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Netizens celebrate a decade of activism

Michael Hauben's legacy lives on, ten years after the release of the book 
'Netizen'

The Korea Herald
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

By Claire George

On a sunny afternoon last weekend in Manhattan a group of well-wishers met 
to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the print edition of "Netizens: On 
the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet" by the late Michael 
Hauben and his mother and co-author, Ronda Hauben.

"Netizens," which first appeared online in January 1994 was one of the 
earliest books to examine the development of the internet as a social 
network. In it, Michael Hauben expressed his hope for the internet's use 
as an aid to global human cooperation.

At Saturday's gathering Michael's father Jay told listeners: "The lesson 
for me is to learn from Michael to have confidence in the wonders the net 
can produce. Whenever I read some chapter in 'Netizens,' I always have the 
same sensation. I want to participate more on the net. I still want to be 
a netizen."

Michael Hauben invented the term netizen by combining the words citizen 
and internet. He defined citizens of the net as people who, "understand 
the value of collective work and the communal aspects of public 
communications. These are the people who discuss and debate topics in a 
constructive manner, who e-mail answers to people and provide help to 
new-comers, who maintain public information repositories. They are not 
people who exploit the web for their own personal gain."

The new word spread across the world and is now in common use in English, 
Korean, Japanese, Italian and other languages. Michael Hauben died in June 
2001 at the age of 28 from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1999. 
But his legacy lives on in an idea that has become an inspiration for 
people who believe that the internet is a force for good.

Speaking to The Korea Herald from her home in New York, Ronda Hauben 
expressed her "delight" in the achievements of Korean netizens. She says 
that Koreans should be proud of the role played by "netizen scientists" in 
the affair of the stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk and cites Korea's 
contribution to the development of citizen journalism as being of 
particular importance.

"There are conservative forces in the U.S. trying to create another attack 
on the United Nations like the scandal they created around supposed 
corruption in the U.N. in the 'oil for food program.' I haven't seen this 
challenged in the U.S. press, but it was challenged by netizens in Korea," 
she said.

"There are many similar examples," Hauben continued, "I can only read 
English accounts of what is happening, but even so when I look I see 
valuable examples of netizen activity."

In her own life as a netizen journalist and featured writer for OhMyNews 
International Ronda Hauben covers the U.N. and U.N. related developments. 
She believes that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon needs press coverage 
like that provided by progressive netizens in order to operate 
effectively.

"If only the conservative press such as the Wall Street Journal and Fox 
News and so on, didn't focus so much on supposed scandals that aren't 
scandals, then he would not be trapped into responding to things that are 
being made into issues but aren't the real issues," she said.

Editor's Note 7/19/07: This article was earlier posted with a subhead that 
said the term "netizen" is ten years old. Hauben's book Netizen is 
actually a decade old. AsiaMedia regrets the error.

Date Posted: 7/18/2007