Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet - Hardcover

Hauben, Michael; Hauben, Ronda; Truscott, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0818677066 ISBN 13: 9780818677069

Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr, 1997

Synopsis

Netizens, one of the first books detailing the Internet, looks at the creation and development of this participatory global computer network. The authors conducted online research to find out what makes the Internet "tick". This research results in an informative examination of the pioneering vision and actions that have helped make the Net possible. The book is a detailed description of the Net's construction and a step-by-step view of the past, present, and future of the Internet, the Usenet and the WWW.

The book gives you the needed perspective to understand how the Net can impact the present and the turbulent future. These questions are answered: What is the vision that inspired or guided these people at each step? What was the technical or social problem or need that they were trying to solve? What can be done to help nourish the future extension and development of the Net? How can the Net be made available to a broader set of people?

About this title

Review:

A netizen, as Ronda and Michael Hauben use the term, is more than just somebody who uses the Internet. It is somebody who has demonstrated a devotion to being a good citizen of an online community. Some have been involved in constructing parts of the Net and forming it into a major social force. Others are simply members of mailing lists and discussion groups, quietly lending a helping hand to others and sharing information, support, and aid through the wires. The Haubens tell the history of the Internet through netizens.

While it was technical necessity and political desire that made the Net happen, it was the often idealistic vision of the netizens that shaped it. The Haubens look at both sides--the technical problems being faced and the social ideas that guided the developers. They take both the outside developments in computing technology and governmental regulatory issues into account.

Most of the emphasis of the book is on Usenet, the vast array of bulletin board-like message areas where people can find discussions about everything from the most esoteric scientific work in progress to the mundane necessities of daily life to off-the-wall treatments of pop culture. They show how it developed as a form of "poor man's ARPANET" to become a backbone of international conversation. The authors hold Usenet up as an example of user-controlled communication, showing how communities can be successful even in an area lacking formal rules--or lacking the means to enforce the rules. And while they stop short of exploring Usenet's current problems with commercial junk posts, they do explore the many previous predictions of the "imminent death of the Internet," showing how a devoted population of netizens has repeatedly been able to work around threats to its community's existence.

From the Back Cover:

Netizens is an ambitious look at the social aspects of computer networking. It examines the present and the turbulent future, and especially it explores the technical and social roots of the Net.—Thomas Truscott, co-developer of Usenet

While working on my own history of the Net, I watched the Haubens' documentation of Net development evolve and grow as they posted it to the Net itself. Now, with a hardcopy version of their work out, the authors have given us a valuable shelf reference to complement their online work.—Katie Hafner, coauthor of Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet

Inspired by the writings of Thomas Paine and Jean Jacques Rousseau, Michael and Ronda Hauben sketch an=out a provocative declaration of Netizen rights in their appendix to this engrossing, well-researched, and very useful book. The Haubens reserve the term Netizen for positive contributors to the Net, the good citizens whose heroic precursors from the 1960s are reicly chronicled in a flowing historical and sociological account that is not to be missed.—Martin Greenberger, Director of the Center for Digital Media, UCLA

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0818677066
• ISBN 13: 9780818677069
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 361