[governance] Netizens and citizens; Was Re: new TLDs?

[Ronda Hauben]

Good to see there is finally a bit of discussion of the relevance to
'netizens' to what is happening in WSIs and the governance of the 
Internet.

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005, lissjeffrey at sympatico.ca wrote:

> Hi all:
> Language matters so I am glad to see this discussion.

I am glad to see the discussion as well.

> Here are some additional reasons for supporting the use of 'netizen'
> and a few minor reservations to consider:
>
> In our project, the eCommons/agora (electronic commons, agora electronique), 
> we speak of netizens and the NetiZen News because we want to signal the 
> distinction between citizens online
> ( netizens) and consumers online (users).

> We decided some time ago, quite independently, to adopt a term that we had 
> seen in casual use, netizen, explicitly in order to announce that we had 
> placed the stress on this citizen online role.

Lisa I thought you were aware that the concept had developed and spread
via Michael's article "The Net and Netizen" and included some reference to 
this on your site. I realize that between the time Michael's article was 
posted in July 1993 and whenever you started your project, the media had
introduced a more general usage of netizen, but there continued to be,
and continue now to be, many online who consider themselves citizens of 
the net and use 'netizen' to reflect this.

It is true that many online who considered themselves 'netizens' in the 
sense I am referring to, didn't know of Michael's original work.

But the concept had spread and that is what is important. Despite the 
efforts of the media to try to delute the meaning of the concept.

It has been interesting that several dictionaries continued to mention 
that 'netizen' referred to those with a community or social purpose and 
that they would be active to support that purpose. So this meaning has 
spread and it spread around the world.

Michael recognized also that there was an form of institution developing, 
one that he called an 'electronic commons'.

>Not the Internet as  destination shopping experience, the Internet as
>public space for community,  citizen and democratic life.
>
Good you make this distinction.

> The problem with 'users' in English at least is that it brings to mind drug 
> users, or other sorts of consumers of things, takers, not givers, certainly 
> not  people who produce and give and behave in the reciprocal and interactive 
> manner that the Internet makes possible.
> Another reason for making the term netizen central to our eCommons/agora 
> project was to play up  an active democratic role for the citizen and the 
> community, and the mutual shaping of tools for dialogue and democratic  life 
> ( especially between elections).
>

Nice.

> In fact, for some of us who theorize the term 'netizen,' the ground for this 
> figure of the netizen or online citizen is not polis but rather the commons 
> or electronic commons to be more exact.

I was using the analogy to the Greek 'polis' as an example, not calling
the net a polis. Good you make this clear.

> The idea behind this term e-commons ( 
> in english) was to refer to the notion of a free, open, accessible, usable, 
> shared, available, affordable, place  -- not a private enclosed exclusive 
> expensive space. So we tried to link these two terms (e-commons and netizen) 
> into a conceptual nexus in order to signal an aspiration for the public 
> Internet as e-commons, and an aspiration for the citizen online as netizen.

But netizen isn't only an aspiration, there are netizens.

I know of netizens in Canada, as well as elsewhere around the world.

So I am a little confused when you refer to the concept as an 'aspiration'

> ( For the social scientists in the crowd, by using normative language -- 
> there *should* be an e-commons built by netizens -- to describe the current 
> situation, we hoped to avoid the closing of the earlier Internet commons of 
> the 1990s, and to encourage the outcome that many of us sought to create in 
> the 21st century).
>
But netizen isn't something 'normative'. It was an actual discovery.

So again I am a bit confused by what you are saying.

The commercialization of the Internet has had a harmful effect,
due to the activities of commercial companies and how they act without
any oversight or concern for the social or public purpose online
(as for example, Google's putting a copyright sign under Usenet posts,
and not providing a way to discuss whether their archiving Usenet posts
in areas other than technical areas may be having a harmful effect on
Usenet, etc)

Yet it isn't that the Net has been closed.

The fight of netizens has in fact helped to keep it open.

I had an interesting discussion with someone a while ago who
was amazing that she didn't have to pay for everything online.

If a commercial net had been the origin of the Internet, if there hadn't
been the constant fight of netizens against the efforts of the commercial 
entities trying to control and determine the nature of what is online,
then the Net today might in fact be closed. It isn't. The fight continues,
though it has been a hard fight, and while the commercial entities like
Google who believe they have no need to concern themselves with the views
of users, do what they want, netizens continue to create a socially 
constructive and responsive environoment online.

(...)

> Theorizing just a wee bit further, (Vital Links for a Knowledge Culture: 
> Public access to new information and communications technology ed. Jeffrey, 
> 2001: Council of Europe) if we posit three main sectoral actors in a new 
> balance of power for e-governance, namely government, private sector, and 
> civil society, then arguably all actors in their capacity to engage in 
> meaningful participation in the world, local or national information society 
> are potential netizens.

If they have a social concern and act on it.

The problem with some commercial entities is that they believe that
they are above any obligations to the public, and instead that profits for 
their shareholders come first.

Consequently, they are interested in representing their own commercial
self interest, not in trying to determine what is the social purpose,
or public interest.

This is why there is a need for a good functioning government (which is 
hard to come by these days, particulary in the US) in a society with such 
self interested commercial entities.)

It seems in the potential "new balance of power for e-governance" that
you are proposing, that commercial entities end up being supported by 
their own participation (which is well funded as a business expense and 
with people being paid for their participation) and by certain governments 
(such as the US government who functions as an advocate for unbridled 
commercial activity too much of the time these days), and there are also 
civil society organizations that have been funded by these commercial 
entities and who represent their interests.

So instead of building a structure that can challenge the self interest of 
commercial entities, it seems the supposed "new balance of power" empowers 
the commercial entities.

Netizens are citizens of the net, not entities. In the US legal jargon,
commercial entities have been interpreted as 'citizens'. This is a 
constitutional abuse in the US of the supposed rights of citizens.

Someone who works for a commercial entity can indeed be a netizen,
but not by advocating the commercial self interest of that entity.

Maybe this is why it is so important that netizens be a part of the

> Surely that is the point of what we are discussing at Wsis. It does not 
> matter if not everyone is now online.

Our effort is to try to make it possible for everyone to be online.

> Everyone will not be online, ever, and in some cases (as studies from 
> Trinidad and Russia show, for instance)  things can work effectively in terms 
> of netizen participation when people who are not internet literate and do not 
> have direct internet access know who to go to when they wish to communicate 
> via the 'net. Every society works differently, and needs its own metric.
> But surely that is not the decisive factor in whether or not we use the term 
> 'netizen' or 'user.'
>
Referring to 'netizen' is referring to an important Internet development.

> Maybe we should consider using the term user when we mean a consumer who can 
> shop in the network of commercial possibilities, and reserve 'netizen' for 
> discussions of citizens online, with the skills and literacies to be a 
> producer, worker, democratic actor in the world information society at 
> whatever access point (local, regional, provincial, national).

I agree that it is just confusing to say 'netizen' when referring to a 
user. Michael noted this problem and said in the concept he intended
one wouldn't say 'good' netizen or 'bad' netizen, as 'netizen' represetns
positive activity and no adjective need be used.

(...)
>
> This means we have to watch our language.
  (...)

> - netizen does not translate well into french - one of our Montréal

actually netizen has been used in different languages rather than there
being a different word in the language. Like the word computer, which is
used in several other languages.


> So what happens to this term in German? I did not encounter major issues with 
> use of this term netizen when speaking in Germany (but everyone i met spoke 
> such excellent english - what about others?).

In German I have seen the term 'netizen' used as well. Its not a question
of finding some other word to translate it into.

'netizen' is a new concept, thus there won't be ways to translate it in 
other languages and it has become a word in its own right in other 
languages.

> Finally one last negative:
> - netizen has to be explained, as it is a neologism - but then the Internet 
> was a neologism not so long ago, so i do not mind this one so much. In fact, 
> I think we would do ourselves a favour if we as civil society (itself a very 
> contested concept, as others have also noted) did introduce some language 
> into Wsis, since as far as I can see playing it safe linguistically or any 
> other way at this point does not seem to be getting civil society anywhere.
>
Netizen is a new word that describes the emergence of online citizens, 
citizens not limited by geography, citizens with a social purpose.

It would be good to see this concept introduced into these WSIS processes,
as there seems often too little of a conception of a social consciousness 
and identity of many of those online.

> My five cents
>

Good to have your comments.

> Liss Jeffrey, PhD
> Founding director
> eCommons/agora
> & McLuhan global research network
> University of Toronto

Ronda
co-author with Michael Hauben of
"Netizens: On the History and Impact of 
Usenet and the Internet"
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/
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