Netizens and the New News Can the Internet Change Politics? by Ronda Hauben ronda@panix.com The debate over the Internet and its impact for democracy rages on, both in the U.S. and around the world. Will the Internet make it possible for people to have a greater impact on their society and on the decisions made by the political officials? Or is the Internet a new way to maintain the old institutions and power alignments? This question 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 U.S., the question of who controls the news, and what is the news that people want and need, is a question being explored around the world. The crux of the debate is reflected in books, articles, online discussion, and most importantly in the ways that various people are trying to utilize the Internet. The book "Politics As Usual" considers whether the Internet has the potential to impact politics. The authors, who are political science professors,provide a quote which they have found expressing the democratic promise of the Internet. The quote is from a talk presented at the Internet Society conference in 1996 in Montreal, Canada. The speaker, describing the potential impact the Internet can have on the traditional news media and the new form of news media that is developing online, proposes that there will be a change in the News media as we now know it. He explains: 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. "The Effect of the Net on the Professional News Media" People online are finding their contributions are appreciated by others as part of the news and views being spread around the world. The notion of news is, "being reinvented." People are not only contributing their news and views online, but other users discuss and build on the contributions, leading to a regenerative online environment. Margolis and Resnick, the authors of "Politics As Usual" 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.(1) They ask, "Are the public forums of the...'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'." (p.103) There are others like Margolis and Resnick who challenge the potential of the Internet to change the form of media and politics of our society. There are also efforts to develop new forms of online media which explore how the Internet can change politics and the important aspect of politics, the press. The February 15, 2003 anti-war marches around the world demonstrated a 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 to protest publicly in a coordinated way that there is worldwide opposition to US policies like the invasion of Iraq. In response, U.S. government officials claimed that the US government does not make policy via "focus groups". Focus groups are a business practice of sampling people's views by paying them to attend monitored and directed discussions on chosen topics. The global coordinated series of demonstrations against the war in Iraq were very different from focus groups. II - Netizens Unite - Debating the U.S. Invasion of Iraq In early March 2003, a few weeks before the US invasion of Iraq, the "Times of India" published an editorial titled "Netizens Unite". In it they present the divisions they observed developing in response to 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 many other governments around the world. 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 such a war policy policy 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 support needed political change. (2) The Times of India editorial and the ensuing online discussion suggests 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 sentiments expressed in this post and others, in the "Times of India" forum, give a sense of the desire of people in the US and in other countries to have some way to impact the decisions made by the U.S. government. III - Netizens or Will the Net Provide a Grassroots Voice? Editors of the "Times of India" refer to users online as "netizens" in their editorial "Netizens, Unite". What is a netizen? Where has the concept come from? An article posted to the Net ten years ago, in July 1993, was influential in identifying the new form of global citizenship emerging online. The article "The Net and Netizens" helped to spread the consciousness of this new form of citizenship, i.e. netizenship, around the world. The article begins: 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.... Posted online, in July 1993, the article was a summary of the research done by a college student in 1992-1993. In the article the student documents the potential of the Internet for empowerment: 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) While this potential of the Internet is being debated by writers, and explored by media and Internet activists, a number of interesting examples of online discussion forums, and of news of a new kind, have emerged. IV - OhmyNews and its citizen reporters There are newspapers which welcome netizens to discuss articles like the "Times of India". There are also online media which encourage netizens to write articles. One such example, is OhmyNews in South Korea. On December 19, 2002 Roh Moo-hyun won the Presidency of South Korea, despite the fact that he had not been part of mainstream Korean politics before the presidential election. A netizens movement in South Korea made this victory possible. Influential in this netizens movement, is a form of online journalism that has provided a significant challenge to the traditional South Korean media. Oh Yeon Ho founded OhmyNews on February 22, 2000. Recognizing that the South Korean public was not happy with the conservative press that dominated the news media, Oh Yeon Ho decided to create a more participatory form of news media in South Korea. 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 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, Oh 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." (3) Oh Yeon Ho refers to blogs, Yahoo discussion groups and "Reader's Opinion" sections of newspapers like the New York Times. These are also examples of citizens "act(ing) as reporters whether they recognize it or not." OhmyNews has begun to include a link to an English page at its web site, but since the instructions for posting are only in Korean, responses to the posts in languages other than Korean are still relatively rare. V - Telepolis as a prototype for the press of the future Less widespread than OhmyNews, but similarly interesting, is the online German news media "Telepolis". The editor, Florian Roetzer co-founded Telepolis in 1996 with Armin Medosch to focus on the Internet and its culture. The focus has since expanded to include subjects such as 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 society larger than their own nation, 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 in 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. The url is: 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.(3) 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 U.S. government. His books document the U.S. government's failure to investigate what happened in the U.S. 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. There have been a series of books in Germany, along with Broeckers, which question the cause of the 9-11 events and document the many issues that need further investigation. VI - A New Form of Media and the Future of the Internet? Examining the effect of the net on the professional news media is helpful in putting developments like OhmyNews and Telepolis in a broader perspective. The question is raised "Has the modern press lost contact with the role it should play in a democratic society?" The press can provide information. Without public discussion and debate, how does one determine what information is needed? Broad ranging online discussion can help to clarify what are the problems that need attention, and the information that needs to be obtained. A vigorous online discussion helps to create a more inclusive intellectual environment because alternative viewpoints are welcomed and examined. This is the kind of environment that encourages thinking. The exchange of diverse viewpoints helps to to generate new ideas. The result is a regenerative process broader than what isolated individuals can develop. VII - Usenet Begins at Duke The idea of an online news media helping citizens have more say in the politics is not new. In the 1980's online users were already discussing the potential of the the Net as an important new media. For example, the following post appeared on a newsgroup in Usenet and an ARPANET mailing list in 1984: "As far as writing your Congressman for 'free' goes, how about going one further and letting everyone read his mail? This would allow interested parties to debate (?) each other in the poor Representative's inbox, promote some free exchange of ideas among his constituency, and generally stir things up. (It might be worth implementing some kind of screening system so that some PAC doesn't flood the medium with 200,000 identical "I'm against postage stamps and I vote" messages, but this shouldn't be too hard for the message-processor to deal with.) In some ways this isn't all that different from the idea of a discussion group that includes a huge part of the American people, the principal distinction being that the system is divided up into 435 geographical regions, but it seems that this division would make it a bit more realizable." -Jim HUMAN-NETS Digest V7 #65 Newsgroups: fa.human-nets Date: 1984-10-23 21:35:32 PST 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, with 2 megabytes a day of posts. By 1982 there were 400 computers at different sites connected around the U.S. and Canada, and 50 megabytes of data a day posted. (See Usenet map) 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 movies, net.taxes for those who wanted to get help with taxes, and net.games for those interested in playiing games. Describing his surprise at how quickly Usenet developed and 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. (http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/misc/haubenpap1.rtf ) 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. (5) 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 the posts interest them. 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 campaign in the Democratic Party nomination for the Presidency has raised the question of whether or not the Internet could help to impact US politics. Howard Dean's campaign got an early boost from the ability of its staffers to utilize the Internet for political organizing. When When Dean failed to win the Iowa, New Hampshire and then Wisconsin primaries, he dropped out the the race for the nomination. Was it the Internet campaigning that had failed, or Dean's detour to the more traditional campaigning methods as the primaries became imminent? Dean's early success utilizing the Internet led to comparing his campaign with the successful campaign for the Presidency of South Korea in waged by Roh Moo-hyun along with a movement of Korean Netizens. 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" Min points to how both made use of the Internet. There were almost identical scenes that Roh's supporters and Dean's experienced, he observed. "Roh was propelled by his netizen supporters to win his party's nomination....As both Roh and Dean are rather paradigm shifters," he noted, "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 predicted. "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 U.S. The younger generation of South Koreans, many of whom are online and consider themselves netizens, rallied to support Roh. They participated in creating a more substantiative 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 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 was not yet anything comparable in the US to support Dean's campaign. There were blogs and other discussion forums online dedicated to the Dean campaign, but a newspaper with citizen reporters as in South Korea has not yet been created in the U.S. Those involved with the Roh campaign did not think that he could have won without the support of OhmyNews to challenge the conservative Korean media. 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: "We are the people, we are the netizens, not those who try to take the Net from us". "Wir sind das Volk, wir sind die Netizens, nicht die nehmen wollen. We are the people, we are the netizens, not those few who are above us. Wir sind das Volk, wir sind die Netizens, nicht die paar da oben." (from Post 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 express their doubt that the Internet can foster a change in the politics for the grassroots of society, whether and how such change will develop is up to current and future netizens. As one South Korean netizen recently wrote: "South Koreans have lived through industrialization, dictatorship and democracy in a short period. We have learned if we participage, we can change society for the better." ---------- Footnotes (1) Footnote from Resnick and Margolis - put in quote on pg 90 Who's on the Playing Field Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben (1997), Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alimitos, CA add other footnotes