Original call for a Netizens Association
This is the original call for a Netizens Association, published on the TELECOM Digest in 1996
Article: 52786 of comp.dcom.telecom
From: TELECOM Digest Editor
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: The Need For a Netizens Association
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 1996 04:00:00 GMT
Organization: TELECOM Digest, PO Box 4621, Skokie, IL 60076
An interesting message reached me today that I thought several of you might be interested in. If you do wish to continue the discussion, please send your comments direct to the author as shown below and not to the Digest itself. Perhaps at some future point the author will be so kind as to summarize responses for the Digest and submit them to me for publication.
PAT
From: hauben@vanakam.cc.columbia.edu (Michael Hauben)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: The need for a Netizens Association
Date: 4 Mar 1996 03:57:45 GMT
Organization: Columbia University
Reply-To: hauben@columbia.edu
The recent passing of the telecommunications bill in the USA demonstrates the lack of understanding by Congress and the government about the value of the Net and what it really is. In light of this, there seems a need for people to organize and form a Netizens Association. The following summary of a trip I made to Japan in November 1995 describes the genesis for this idea. Please e-mail me or respond publicly if you have suggestions or can help.
Hiroyuki Takahashi is the co-proposer for Netizens Associations.
Towards a Netizens Association,
/Michael Hauben
A little under one year ago, I received a letter sent through the Internet, via electronic mail. The letter was sent by a professor from Japan, and concerned studies we were both interested in. This communication between people concerned common interests despite differences in age, language, and culture. While Professor Shumpei Kumon knew English and was studying global communication, there were still real barriers of distance and time. I hope to show how the new technologies are helping to alleviate these barriers and help bring us into a new age of communications where the old rules and ways are no longer the guiding rules and ways.
What brought Professor Kumon and me together was our shared interest in the globalization of culture and society through the emerging communications technologies. The specific concern was about the emergence of Netizens, or people who use computer networks who consider themselves to be part of a global identity. The Netizen is part of a developing global cooperative community. I first used the term "Netizen" in 1993 after researching people's uses for the Internet and Usenet. Professor Kumon's first communication to me follows:
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 12:30:23 +0900
From: shumpei@glocom.ac.jp (Shumpei Kumon)
To: hauben@columbia.edu
Subject: Netizen
Hi,
I am a social scientist in Japan writing on information revolution and information-oriented civilization. Since I came across the tern "netizen" about a year ago. I have been fascinated by this idea. It seems that the age of not only technological-industrial but also political-social revolution is coming, comparable to the "citizen's revolution" in the past. I would very much like to do a book on that theme.
Yesterday, I was delighted to find your Netizen's Cyberstop. You are doing a great job.
shumpei kumon
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Professor Kumon also asked if I was the first to use the term Netizen. Part of his studies are socio-linguistics, so he is interested in the development and use of language over time. Netizen had come to replace the term netter or networker in Japan to describe people who use computer networks.
In response to my return message, Professor Kumon offered his understanding of Netizen as "people who abide in networks and are engaged in collaborative propagation of information and knowledge just as citizens abide in cities and are engaged in commerce and industry." He continued, "In this sense we can perhaps find the origin of netizens in Europe of 13-15th centuries, just as first citizens in modern civilization appeared in Europe of 12th century as commerce revived there." Professor Kumon concluded the message by asking if I was interested in visiting Japan. He said he could make this possible.
At the time I did not know where this would lead, but I responded that I would be very much interested in visiting. Japan was an unfamiliar country for me. Previously in my education I did do some research into the secondary education system, and found it to be a very stressful environment. Otherwise I had some general interest in the culture. However, I was unfamiliar with Professor Kumon, and the institutions he was connected to, the Global Communications Institute (GLOCOM) of which he was the director and the Internation- al University of Japan. However, this contact with him, and soon with his colleagues brought me to Japan. One of the planning directors of GLOCOM, Izumi Aizu, wrote me shortly after Professor Kumon, and mentioned a conference in November to which they might invite me. Before the real invitation actually arrived, several other events took place.
Izumi Aizu arrived in New York City in late April, and we spoke of many things. Most interesting was how he saw the Internet being a direct challenge to traditional Japanese culture. While people normally go by their last names in Japan, the Usenet and Internet culture encourages first-name familiarity. Professor Kumon's e-mail address was made up of his first name, not his last. The style of writing in e-mail is usually informal. The ease of use encourages people to use the medium as if it were in between writing a letter and making a phone call. E-mail, Usenet and the world wide web (WWW) encourage people to share their original thoughts and creations with the world. I have been told that Japanese culture encourages people to represent the larger grouping they are part of. The concept and history of Netizen strikes a good mid-point between being individualistic or having a group identity. Netizens represent themselves, but as part of the larger group. The many-to-many technology gives people the chance to represent themselves, but in the context of contributing to the whole on-line community. During Izumi's visit, we also briefly spoke of some of the barriers to the spread of the Internet in Japan and the United States. A big concern of Izumi's was who could or should pay to spread the Internet in Japan. There are other social and technical hurdles to overcome in order to spread the Internet throughout Japan.
Izumi described more of the work of the HyperNetwork Society which was connected to a network community in Oita Prefecture and described some about the conference I was being invited to speak at in November. He also asked if I was willing to be interviewed for a television special that would be created for Japanese TV introducing Netizens and describing the Internet.
Two days after my graduation from Columbia College in May, the two film-makers arrived to conduct their interview and to film me and Columbia. They explained that their film would be aired on TV Tokyo, a NHK television channel on an educational TV show in July, 1995.
The airing of the TV program about the Internet, communications and multimedia was very important to my later trip to Japan. My connection to Japan would broaden out from the initial contact by the members of GLOCOM. After July 2, I received several e-mail messages from other people in Japan.
A student in his final year of undergraduate study at Saitama University wrote on the very day the TV show was on in Japan. In his e-mail, Hiroyuki Takahashi explained that "I discovered your idea -- Netizen ... I feel attracted to your concept. I would like to talk with you about netizen and so on. I want to spread netizen among networker in JAPAN." (email of July 2). He asked if he could copy to his public computer server in Japan the documents about Netizens that I have publicly available through my Columbia University web pages.
I responded yes, and wrote, " I am glad to hear you are trying to spread Internet access to the public. We thus have a common goal. :-)" (email 7/2/95)
Hiroyuki wrote back "Yes we can collaborate on that purpose."
He had apologized saying that his English was not very good. I responded that "unfortunately, I speak no Japanese, but appreciate that we can communicate." Hiro wrote back saying "Nationality has no longer senses on the network. Everybody stands on same starting points :-)"
He wrote that there were many problems in trying to spread the Internet in Japan as computer networking had grown a lot in the past two years. He explained: "[In the] Last 2 years [the] computer network environment in Japan grew up marvelously so most of japanese included mass media, market and ordinary men cannot catch up with the growth and they are expecting too much." Hiroyuki explained "So now I am seeking how to spread network environments." (e-mail July 4, 1995)
The connection to GLOCOM similarly flourished, and I was asked to contribute a chapter to Professor Kumon's planned book about Netizens tentatively titled "The Netizen Revolution." In addition, I submitted a paper for inclusion in a newspaper special supplement whose theme was "The Media Revolution."
More people sent me e-mail, and I posted publicly to public newsgroups like soc.culture.japan and fj.life.in-japan. This connection with people from across the globe whose native language was different was occurring because the computer and communications technology had developed to 1) break down the geographic and time barriers, and 2) break down the social barriers which exist in all cultures, but which are traditionally strong in Japanese culture. These changes are helping all cultures and societies to become more global, in both making their contribution to the larger world and to receive back from the world.
I heard from Izumi several times after July concerning the conference, and the final invitation arrived in August. Izumi invited me to make a presentation on "Netizen concept and issues." Izumi also mentioned that there would be two other Internet conferences in Kobe that it might be possible to attend.
In November, plans for my visit to Japan were worked out. I was asked to prepare a 20 minute talk and to submit a description of my talk for the conference program.
I wrote Hiro telling him I would be visiting Japan and asked if it would be possible to meet him. I also posted on some Japanese Usenet newsgroups asking if there were suggestions about my visit.
Hiro wrote back that he would be very happy to meet me. He said that "We can discuss or talk about many things; netizen, internet, computing and so on. I am very happy to see you :-)" (email Nov 16)
When I was in Japan, we met and had dinner. We spoke of many things including the lack of professors at his University who understand the computer technology. I learned that he and other students managed the campus computers and networks. Hiro also worked towards introducing the Internet and spreading its use in Japan. When I asked how I could help, he mentioned that he wanted help to translate some of the netizens writings into Japanese. I said I would be helpful if he had any questions. Then I left Tokyo and went to the HyperNetwork conference in Oita. Similar to what took place in Tokyo, I received an extremely warm and friendly welcoming from many of the People from COARA and the BBC '95 conference. My presentation in Beppu concentrated on describing the emergence of Netizens and analyzing the development of the public communications medium know as the Net.
Following is a definition of Netizens presented in the speech,
"Netizens are the people who actively contribute on-line towards 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 actively discuss and debate topics in a constructive manner, who e-mail answers to people and provide help to new-comers, who maintain FAQ files and other public information repositories, who maintain mailing lists, and so on. These are people who discuss the nature and role of this new communications medium. However, these are not all people. Netizens are not just anyone who comes on-line, and they are especially not people who come on-line 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 everyone's 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."
When I got back to Tokyo, Hiro came to visit again, and he brought several members of his computer club with him. The computer club was the Advanced Computer and Communication Engineering Studying Society (aka ACCESS).
I had also received email from Mieko Nagano in November before my visit to Japan who said she was housewife active in the community network COARA which sponsored the Hyper network conference. Her e-mail was an invitation to the conference from someone outside of GLOCOM. In a later email she wrote that she was moved by my concept of Netizen which she shared in my understanding would "help further the growth of the Net by connecting a diversity of people who have various opinions, specialties and interests. This worldwide connection of people and other information resources of different sorts will help the world move forward in solving different societal problems." (email Oct. 29, 1995)
She wrote that she was not able to "comprehend high-class discussions in the past conferences." "I only enjoy," she continued, "as a ordinary housewife, communication with good-willed and good-sensed people through COARA and/or E-mail on real name basis."
"What is great for me," she noted, "is that I can talk to the people all over the world instantaneously and look around various sites full of information including images and sounds." (Oct. 29)
When I arrived at the hypernetwork conference, there were stickers and hats declaring "Netizen in COARA." After the conference, Mieko explained:
"Naming after NETIZEN, as Mr. Hauben advocated, COARA members prepared in advance 'Netizen sticker' appealing to be COARA constituent by attaching the logo on their chests of clothes and welcomed our guests."(email Dec 12, 1995)
After our visit, I wrote Hiro that I was very happy to have met him and his friends from their computer club at his University. In his email when I returned home he asked if there was a Netizens Association. He wrote in a P.S. in an email of Dec. 6 "Netizen association is available? If not in Japan, I want to make it." I told him I did not know of any and asked him what he had in mind for a Netizens association to do. He responded:
"I think [a] Netizen Association is a guide into tomorrow's Internet world. Internet and other network[s] have a flood of electrical informations. So people cannot swim very good in Internet. So Netizen Association tell or advise how to swin or get selected information. The association act as guide. Oh, and we have to spread information about concept of netizen. But making association process has many difficult points, I think. So we have to give careful consideration to the matter."
"Please let me know your idea," he added. (email Dec 12, 1995)
Hiro also wrote that he and his classmates had a "translation team" that was "now reading carefully" through the Netizens article. "And next Thursday and Friday," he wrote, "our club has big presentation about Internet in my university, so we are very hard [at work] this week." (from Dec. 9, 1995 email)
Others wrote to explain their interest in the concept of Netizen. The response was important because as I found out while in Japan, the word 'netizen' meaning 'network citizen' would have a different meaning in the Japanese culture. The term or concept of citizen differs from the American meaning as the individual finds meaning in the group organizational setting and not separately. This means the meaning of the concept rather than the surface of the term was understood.
While in Japan, I met many people interested in spreading the Internet. Those involved, young or old, found it important to try and connect people to the Internet as a way forward into the future. Young people were happy to have a new tool to challenge the old conventions of society. I was more surprised to find others of older generations still interested in this new technological medium which was challenging the traditional Japanese social customs. More importantly, however, was the global connections and broadening of people the Internet brings. Mieko, Izumi, Professor Kumon and Hiro were all working towards making it possible for the Japanese people, from any part of Japan, to be able to communicate with others around the world.
Michael Hauben Teachers College Dept. of Communication
Netizens Netbook http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
WWW Music Index http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/music/[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for a very fine presentation to the Digest readers today. I quite agree that a Netizen's Association would be a marvelous idea. I wonder what other Digest readers think of this proposal? I believe we should at this time unanimously appoint Mr. Hauben as Chairperson or President of the Netizens Association in the United States and encourage him to work with not only his counterparts in Japan but to aid in beginning Netizen Association chapters or groups all over the world. And Michael, you can count me in as a member from the very beginning. PAT]
Last modified: Fri Mar 8 20:21:23 1996
Michael Hauben <hauben@columbia.edu>
