LETTER OF INTEREST Project Title: Netizens and the European Role in Creating the Internet Objectives: I: Short Description: The purpose of this project will be to investigate and then to synthesize the roots of Internet development in 20th century Europe. The Internet began in the 1970s as an international collaboration of researchers from the US, Norway, Great Britain, France, and then Germany and Italy. The commonly held belief, however, is that the Internet is an American invention. The research creating the TCP/IP protocol made it possible to create the Internet. In the 1980s, the European Unix community spread TCP/IP in Europe despite near universal official commitment to the alternative OSI protocol suite being developed by the ISO. By the 1990s users of the Internet and of Usenet became interested in spreading networking both locally and internationally. This was far from a purely technical co-operation. There was a grassroots bottom up process of user participation in the development of the Internet. Users emerged online who considered themselves to be citizens of the Internet, i.e. netizens. They not only spread the Internet, but they also spread consciousness of netizenship as a process of online participatory citizenship. Our project will investigate the recurring forms of netizenship that developed as new generations of net immigrants arrived on the Internet during its early development. II - How our project contributes to the TOE program The creation of the Internet is a significant development, and is an example of the important role that technology plays in the hidden history of European integration. This project also raises the research question: What role has European integration played in the development of the Internet? Karl Deutsch, in his book "Nerves of Government", introduces the concept of "channels of internal communication" as a focus for investigating social organizations and institutions. Deutsch writes: [I]t might be profitable to look upon government less as a problem of power and somewhat more as a problem of steering, and ... to show that steering is decisively a matter of communication." (p. ix) The study of the origins of the Internet lends itself to such a focus. Communication is regenerative, in that it helps to create new forms and relationships. In this context our study of the emergence of the netizen and netizenship provides a continuing social focus to accompany our study of the development of the technical infrastructure of the Internet. III - Thematic Structures Our project belongs in Section II - Building Europe on Infrastructure. Our historical case study of the Internet's development will explore the role the Internet's design and vision played in creating a working implementation of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It will also seek to understand what enabled the researchers to achieve their high level of collaboration. In this context we also plan to investigate the difficulties the researchers faced in their work and what means were found to deal with these problems. Another question to be explored is the impact on European integration of the new form of public space that has been developed with the creation of the Internet and the development of Usenet and the World Wide Web. While most of the research for this Project falls within the Infrastructure research area, there are overlaps as well with the "Negotiating the European Knowledge Society" and "Designing the European Citizen-Consumer" research areas. Relevant to the latter research area, is a question raised by Polish researcher Leszek Jesien. In his paper "European Citizenship Reconsidered", Jesien explores the problem of how to foster a meaningful form of European citizenship. Jesien proposes a study of netizenship and how it has developed on the net, suggesting that a study of the netizenship phenomena will be helpful in the quest to foster European citizenship. IV - Products The researchers will contribute to a book by the larger Eurochannels research group. Also, we will prepare a book of articles and interviews which grow out of our interaction with Internet pioneers. In addition, we will contribute to a museum exhibit about the origins of the Internet. Organizational details: An online mailing list and web site will be needed to help in the research and to disseminate the findings. Along with a major case study of the research collaboration to develop TCP/IP, smaller case studies will document how the Internet spread in Europe. This will include: a) internetworking in a country like Hungary or Poland, b) internetworking in a country like Germany or the Netherlands, and c) internetworking in an international organization like CERN. V - Funding We will be seeking funding. In the US, we will approach the NSF, DARPA, the Mellon Foundation, the Sloan Foundation and other relevant funding agencies. The Soros foundation will be approached to help with funding for the research relating to the development of the Internet in the former Eastern Europe. However, since the research is about the Internet and Europe it will help if we could find some funds from Europe to support this project. In Norway we will approach the Research Council of Norway. In Great Britain we will request funding from the Leverhulme Trust. Main Researchers Ronda Hauben (3 days a week), Anders Ekeland (1 day a week), Jay Hauben (1 day a week) and Graham Thomas (1 day a week). It is expected that this will be a multiple year project. The research periods are for 3-5 years or whatever the time frame is that "Inventing Europe" will be supported. Organizational Details Ronda Hauben will be project leader and coordinator. Biographies of Principal Researchers (we welcome other researchers to join us) Ronda Hauben 244 West 72nd Street, APT 15D New York, New York 10023 USA E-mail: rh120@columbia.edu phone: 212 787 9361 Ronda Hauben studies at Columbia University and pursues her research there. She has her BA from Queens College in NY and her MA from Tufts University. She is an author, writer and researcher. She has been online for the past 16 years, studying, writing and participating in BBSs, Usenet and the Internet. She has taught at Stillman College and Wheelock College and in a worker education program at the Ford Rouge Plant in Michigan. More recently she taught introductory classes about the Internet, Usenet and Unix at Columbia University. She and Michael Hauben are co-author of "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet", published by the IEEE Computer Society in 1997, and online since 1994. Ronda has given invited talks at the 2000 NGO EU Forum in Tempere, Finland, at the "Semaine Europeene" 2002 Conference in Strasbourg, France, at the Technical University in Vienna, Austria, at the Intermedia Department of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, at the IEEE Computer Society in Vienna, at the Stanford Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium, in the US and also at Google, Inc, in Mountain View, California. She writes for Telepolis in Germany. She also writes for other online publications like OhmyNews in South Korea. She has contributed a number of articles to the Encyclopedia of Computers and Computer History. Her current research interests include studying the organizational forms for the successful support of basic research, researching the collaborative processes involved in the early development of the Internet, and exploring the origins and evolution of netizenship, and new forms of online participatory journalism. Anders Ekeland Research Director STEP, Oslo, Norway. Direct phone: 22868030, E-mail: anders.ekeland@step.no Anders Ekeland, economist, graduated from the University of Oslo. Also studied history, computer science and Czech. Main area of work is labour market studies using large public databases. Other work areas include research policy, especially public IT policy, e-commerce, e-government, e-payment and semantic web. Special interests are computer simulation and Radical/Marxian Economics. Graham Thomas Innovations Studies University of East London, Docklands Campus 4 University Way London, E16 2RD, UK E-mail: g.s.thomas@uel.ac.uk, Phone: 44 (0)20 8223 4257 Graham Thomas is senior lecturer in the Innovation Studies Department. His research interests lie in the area of socio-economic analysis of innovation and technical change, especially in relation to information technology, networks and telecommunications, and policy research on networking and telecommunications. He has widely published on these issues and is currently holding a grant to research the political economy of the Internet as part of the Economic and Social Research Council 'Virtual Society' programme. Jay Hauben Library Systems Office, Columbia University 2M05 Butler Library 535 West 114th Street New York, New York 10027, USA E-mail: hauben@columbia.edu, phone: 212 854 2267 Jay Hauben has an MA in Physics from Harvard University. He taught physics for 13 years and has worked as a science and network technician at Henry Ford Community College and Columbia University. He contributed to the editing of the book Netizens. He contributed 5 entries to the Encyclopedia of Computers and Computer History. His published writings include biographies and historical articles especially about the Internet and communications technology. He has presented papers on JCR Licklider, Norbert Wiener, Communications in Bacteria, Libraries of the Future, and the History of the Internet at conferences in the US and Europe. His current interests include internetworking in Europe, knowledge processing and the connection between internetworking and democracy. ----------------------------- References: Leszek Jesien, "The 1996 IGC: European Citizenship Reconsidered", Instituets fur den Donauraum und Mitteleuropa, March 1997, pg. 15. "Semaine Europeenne" sponsored by L'Institue d'Etudes Politiques (IEP) Europe and the Internet, February 25, 2002 - March 1, 2002 Karl Deutsch, The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control, London, Collier-MacMillan, 1966