Hauben, Ronda

International Origins of the Internet and the Emergence of the Netizen: Is the Early Vision Still Viable?

Abstract

In 1997, a European researcher wrote: "At the time the European Union struggles to shape the European citizenship ... the other citizenship -- Netizenship emerges.... European political leaders should perhaps look at this phenomenon with sympathy and attention"

This talk will explore the emergence of a new form of citizen, the netizen and a new form of citizenship, netizenship. Introducing the concept of netizen, in 1992, an undergraduate student doing research exploring the Internet wrote, "Netizens are Net Citizens who utilize the Net from their home, workplace, school, library, etc. These people are among those who populate the Net, and make it a resource of human beings. These netizens participate to help make the Net both an intellectual and a social resource."

There was international and collaborative research leading to the creation and development of the Internet's tcp/ip protocol. Like the goal of European construction, the goal of early Internet research was to make communication possible across the boundaries of technically different networks which were under diverse forms of political and administrative control. This early collaborative research process helped to nourish an environment providing for the emergence of the netizen and netizenship.

Creating the Internet was not only a technical achievement. There was also the social challenge of facilitating cooperation among the researchers. New forms of communication like mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups made possible the development of the metasystem of networks which we now call the Internet.

There was a vision that inspired these developments. Can this vision continue to offer the inspiration to nourish the future development of the Internet? And can it help to foster European construction?

Ronda Hauben rh120@columbia.edu