This quote is from a talk presented at the Internet Society conference in
1996 in Montreal, Canada, and subsequently printed as a chapter in
Netizens. He is describing the potential impact the Internet can have on
the traditional news media and the new form of news media that is
developing online. The salient aspect of this new media is the fact that
people online are finding their own contributions are appreciated by
others as part of the news that is being spread around the world. Hauben
explains:

   The very concept of news is being reinvented as people come to realize
   that they can provide the news about the environment they live in; that
   people can contribute their real-life conditions and this information
   proves worthwhile for others.
                             Netizens, p. 227

Margolis and Resnick then present a quote from another book which
describes how the "Net is changing" and how it is becoming more like the
mainstream news media. They ask, "Are the public forums of the Haubens'
'excited' people online... likely to compete successfully with the
established media by presenting alternative sources and interpretations of
political and civic affairs?... We believe the answer is 'No'."(Margolis,
p.103) These political science professors challenge the potential of the
Internet to change the form of media and politics of our society.  In
practice, however, there are others who are exploring how the Internet can
change politics and the important aspect of politics, the press.

The February 15, 2003 anti-war demonstrations around the world
demonstrated the frustration of people on a global scale. Millions of
people worldwide wanted a way to influence the political decision making
processes in their own countries and in the US. The demonstrations also
showed that the Internet makes it possible for people opposed to a US
policy to protest publicly in a coordinated way. They made it clear there
was a worldwide opposition to the US policy on Iraq. The US government's
public response was to claim that it does not make policy via "focus
groups". This global coordinated series of demonstrations was something
very different from the business practice of focus groups, of sampling
people's views by paying them to attend.

II - Netizens Unite - Debating the Planned US Invasion of Iraq

In early March 2003, a few weeks before the US led invasion of Iraq, the
Times of India published an editorial "Netizens Unite". In it they present
the divisions they observed developing from the US's Iraq policy.  They
describe the division between people around the world and the actions of
their governments. They also document the division between the policy of
the US government and other governments. Explaining these divisions, the
editors write:

    First, between the few friendly governments that support its
    unilateral action and the many that don't. And second between
    officialdom on the one hand and the people on the other....
                                   Times of India, March 4, 2003

The editors ask what "those around the world who oppose this mindless
militarism (can) do other than feel powerless?" They invite users to
register their response to the war online in the discussion forum area
they provide: "To voice your views, log on no-war.indiatimes.com."

An extensive online discussion and debate follows in response to the
editorial. There were probably over a 1000 posts. There is discussion
between users supporting a war against Iraq, and users opposing such a
war.  Those opposing a war, discuss what India should do in the situation.
Subsequently, the Indian government refused to send troops to support the
attack on Iraq, as did a number of other countries. This occurred despite
the pressure from the US government to provide support for the war.

It can be argued that such extensive discussion creates a form of public
sphere in the sense that the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas describes
as having played a critical role in the past in helping to make needed
political change.(4) The Times of India editorial and the ensuing online
discussion suggests that perhaps Margolis and Resnick have been too quick
to declare the end of the promise the Internet portends for changing
politics and news as we know them.

One of the many posts to the Times of India no-war forum provides a taste
of the dissatisfaction among people around the world with the actions of
the US government. The post explains:

    Its so unfortunate that Bush thinks he can do whatever he
    wishes... Look at what he is doing in Iraq. Destroying the
    country illegitimately and then pretending to reconstruct
    by paying off with Iraq's own money. Unbelievable? Bush is
    pretty clever at that. He [is] actually trying to save his
    presidency for the 2004 elections by using the tax-payers'
    money to impress them with shock and awe.... I just hope
    American citizens... get him out in 2004.
                              jaccyn30_us
                              Tuesday June 17, 2003

The sentiment expressed in this post and others, in the Times of India
forum, gives a sense of the frustration experienced by many abroad and in
the US with the lack of a means to affect the decisions made by the US
government.

III - Netizens or Will the Net Provide a Grassroots Voice?

The editors of the Times of India refer to users online as "netizens"  in
their editorial "Netizens, Unite".

An article posted to the Net in July 1993, describes netizens and was
influential in helping the concept spread around the world. The
introduction to the article exclaims:

   Welcome to the 21st 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...  People now have the ability to broadcast
   their observations and have other people respond. The computer
   networks form a new grassroots connection that allows excluded
   sections of society to have a voice. (Netizens, p. 4)

This quote is part of a longer article, posted online in three parts,
titled "Common Sense: The Net and Netizens:" It was written as a summary
of the research done by Hauben as a college student in 1992-1993. It is
now ten years after this initial post. The question of the potential of
the Internet to allow the "excluded sections of society to have a voice"
continues to be debated by writers, and explored by media and Internet
activists. As a result, there are a number of interesting examples that
have emerged over time.


IV - OhmyNews and its citizen reporters

There are several online newspapers which have welcomed netizens to
discuss articles they print, like the Times of India. There are also
online media which encourage netizens to write articles. One such example,
is OhmyNews in South Korea. A netizens movement in South Korea led on
December 19, 2002 to Roh Moo- hyun winning the Presidency, despite the
fact that he had not been part of mainstream Korean politics before the
presidential election.

Influential in this netizens movement is a form of online journalism that
has provided a significant challenge to the traditional conservative South
Korean media. OhmyNews founder Yeon-ho recognized the need for a more
participatory form of journalism in South Korea. The South Korean public
was not happy with the conservative press that was available, Yeon-ho
explains. He observed a need for citizen participation in the creation of
the news, as well as in discussing the news.  He began to advocate a new
form of news, an online press where "every citizen is a reporter."

OhmyNews was started in February 2000. It began with 737 citizen reporters
and a small staff of four professional reporters. By September 2003, the
number of citizen reporters had grown to 26,700. Fifty-three professional
reporters were on the staff, and about 200 articles were submitted to
OhmyNews each day. Citizen reporters are paid a small amount for their
articles. The form of articles citizen reporters write are often different
from those written by professional journalists, Yeon-ho explains, but no
less important. "In my opinion," he observes, "nowadays, journalism is
changing. The form of 20th century journalism and the form of 21st century
journalism will be fundamentally different. For 21st century journalism,
if a reader wants to, he can convert himself into a reporter and this is
realized through the Internet." (5) Yeon-ho refers to blogs, Yahoo
discussion groups and Reader's Opinion sections of newspapers like the New
York Times.  These, he points out, are also examples of citizen reporters
"act(ing) as reporters whether they recognize it or not."


V - Telepolis as a prototype for the press of the future

Less widespread than OhmyNews, but similarly interesting, is the online
German journal Telepolis. The editor, Florian Roetzer co-founded Telepolis
in 1996 with Armin Medosch to focus on the Internet and its culture. It
has since expanded its focus to include broad ranging subjects including
scientific, and technological developments, international political
issues, German local politics, challenges to corporate globalization, and
other public interest concerns. Telepolis maintains the broad focus of
those who see themselves as the online citizens of a larger than national
world, as netizens. Netizen journalists are paid for their articles. The
pay is low, and financial pressures have caused the pay to be reduced even
further. Roetzer writes a number of articles. Articles in Telepolis are
mostly in German. At times an English article is posted, along with a
German translation. An active group of online users discuss the articles
and debate their views on diverse topics related to the articles. The
discussion in German is broad ranging and demonstrates how successful the
article or topic is in encouraging thought-provoking discussion. Some
discussions have led to future articles. In this way, ideas are debated
and extend the perspectives provided in the articles.

Articles on Telepolis have received responses that demonstrate they have
had an effect beyond the discussion forums. For example, the Hungarian
journalist John Horvath, who writes regularly for Telepolis, wrote an
article critical of the European Union's support for the US plan to
privatize the Internet's infrastructure. The article "Cone of Silence:
ICANN or Internet Democracy is Failing", came to the attention of the EU
official responsible for Internet policy. The EU official not only wrote
to Telepolis, but also to the journalist challenging the article, and
responding with his comments on it. Such a response demonstrates that the
article had an impact on the official responsible for the policy.
(http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html )

An article in Telepolis about the search engine company Google's
activities with regard to their claim of private ownership of the Usenet
archives, led to an invitation for the journalist to give a talk at
Stanford University where the research creating the Google search engine
was done. She was then invited to give a talk at Google's headquarters.(6)

A series of articles about the questions raised by the events of September
11, 2001 were written by journalist Mathias Broeckers. Subsequently, he
has written two books in German, which have sold over a hundred thousand
copies and have helped to challenge the official account of 9-11 given by
the US government. His books document the US government's failure to
investigate what happened in the US surrounding 9-11. His books and the
discussions on Telepolis ask questions about the causes and failures of
official government procedures which contributed to the loss of life and
injuries at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This perspective has
been under reported in the other Western media.

VI - A New Form of Media and the Future of the Internet?

The talk presented by Hauben at the 1996 Internet Society conference is
helpful in putting subsequent developments like OhmyNews and Telepolis in
a broader perspective. The paper, "The Effect of the Net on the
Professional News Media", (http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x13)
describes the importance of public discussion and debate to develop a
democratic society. Hauben describes how the modern press has lost contact
with the role it should play in a democratic society. He quotes the media
critic Christopher Lasch who writes:

    What democracy requires is public debate, and not
    information. Of course, it needs information, too,
    but the kind of information it needs can be generated
    only by vigorous public debate. (quoted in Netizens, p. 223)

Hauben describes how netizens online are inventing a new form of news
media. "The online discussion forums," he observes, "allow open and free
discourse. Individuals outside of the traditional power structures are
finding a forum in which to contribute where those contributions are
encouraged.”(Netizens, p. 227)

Documenting the collaborative thinking process that online discussion
makes possible, Hauben explains how the processes lead to a broader and
more inclusive intellectual environment.

   The online discussion forums... are helpful intellectual exercises.
   It is healthy for society if all members think and make active use
   of their brains -- and Usenet is conducive to thinking. It is not
   the role of journalists to provide us with the answers. Even if
   people's lives are busy, what happens when they come to depend
   on the opinions and summaries of others as their own? Usenet is
   helping to create a mass community that works communally to aid
   the individual. Usenet... facilitates the creation of a community
   whose thought processes can accumulate and benefit the entire
   community.... The resulting discussion seen on Usenet could not have
   been produced beforehand as the work of one individual. The
   bias or point of view of any one individual is no longer presented
   as the whole truth. (Netizens, p. 232)

VII - Usenet Begins at Duke

Users who have gotten online in the past few years, or who are not yet
online may not be familiar with Usenet. Usenet was born in 1979 at Duke
University in North Carolina. It was designed by Duke University graduate
students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis. Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at
the University of North Carolina in Durham, created the first Unix script
to test the design.

Usenet is a series of newsgroups, each dedicated to the discussion of a
particular topic. Begun as a means of online communication for the early
Unix technical community, Usenet began as a 3 computer network in 1979. By
1982 there were 400 computers at different sites connected around the US
and Canada, and 50 megabytes of data a day posted. While technical
discussion was an important stimulus for people to read the posts on
Usenet, from its earliest days there were also newsgroups related to an
ever broader range of interests of the users of Usenet. For example, early
newsgroups included net.sf-lovers for those who loved science fiction,
net.movies for those interested in discussing movies, net.taxes for those
who wanted to get help with taxes, and net.games for those interested in
discussing games.

Describing his surprise at how quickly Usenet spread, an early Usenet
pioneer, Greg Woodbury, writes:

    I do not recall that anyone was quite expecting the explosion
    that happened. What developed took everyone by surprise. When
    the creation of evolution took an unexpected turn, and a
    continental network emerged, spanning the continent from California
    to North Carolina, and Toledo to San Diego, it was sort of a
    shock to realize what had happened. (Netizens, p. 44)

Usenet is now available via the Internet and includes many tens of
thousands of newsgroups on different topics in many languages. Posting on
Usenet encourages users with diverse views to welcome the debate and
discussion over their differences.  While there are users who abuse Usenet
and try to impede serious discussion, it remains a means of a global
online conversation.  Such global discussion is less common on the
Internet than it was during its earlier development, but still exists.
Similar online collaborative processes made it possible to create and
develop the Internet.(7)

How do these new forms of online media affect the future of the Internet
and of the Information Society that is evolving in its trail? The
participatory nature of online journalism like Telepolis, OhmyNews, Usenet
newsgroups, blogs, reader forums of commercial newspapers, and other
online forms like mailing lists, provide participants with a broader set
of views than they previously had access to. In considering the potential
of previous more traditional participatory forms, for example, like the
New England Town Meeting, it becomes evident that it is now possible to
overcome what were previous limitations.(8) People can discuss, debate,
raise questions, consider and from this ferment, problems can be examined
in a more dynamic way. Forums are not limited to the need to have one
person at a time speak at a microphone while all others listen. Instead
many can post their ideas simultaneously and the reader can read or
respond to those posts that are of interest.  There are now the means to
solve problems in a way that takes into account the needs, interests, and
contributions of a broader community.

VIII - The Internet Candidate for President?

The current campaign in the US of Howard Dean for the Democratic Party
nomination for the Presidency has found ways to utilize and rely on the
Internet. This current use of the Internet invites comparison with the
successful campaign for the Presidency of South Korea waged by Roh
Moo-hyun.

In an article comparing the two campaigns, OhmyNews citizen reporter K.
Jean Min writes:

   As I was one of the few people to predict Roh's victory last year
   as the first example of its kind in human history, I've been curious
   to know if Roh's victory in cyberspace could ever be replicated
   anywhere, in particular, in America.
                  "The parallel is endless - Roh and Dean's campaign"

He points to how both make use of the Internet. There are almost identical
scenes that Roh's supporters and Dean's have experienced, he observes.
"Roh was propelled by his netizen supporters to win his party's
nomination....As both Roh and Dean are rather paradigm shifters," he
notes, "in terms of their persona and campaign tactics, you might find
(opinions?) from the conventional old media and entrenched political
pundits in Washington would not quite make sense in the coming year."

"I think you will witness a lot of surprises from now until the election
next year," he predicts. "Don't be alarmed at the frequents ups and downs
of Dean's campaign though," he warns, "That is quite predictable if the
campaign follows that of Roh."

Previous to the year of Roh's campaign for the Presidency of South Korea,
he was best known for his repeated failures to be elected to Parliament
because Roh was challenging problems in the electoral process. Roh had a
reputation, however, of being part of the fight against the South Korean
military regime and helping dissidents. He had been a leader in the
pro-democracy movement against the dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, had been
in prison because of his political activities, and worked as a lawyer
defending labor unions, students and the poor.

The surprise of the campaign was that someone who opposed the previous
conservative South Korean governments could win the Presidency. Korea's
conservative news media fought hard to discredit any candidate who would
challenge their conservative views, labeling these candidates as "liberal"
which in South Korea was akin to "redbaiting" in the US.

The younger generation of South Koreans, many of whom are online and
consider themselves netizens, rallied to support Roh. They participated in
a more substantitive form of news media, and a more participatory campaign
process than had hitherto been possible before the Internet. In a similar
way, a younger generation of Americans have rallied to support Dean and a
more participatory form of campaign process based on the Internet. Roh,
however, had the benefit of the support and coverage from OhmyNews for his
campaign. There is not yet anything comparable in the US.  There are blogs
and other discussion forums online dedicated to the Dean campaign. A
newspaper with citizen reporters as in South Korea has not yet been
created in the US.

Recently, in response to an article about the anniversary of "The Net and
Netizen" in Telepolis, one user commented that genuine netizens are rare,
but that they are those who guard the Internet from being taken over by
those who would restrict the ability of users to speak freely.  He
compared the contest on the Internet with the struggle in the former East
Germany against those who tried to restrict the right of citizens to
speak. He writes: "Wir sind das Volk, wir sind die Netizens, nicht die
nehmen wollen. Wir sind das Volk, wir sind die Netizens, nicht die paar da
oben." [We are the people, we are the netizens, not those who try to take
the Net from us .We are the people, we are the netizens, not those few who
are above us.](from Discussion Forum on Telepolis, Veselin Koraljow, July
9, 2003)

The computer pioneer whose vision inspired the development of the Internet
is JCR Licklider. Licklider understood that there was a political crisis
in the US and that it would take a new online participatory medium to
affect this crisis. He recognized the need for an online form of
discussion and programming to develop the Internet, and also to modernize
government structures and institutions. Licklider wrote:

     "Computer power to the people is essential to the realization of a
      future in which most citizens are informed about, and interested
      and involved in, the process of government."

Examples like OhmyNews, Telepolis, Usenet, and the Times of India
editorial demonstrate that Licklider's vision is not some utopian dream.
There are netizens actively engaged in developing prototypes to explore
how to have a more participatory media, and a means for the grassroots to
affect the government decision making process. While political science
professors like Margolis and Resnick may doubt the promise the Internet
provides for the grassroots of society, whether and how it will develop is
up to current and future netizens.

----------

Notes

1. Margolis, Michael, and David Resnick, (2000) Politics as Usual: The
   Cyber Space “Revolution”, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA

2. Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben (1997), Netizens: On the History and
   Impact of Usenet and the Internet, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los
   Alamitos, CA

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

3. Margolis, p. 99

4. Usenet and the Internet Providing the Technology for A New Public
   Sphere: The Challenge for Our Time

   http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/public_sphere.txt

5. Interview with Yeon-ho, Japan Media Review, “OhmyNews Makes Every
   Citizen a Reporter”

   http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/internet/1063672919p.php

6. See May 23, 2003 “Usenet and the Usenet Archives: The Challenges of
   Building a Collaborative Technical Community”

   http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/ay0001.html


7. The Internet: Its International Origins and Collaborative Vision

   http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/misc/haubenpap1.rtf


8. Netizens, Chapter 13

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Jan. 10, 2004 
On the Occasion of
the Tenth Anniversary of
the Online Version of Netizens

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