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| Dawn of the Internet and Netizen |
| In a talk at Seoul National University Aug. 8, Rhonda Hauben explores the Net's origins |
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Ronda Hauben (netizen2)  |
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Published 2005-08-19 15:50 (KST) |
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I have been doing research and writing about the history of the Internet and its impact since 1992. The Internet is having a significant impact on our society. This is particularly evident in South Korea. What is happening is raising many questions among those interested in the phenomenon. What I will endeavor to do is put the development of the Internet into a broader historical and scientific framework that I hope in turn will provide some needed perspective to the issues being raised about the Internet today in Korean society.
Another arena in which a historical and scientific framework is relevant regards the struggle in the management model for the Internet's infrastructure. This is a period when the future of the Internet and its development is being contested. There is an ongoing struggle among the U.S. government and a number of countries around the world meeting under the sponsorship of the U.N.'s World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) to try to determine the management model that is needed for the international administration of the Internet's infrastructure. To solve a problem like this it is useful to have some idea of how the Internet was developed and what the salient aspects of that development are.
The title of my talk is "The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and the Emergence of the Netizens" (1).
In my talk, I want to explore these aspects and in turn try to unravel some of the myths about the Internet and its origins that hide its actual character.
A common view of the Internet is that it was created within the U.S. by the U.S. Department of Defense as a way to have a communication system that would survive a nuclear war. This is a fallacious view of the origin of the Internet. It is inaccurate in many aspects. Notably:
1) The Internet is a result of scientific and technical collaboration that was international in its earliest stages.
2) There was a vision guiding and inspiring its international collaborative development
3) The Internet is a solution to the Multiple Network Problem -- how to connect dissimilar networks
During the period of the birth of the Internet (1973-1983), researchers in Great Britain, France, the U.S. and others were either actually creating their own national or specific computer networks, or were developing plans to do so. The interconnection of these dissimilar networks could be referred to as the Multiple Network Problem (.doc).
These networks would all be different technically and would be owned and operated by different political and administrative entities. How to provide for communication across the boundaries of these diverse networks was the problem to be solved.
The research that solved this problem was the work to create the protocol called TCP/IP. This protocol makes possible communication across the boundaries of dissimilar networks. This graphic (.doc) shows the research collaboration by Norwegian researchers connected with NORSAR, which was a site in Norway, with British researchers, connected at a site at the University College London, and American researchers working as part of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) on the ARPANET (the forerunner of the Internet developed by the U.S. Military) (2).
I want to focus on what I propose are some of the scientific origins of the research that have made the Internet possible. These scientific origins, which are poorly understood and not often recognized, are, I want to argue, critical to understanding the nature of the Internet.
To understand the scientific origins of the Internet's development, we need to look back to the early post-World War II period. During this period there was a ferment over how to understand the science of communication. A community of scientists, mathematicians, engineers and social scientists was interested in exploring the processes of communication.
One means some of the researchers adopted was to participate in an interdisciplinary community of researchers who met bi-yearly or yearly. They pursued different disciplines and spoke different scientific languages.
Their effort was to try to bridge the boundaries that separated their disciplines. The meetings of the group were known by different names, but during one period they were called the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation conferences on Cybernetics. The phenomenon they were interested in was also known as "feedback" or "self-organizing systems."
The researchers not only studied communication but also endeavored to develop a practice more conducive to communication. Conference sessions were held on weekends. Only two or three papers were presented at each conference and people were encouraged to ask questions during the paper presentation if they didn't understand the points being raised or if they wanted clarification.
After the presentation, there would be a more general conversation and discussion of the paper. The conference sessions were transcribed and the transcription sent to the participants after the conference. They could make corrections or clarifications. Then the publication of the conference proceedings would include the discussion, along with the paper presentations. There were 10 Macy conferences from 1942 until 1953. Five volumes of the conference proceedings were published.
JCR Licklider (or Lick, as he asked people to call him) was a research scientist who had made certain scientific advances in communication research. His doctoral thesis in 1942 had broken new ground by mapping where in the brain of the cat different pitches of sound were received and how this led to the perception of different frequencies of sound (3).
Licklider was deeply interested in the study of communication. He attended one of the 10 Macy conferences on Cybernetics, then along with other scientists, he got support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the U.S. to have a meeting in 1954 at MIT similar to the Macy Foundation meetings on Cybernetics.
The title of the conference held in 1954 was "Problems in Human Communication and Control." The notes of the meeting were then transcribed. Licklider edited the notes. The proceedings were published, much in the same way the Macy conference proceedings were published.
An important interest of Licklider's was in the workings of the brain and how more advanced computer development could help the research collaboration of scientists and engineers. Of particular interest was a form of modeling that Licklider believed occurred in the human brain.
In a paper written with Robert Taylor in 1968, Licklider and Taylor propose (4):By far the most numerous, most sophisticated and most important models are those that reside in men's minds.
("The Computer as a Communication Device") An example of how the computer could help represent models for Licklider was the program Sketchpad created by Ivan Sutherland. Describing a demonstration he had seen of Sutherland's modeling program, a graduate student at MIT, writes:Sutherland sketched the girder of a bridge and indicated the points at which members were connected together by rivets. He drew a support at each end of the girder and a load at the center. The model showed the girder sagging under the load and a number appeared on each member showing the tensions there. Sutherland was able to add the support needed using the modeling program. Then the bridge was, according to the computer simulation program, able to maintain the weight of the additional load. This is an example of the encouraging potential that Licklider envisioned if the scientific research community could acquire the technology they needed for their modeling. They could see the effect of a change made on one part of a system, on other parts of the system. They could then make the adjustments needed to accommodate the change.
Licklider not only felt that modeling was critical for scientific research, but for society as well. Describing the modeling that Licklider believed characterized the functioning of the brain, he and Taylor write:In richness, plasticity, facility and economy, the mental model has no peer, but in other respects it has shortcomings.
("The Computer as a Communication Device") The primary shortcomings of such a model, they reason, is that it is stored in the brain of only a single individual. Hence:"It can be observed and manipulated only by one person"
("The Computer as a Communication Device") In order for such models to serve a social function, there is a need, for the models in the head of individuals to become part of a collaborative process. This is because, as Licklider and Taylor write:Society rightly distrusts the modeling done by a single mind.
("The Computer as a Communication Device") More specifically:Society demands (...) [what] amounts to the requirement that individual models be compared and brought into some degree of accord. The requirement for communicating which we now define concisely [as] "cooperative" modeling --[is] cooperation in the construction, maintenance and use of a model.
("The Computer as a Communication Device") Licklider and Taylor then explain that like the process they believe is ongoing in the brain, what is needed for such cooperative modeling is:... a plastic or moldable medium that can be modeled, a dynamic medium in which processes will flow into consequences.
("The Computer as a Communication Device") Most important for such a medium is that it supports collaborative contributions and processes -- that it be:... a common medium that can be contributed to and experimented with by all.
("The Computer as a Communication Device") Licklider and Taylor envisioned that the developing online community would find the capability for such collaborative modeling as the Internet developed and that having access to this plastic collaborative environment would be a boon to the advancement of society and of science.
As the Internet has developed, it has made possible new forms of scientific collaboration and modeling, much as Licklider and Taylor predicted.
Along with the need for such a moldable medium for scientific collaborative development, however, Licklider also maintained that there would be a need for a collaborative community with this capability who could support continuing network development and who would intervene to help with the problems that would develop when government officials who didn't understand the nature of computer technology would be charged with making the decisions needed for its development.
In 1961, a series of talks were held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of MIT. The British scientist and writer, C.P. Snow, was invited to give a talk discussing this problem. The title of the talk was, "Scientists and Decision Making."
During his talk, Snow described the gap that would exist between understanding the nature of the new computer technology and the understanding of government officials who would have the responsibility for the decisions about how to support the development of the new computer technology.
Snow explained how such a problem required a situation similar to a phenomenon that in physics is called Brownian Motion. Referring to what happened in Great Britain after World War II when the whole society began discussing the need for national health care, Snow outlines this phenomenon (5):I believe that the healthiest decisions of society occur by something more like a Brownian movement. All kinds of people all over the place suddenly get smitten with the same sort of desire, with the same sort of interest at the same time. This forms a concentration of pressure and of direction. These concentrations of pressure gradually filter their way through to the people whose nominal responsibility it is to put the legislation into a written form. I am pretty sure that this Brownian movement is probably the most important way in which the ordinary social imperatives of society get initiated. Shortly after Snow's talk at MIT, the U.S. Department of Defense invited Licklider to join the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). He was to set up an office for research in computer science, and an office for research in behavioral science. He called the office for research in computer science the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO). Licklider was its first director and he was followed by Ivan Sutherland. Then in 1974, Licklider was invited to return as director. During this second term he had difficulty maintaining support for IPTO researchers.
In his writing and talks after he left the IPTO in 1975, Licklider describes the problems he encountered over support for basic research in computer science within the U.S. Department of Defense. Licklider proposed the need for citizens to actively deal with such problems when they develop.
Licklider is not asking for citizens to vote on every issue. Instead he outlines how voting is insufficient as a way to promote the public interest. He writes (6):(V)oting in the absence of understanding defines only the public attitude, not the public interest. It means that many public spirited individuals must study, model, discuss, analyze, argue, write, criticize, and work out each issue and each problem until they reach consensus or determine that none can be reached -- at which point there may be occasion for voting." Licklider describes the need for citizen involvement in government decisions to help determine how to support the continuing development of computer technology. More significantly, Licklider proposes that people will not be interested in government processes until they have a means to participate in those processes. He foresees how computer developments will provide that means. He writes: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.
(Licklider, p. 124) The actual emergence of such a public-spirited online citizenry that Licklider believed so important to the continued support and development of computer and networking technology was identified through the research done by a college student in the early 1990s.
In 1992-19933, as part of his research, the student, Michael Hauben, posted a series of questions and some preliminary research about the developing network on Usenet newsgroups. (Usenet is a worldwide discussion forum.) He also posted his questions on a few Internet mailing lists. Through subsequent posts, and analyzing the replies he received, he recognized that a new form of consciousness, a new identity was being acquired by many of those who wrote him. People online were not only interested in how the developing Net was contributing to their own lives, but also, many were seeking to spread access to the Internet to others.
Michael had seen the construction "net.citizen" referred to online. Thinking about the social concern and consciousness he had found among those who wrote him, and about the nongeographical character of a net-based form of citizenship, he contracted "net.citizen" into the term "netizen." Netizen has come to reflect the online social identity discovered doing this research (7).
Michael wrote a paper titled, "The Net and Netizens: the Impact the Net has on People's Lives," describing the contributions he received from many parts of the world. This research was done in 1992-1993 just at the time when the Internet was spreading to countries and networks around the world.
Michael posted his paper on Usenet and several Internet mailing lists on July 6, 1993. People around the world wrote that they found the paper of interest and the term "netizen" quickly spread, not only in the online world, but it soon began appearing in newspapers and other publications offline. By 1994 the term "netizen" appeared in offline publications in Korea, and in 1993, online.
I collaborated with Michael, also doing research and writing that was posted online. One of the people who found our writings of interest suggested we gather them into a book. We collected our papers into an online book titled "Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net," put online in January 1994.
In 1997, a second version of the book (.doc) was published in a print edition titled "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet." The book was also translated into Japanese and published in a Japanese edition.
It is important to distinguish between the more general usage the media has promoted, that anyone online is a
netizen, and the usage that reserves the title "netizen" for the online user who actively participates to make the Net, and the world it is part of, a better place. According to this second usage:Netizens ... 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. (Michael Hauben Preface, "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet") Individuals around the world have adopted and helped to spread the consciousness and identity of the netizen. An interesting phenomenon at the present time is the identification as netizens by many who are online in South Korea. When asking a number of people I met during a recent visit to South Korea if they are netizens, all responded "yes," or "I hope so."
South Korea is probably the most wired nation in the world. One particularly interesting aspect of these developments is that online processes are being adopted by formerly offline institutions and that online clubs have developed offline organizational forms as well.
Over 80 percent of the population has access to high-speed Internet. Along with the spread of high-speed Internet access in Korea is the continuing development of online experimentation and netizenship among the Korean population. This has led also to questions and concerns about what happens when there are diverse viewpoints debated, or when there are actions by some people online that may be harmful or hurt others. Also, there has been criticism of online events in Korea in newspapers like the Washington Post in the U.S., without much consideration or analysis of those events.
There are researchers in South Korea documenting the interactive, collaborative processes that the netizens of Korea are using to have an impact on Korean society. In several of the studies I read, researchers document how online collaborative discussion processes among Korean netizens are creating the kinds of collaborative social models, which are similar to the collaborative modeling process that Licklider and Taylor proposed were needed for scientific and social advancement.
What are some of the implications and research questions raised by these collaborative interactive social modeling processes that the Internet makes possible?
1) With regard to the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) activities that are now ongoing:
The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) meetings currently being held in conjunction with the U.N., demonstrate the need for an appropriate model for the management of the Internet's infrastructure. But outdated models that developed prior to the Internet are dominating the discourse among those involved in the WSIS process. Instead it would be more helpful to the WSIS process to consider how a management process can be created which will build on the collaborative, interactive, and inclusive nature of the Internet.
2) With regard to the disputes and disagreements being raised online in various discussion forums among netizens in South Korea:
I want to propose that considering this collaborative, interactive, inclusive modeling quality of the Internet can prove helpful in thinking about online developments.
For example, there is the specific example of the "dog poop" incident that recently was the subject of much online and offline discussion and disagreement. Several people I spoke with felt that there was little chance that those who disagreed would change their minds. Instead there was pessimism expressed that the different sides in the dispute would only remain far apart. It is agreed among many, and I concur, that it is important not to hurt people by the kinds of sensationalism with which this incident was reported.
I found a graphic showing the incident on the Web site seoprise.com (www.seoprise.com). Two photos serve to show the incident. But when looking carefully at the photos, it can be observed that none of the faces of the participants is identifiable. The person posting the photos had changed the photos to blur out the faces of the participants. The posting of photos with unidentifiable faces is the result of a learning process in which a way was found to show the incident without identifying the individuals involved.
The blocking out of the identities of the participants in the photos is one demonstration that the broad-ranging discussion among many netizens about whether it was appropriate to reveal the identity of the participants, had a fruitful result. Thus, a more responsible way to present a photo of a similar incident in the future is being sought.
This incident, however, was treated by some in a way that sensationalized it. This can happen once the details are presented in a newspaper or on a major portal in a way that helps to exaggerate certain aspects of the discussion, or if some users online (who I would not call "netizens") fail to be concerned with having a constructive purpose and instead seek to harm someone who was involved in the situation (7).
In conclusion:
The Internet provides for an online, plastic, and collaborative process that makes possible the interactive modeling Licklider and Taylor describe in their 1968 paper. This is a helpful analogy through which to view an important positive aspect of the online world that has evolved as the Internet has developed and spread around the world. The social consciousness of users as online citizens, as netizens, has also evolved and spread. This online process makes it possible for netizens to help make the Net both an intellectual and social resource.(8)
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Notes:
1. An earlier more general version of this talk was presented in July 2005 at the 22nd International Congress of History of Science in Beijing, China, as part of the symposium "Computer Networks, the Internet and Netizens: Their Impact on Science and Society."
For the talk at SNU, there were a set of PowerPoint slides illustrating the points in the talk. The slides are online .
For a more detailed explanation of some of the issues, raised in the first part of the talk about the myths surrounding the Internet's origins and the international national origins of the Internet, see:
The Internet: On its International Origins and Collaborative Vision (A Work In Progress)
2. The Norwegian research organization was the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (NDRE, Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt).
3. Also, Licklider had made an engineering breakthrough that is referred to as "clipped speech." He was able to identify what small part of the sound wave was critical for the sound to be perceived. (This was helpful to the U.S. military during WWII in identifying how pilots could get help hearing vital sounds despite lots of background noise.)
4. J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor, "The Computer as a Communication Device," Science and Technology, April 1968.
5. You may notice, perhaps, that this description by C.P. Snow of a form of Brownian Motion for society, sounds similar in some ways to the concept of the "public sphere" that the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas explores in his writing.
6. J.C.R. Licklider, "Computers and Government," in "The Computer Age: A Twenty-Five Year View," by Michael L. Detouzos and Joel Moses, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1979, p. 126.
7. Netizens are those who embodied the social consciousness and public purpose that Licklider considered important for the continued development of computer technology and the public policy to support that development. This is the second usage of the term that I mentioned earlier in my talk. According to this usage, not all those online are netizens, only those whose actions are to make the Net and the new world it is part of a better place.
8. 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.
(from Michael Hauben, "Further Thoughts about Netizens")
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©2005 OhmyNews
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