Back to Our Roots - Columbia Universityhauben/acn/ACn14-1.pdf · Back to Our Roots In this issue, the Amateur Computerist returns a bit to its roots. This newsletter grew out of the

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Spring 2006 Volume 14 No. 1

Back to Our Roots

In this issue, the Amateur Computerist returns abit to its roots. This newsletter grew out of the com-puter programming classes at the Ford Motor Com-pany Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Theseclasses were part of a benefit won by the UAW duringnegotiations with Ford in the 1980s. The UAWmembers agreed not to oppose the introduction ofmodern technology in exchange for Ford contributinga nickel for every regular hour of work by UAWrepresented workers. The fairly large pool of moneyfrom the ‘Nickel an Hour Fund’ was earmarked fortraining and educational development, hence thecomputer programming classes.  However, without opposition from the UAW, by1986, Ford began to eliminate the classes even thoughthe classes were a benefit agreed to at the bargainingtable. Inspired by the spirit of the Flint Sit-Downstrike 50 years earlier, the students and computerinstructor put up a fight to maintain the classes. Whenthey lost that fight, some of the workers and theirinstructor founded this newsletter to continue theirinterest in computing.

Now, twenty years later, autoworkers, employedby the Delphi auto parts corporation, are fighting

Table of ContentsBack to Our Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1Voice of the UAW Worker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2Constitutional Death of the UAW . . . . . . . . . Page 5GM Buyouts No ‘Christmas’ . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8French Youth Up in Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 11NYC Transit Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13Origin of the Net, Emergence of Netizen . . Page 14Michael Hauben: Columbia 250 Bday . . .th Page 19Misunderstanding about ‘Netizen’ . . . . . . . Page 20Advancing “News guerrillas” . . . . . . . . . . . Page 21Impact of Net on Chinese Press Politics . . . Page 24

against threatened plant closures and cuts, this timeof pension and healthcare benefits. They too arelooking back to the spirit of the sit down strikers.The first three articles in this issue tell some of thestory of Delphi’s attempted cutbacks. That storyincludes the cooperation between Delphi and theUAW leadership to make the cuts. But also there isthe fight back of the workers and the role of themainstream U.S. press. The press is distorting thenature of what Delphi and GM are doing, suggestingsomehow that these cut backs are a good thing. Butas our headline says, there was “No Christmas inMarch”.

On an encouraging notes, the article, “FrenchYouth Up in Arms” tells of the first student andworker demonstrations on March 7, 2006 whicheventually forced the government of France torescind a new labor law. That law, if left in place,would have curtailed the labor rights of youngworkers and pitted young new hires against olderworkers. Also, the article, “First NYC Transit Strikein 25 Years”, tells of the beginning of a fight thatprevented the imposition of a two tiered workingsituation where younger NYC transit workers wouldhave had lower benefits.  This issue also continues the story carried by theAmateur Computerist since the 1990s of the develop-ment of the Internet and the emergence of thenetizens. In the article on the international andscientific origin of the Internet, some of the myths ofthe origin of the Internet are refuted. A connection ismade between the vision of JCR Licklider thatinspired Internet development and the social compo-nent which particularly supported netizen activity.The particular effect of the netizen movement onSouth Korean society is tied into the visions ofLicklider and of Michael Hauben who first docu-mented the netizen identity in the early 1990s.

We are timing this issue for early May not onlybecause May 1 is International Workers Day, but

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also because it was the date when our late editorMichael Hauben was born in 1973. To remember hiscontribution and honor his birthday, we include thebrief sketch of Michael that appeared as part of the250th anniversary celebration of Columbia Univer-sity. It was at Columbia as an undergraduate thatMichael did some of his early research and importantwork.

Michael’s concept of netizen is having activeconfirmation in South Korea. We include a brief blogentry and an article describing Ohmynews, an onlinecitizen journalist newspaper as two examples of thenetizen phenomenon in Korea.

We end this issue with an article on the impact ofthe Internet in China. Online and netizen activity havecaused a great change in the press in China. The Partyor bureaucratic press is no longer the single source fornews. Instead there is a contest between the old newsform and what is made possible by the rapid spread ofthe Internet to now over 115 million people in China.Li Xiguang from Tsinghau University wrote aboutthis effect a while ago. We reprint this summary hereto share his story with a wider audience.

These are hard times, but we hope this issue willshow that there is motion and resistance and evenprogress.

Automakers and the Voiceof the UAW Worker

by Ronda Hauben

Delphi Corporation, the world’s second largestauto parts manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy for itsNorth American operations on Oct. 19, 2005. Delphiemploys 185,000 workers world-wide and 33,650hourly workers in its U.S. operations.

The company has threatened that if it doesn’t getsignificant cuts in auto worker wages and benefits viaits negotiations with the United Auto Worker (UAW)union leadership, that on March 30, 2006, it will askthe bankruptcy court to impose substantial cuts inwages and benefits on its unionized workforce in theU.S. This threat was made by the CEO of Delphi,Steve Miller. What is the significance of such a threatbeing made to workers of the union which helped toprovide the benefits and wages that have set a stan-dard for other workers in the U.S. and elsewhere

around the world?(1)In 1999, the General Motors Corporation spun

off its auto parts division, setting it up as the DelphiCorporation. The new company had certain obliga-tions to supply General Motors with parts, but theworkforce, which had previously worked for GeneralMotors under their GM/UAW contract, was nowworking for a new company. The Delphi Corporationat the time of its creation did not have any debt.

Six years later, in October 2005, Delphi claimedthat its North American operations are heavily indebt. The relief it wants from the bankruptcy court,is help to drastically slash the wages and cut back onthe benefits of its unionized workforce.

Many workers at Delphi denounce the corpora-tion’s claims and actions. Some are organizing andmeeting with other workers from different Delphifactories to discuss strategy to fight against whatthey believe is a fraudulent effort to drastically cuttheir wages and make draconian changes in theirworking conditions. They say that Delphi and Gen-eral Motors would be hurt if they go on strike.

Delphi claims that it cannot function in thecompetitive world market if it has to pay unionwages and benefits to its workforce. Wages for longtime General Motors workers who were transferredto Delphi when the corporation was created are $27an hour, or about $56,000 a year before taxes. ButDelphi claims that it costs the company $140,000 ayear for each of these union workers, when benefitslike pension and health care costs are factored intothe wage costs.

Workers explain the $27 per hour wage is barelyenough for them to have a minimum standard ofliving, consisting of a place to live, food and someother expenses such as occasionally eating at arestaurant. With taxes taken out of their salaries,workers end up with substantially less than $50,000a year. Given the high prices of housing and food inthe U.S., this leaves little left over for other ex-penses. Only by working overtime, up to 12 hours aday and up to 7 days a week, do union workers atDelphi say they manage to have enough money fora vacation and education for their children.

In December 2005, several U.S. Congressmensponsored an online Congressional hearing, “TheAmerican Automobile Industry in Crisis.” (2) Theyinvited Delphi workers and retirees to submit de-scriptions of the conditions of their lives and whatwould happen to them if they lost the retiree benefits

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and union wages that Delphi said it was going to askthe Court to help it slash.

Over a thousand Delphi workers and retireesresponded in writing. Their submissions are posted ona Congressional Web site maintained by the Educa-tion and the Workforce Committee of the U.S. Con-gress. Many of the workers responding describe thedangerous conditions they endured at their work-places over a number of years which left them injuredor sick.

Other responses from workers describe how theyworked for General Motors and its parts division for20 to 30 years with the commitment that they couldretire with a certain minimum level of pension andhealth care benefits. Now they are told that Delphiwill use a bankruptcy court to reduce the company’sobligation to pay wages, pensions and health carebenefits.

While Delphi has claimed its North Americanoperations are losing money, some workers proposethat this is the result of accounting practices thatmisrepresent what Delphi has actually spent.

For example, Randall Musielak of Frankenmuth,Michigan writes (3):

“The large corporations such as Delphi,GM, Ford, and Chrysler which lost moneyaccording to budget and have never madeprofit, still hide millions in black accountsdue to creative bookkeeping. For example, Iworked in a trades area where we would beissued a twenty hour job that takes only twohours to complete. When finished I wouldbe issued another job. The assembly linewould be charged the full estimated twentyhours of service into hidden black accountsand would also be written off in taxes asmaintenance... Delphi can show any loss it chooses andexecutive’s bonuses surely do not justify abankruptcy. To plan, implement, execute,and deliberately use bankruptcy as a tool inbusiness for greater profit should be reasonfor investigation. The sticker price on anautomobile clearly shows wages, benefitsand bonuses for GM and Delphi. The bank-ruptcy should be thrown out of court and anycompany owned by another should not beallowed to use bankruptcy as a business tool;but instead have to settle thru collectivebargaining.

Testimony from another worker, describes thequestions the Delphi tactics are raising amongworkers (4):

“My name is Patrick Mitchell and I havebeen employed with GM/Delphi for almost29 years... The question that begs to beanswered is: How can a corporation thatwas spun off from GM in 1999 with a fullyfunded pension, pockets full of lucrativecontracts with General Motors Corp, Toy-ota, Nissan, Ford, and Daimler Chryslerend up going bankrupt in 6 short years andwreck so many lives? They cooked theirbooks, took advantage of shareholders andinvestors and have Chief Corporate execu-tives under investigation and they have thechutzpah to point their fingers at the hourlyworker using the media to their advantagewhile trying to reward themselves withmillions of dollars they actually stole fromall who believed in them. Something iswrong in corporate America if the leader-ship in Washington allows this to happen...Thank you for these hearings.”Just as workers present a different view of why

Delphi is declaring bankruptcy in its North Americanoperations from what is being presented in themainstream press in the U.S., workers also rememberthe hard fight it took to get GM to recognize theirright to be represented by the UAW. As LarsChristensen, of Clio, Michigan writes (5):

“I am a third generation autoworker, andam damn proud of it. My father and grand-father were both sitdowners. My grandfa-ther used to walk from his car to the housewith a baseball bat, fearful of the beating hewould take had the company found him tobe a part of the union.”Some militant workers are organizing at Delphi

to protest the company’s efforts to “break the con-tract”, as they explain. They have begun what theycall a “work to rule” (WTR) campaign. As one of theworkers explains (6):

“We should Work to Rule. We need to stayinside to preserve income, save jobs, andfight back. If we follow every rule in thebook, production will slow to a crawl. Wecan control the flow of parts by ensuringquality and following rules. It’s perfectlylegitimate.”

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This group of dissidents call themselves “Sol-diers of Solidarity.” They want to recapture of theSpirit of ‘37, the militant spirit of the auto workerswhich resulted in sit down strikes and culminated inthe victory of the Great Flint Sit Down Strike in 1937.(7)

These rank and file workers describe how Gen-eral Motors and then Delphi had taken the profitsfrom the work they and other workers did and in-vested it in other parts of the world like Mexico andChina.

Essentially, the dissident workers raise thequestion of whether the spin off of the GeneralMotors Parts Operations was mainly intended as aplan to force drastic cutbacks in unionized partsworkers’ wages and benefits. These dissident workersnot only criticize General Motors and Delphi. Theyalso are critical of the leadership of the United AutoWorkers union, which includes the President of theUAW, Ronald Gettelfinger, and other union officials.

The dissident workers believe that previousconcessions given by the UAW union leadership inexchange for setting up “Joint UAW-General Motors”activities and structures, were contrary to the obliga-tion of the union to fight for the well being of theworker. The Joint UAW-GM structures and activitiesare aimed at making GM more competitive, ratherthan protecting the workers’ wages and workingconditions.

While a number of non union auto factories havebeen set up in the U.S. in the last few decades, thedissident Delphi workers point to how these compa-nies often have higher levels of injuries and a greaterattrition rate among the workers. A smaller percent-age of workers actually get to retire from thosefactories when compared to the percentage that areable to retire from the unionized auto factories. Alsothe dissident workers point to the fact that if theunionized auto workers in the U.S. get lower wages,this will also result in lowering the wages of workersin the non union auto factories.

The dissident workers criticize the mainstreampress in the U.S. for repeating General Motors orDelphi claims about the cost of employing unionworkers, without doing their own investigation intothe reality of such claims. For example, some in theauto industry claim that it costs Delphi $140,000 ayear to employ a union worker. Dissident workers askwhere these figures come from. They point to the factthat this is a figure created by inaccurate accounting

practices. The cost of the current union workforce isbeing said to include the amount of money thecorporation has to pay to retirees. But retirees hadpension contributions put into tax exempt funds thatGeneral Motors used for purposes other than payingfor pensions.

Also dissident workers point out that there aremany fewer workers currently producing the samevolume of parts or even more which in the pastrequired a larger workforce. Paying workers whohave high productivity a higher wage in return forthat productivity is not inappropriate, they argue.

One of the most well known of the dissidentworkers is Gregg Shotwell. He writes and distributesa publication called “Live Bait and Ammo.” Heexplains that workers at Delphi have nothing to loseby fighting against union officials and managementwhen they are trying to cut back the wages andpensions of rank and file workers. Shotwell writes(8):

“Concessions don’t save jobs, improveproducts, or sell vehicles. If UAW mem-bers agreed to pay for their own medicalinsurance, GM would not reduce the priceof its cars. The Board of Directors wouldsimply reward themselves. The only legiti-mate solution is Universal Health Care. TheUAW should take the lead and reject allconcessions until All Americans havehealth care.”His newsletter documents an ongoing effort to

expose what he believes is the fraud and lies that arebeing used to cut wages and benefits that rank andfile auto workers have earned through many years ofhard work and struggle.

If Delphi succeeds in imposing the draconianwage cuts and cutbacks in union benefits via abankruptcy court as it is trying to do, he believes thatthis will send a message to other U.S. corporationsthat they can use the same strategy to void theircollective bargaining union agreements. He writes(9):

“Delphi is a test case. If the court allowsDelphi to bankrupt U.S. operations whilesheltering assets overseas, other multina-tional will follow suit. When the smokeclears, they will return under anothername.”The result will be that instead of U.S. workers

helping to set a standard for a living wage, less

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dangerous working conditions and better benefits thatworkers elsewhere can strive for, the U.S. unionizedworkers will be helping to lower wages, set the basisfor worsening conditions for workers in other coun-tries.

How this drama will unfold is yet to be decided.Remarkably, there is a spirited opposition movementwithin the UAW, at the shop floor level. Those inopposition believe that it is important that the actualconditions of the shop floor worker be known and thatthe workers themselves be an active part of theongoing struggle to protect the gains won by autoworkers during the past 70 years.

In his book, “The Wealth of Nations,” the econo-mist Adam Smith, describes the importance to societyof good conditions for its workers. Smith writes (10):

“No society can surely be flourishing andhappy, of which the far greater part of themembers are poor and miserable.”

Notes

1) For background about the history of the UAW and the role it

has played in the American Labor Movement, see Ronda

Hauben, “Lest We Forget: In Tribute To the Pioneers of the

Great Flint Sit Down Strike”. http://www.ais.org/~jrh/search-

light/lest.we.forget.txt

2) http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/autointroduction.html

3) h ttp ://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/autoworkers

testimony2.html

4) http://edworkforce.house.gov/democra ts/au toworkers

testimony2.html

5) http://edworkforce .house .gov/democrats/autoworkers

testimony2.html

6) Live Bait and Ammo # 54 http://www.soldiersofsolidarity

.com/id260.html

7) Michael Hauben, “In Celebration: A Past to Remember, A

Future to Mold. The 50th Anniversary of the Flint Sit-Down

Strike.” Originally published in The Searchlight, the newspaper

of UAW Local 659, Flint, Michigan, February 11, 1987. http://

www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/michael/flint.txt

8) Live Bait and Ammo #50 http://www.soldiersofsolidarity

.com/id267.html

9) Gregg Shotwell, “The Answering Machine”, 01/28/06, MR

Zine. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/shotwell280106.html

10) Quoted in Michael Hauben, “The Real Voice of Adam

Smith” http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/adamsmith.txt

2006-03-06 ©2006 OhmyNews

The Constitutional Death of the UAW

by William D. Hanline and [email protected]

During the recent rounds of negotiations be-tween the UAW and General Motors Corporationover healthcare and legacy cost, the UAW, Interna-tional Union officers committed a betrayal of trust oftheir members and betrayed their oath of office touphold the UAW Constitution. This took place all

for the sake of preserving their “CooperationPartnership” with General Motors Corporation.This betrayal of trust and confidence encompassesboth active and retired members. This action hap-pened when the misleaders, with forethought andcollusion, agreed to reopen the 2003 UAW-GMNational Agreement. Consequentially, their actresulted in a contract that is morally and with outconscience, contrary to the stated purpose in theUAW Constitution.

This newly proposed deal between the UAWand General Motors Corporation shows withoutquestion, beginning with the 2003 contract andending with the 2005 negotiations, the extent theUAW and their cooperative partner GM will go tomaximize the automaker’s competitive position.How their cooperative efforts to divide, whipsaw andpit the workers and retirees against one another(Young against the Old) for the sole purpose oftransferring wealth from those who can least affordit, the retirees, to the Stakeholders of the company.

As a matter of historical fact, Corporate Indus-trial Relation’s fundamental initiative, whether awork force is unionized or not, is to pit the youngagainst the old, men against the women and racesagainst each other. The distasteful reality of thislabor management relationship between the UAWand GM fully manifest itself in this latest example ofcooperation.

The UAW-GM highlights recently rolled out tothe active workers in GM for their vote, clearlydemonstrates the main strategy of the “CooperationPartners.” In the highlights, they unashamedly senta message to the active workers voting that says,“there is no cost to the active worker.” While atthe same time, they remained silent on the fact thatreal dollars will be taken (ROBBED) from the

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retirees who are helpless to defend themselves fromthis pillaging by being denied a right to vote on thismatter.

Though it sounds in this letter that the retireeshave no VOICE, that is not absolutely true. The UAWhas selected two political sycophants, outside anypolitical process, to be the voice of the 380,000 GMretirees during the law suite the “Cooperation Part-ners” (the UAW and GM) filed. Furthermore, theykept the names of those two retirees out of the pressuntil after the law suite was filed in Federal Court.This was supposedly done to protect all retirees but inreality, it was done to give General Motors Corpora-tion Safe Harbor from future law suites. While at thesame time binding the retirees to an illegal negotia-tion (read NLRA) as the UAW negotiated the newretirement package for retirees. That act can only bedescribed as a cowardly act in itself.

Finally yet importantly, it has to be said that theevil brilliance of the UAW and GM “CooperationPartners” to divide and conquer now creates a twotier social structure among the retirees! By negotiat-ing terms that say the retirees whose monthly pen-sions are less than 33 dollars a month for each year ofservice will not have to pay any of the premiumsimposed in the new agreement is simply pittingretiree against retiree! This is evil genius, for the“Cooperation Partners” have pitted every one in theUAW against themselves, seniority members againstnew hires, skilled members against production, activeworkers against retirees and now retirees againstretirees.

So what is this really all about? We have a prettygood idea! We know General Motors needs cash.Therefore, GM’s “Cooperation Partner” (the UAW)pursuant a partnership contract with GM better knownas the Articles of Incorporation of the “Center forHuman Resources” Article II, makes the UAWobligated to help GM get cash so the company willremain competitive.

Now the question becomes, where can GM getcash? The answer lies in a term and program littleknown by most people; it is the “VEBA” or Volun-tary Employees’ Beneficiary Association. VEBAsare IRS, CODE 501(c) None Profit trusts that aredesigned to allow corporations to invest money forthe purpose of providing benefits to their employees.The money for various benefits plans is raised by thetax exempt interest earned from different investments(Stocks, Bonds ETC). The Employee Benefits Secu-

rity Administration of the DOL (Department ofLabor) has oversight of VEBAs. They are recordedannually and are made available to the public bysimply calling the EBSA of the DOL in Washington,D.C. and requesting that information.

The old General Motors VEBA that was provid-ing benefits to GM-UAW employees also coveredmembers represented by the “IUE-CWA” “USWA”and the other three unions. Salary employees andnone union hourly employees benefits are alsocovered by the same VEBA. When a companycombines more than one benefits fund under theumbrella of one great big Master trust (or VEBA)this is known as a commingled trust. What is more,there is nothing in the law that prevents a companyfrom using the money in the VEBA for capitalexpenditures. GM reported doing exactly that in thecompanies Proxy statement of 2001. During the year2000, General Motors raided the VEBA for over 1billion dollars 1) for a 500 million dollar equitypurchase in Suzuki (to build a plant) and 2) for a 500million dollar equity injection into GMAC to showa profit that year. In other words, they looted thehealth care trust to build a plant over seas and trans-fer money from our healthcare VEBA to the stock-holders. All while the “Cooperation Partner”looked the other way!

In the beginning of year 2005, General Motorswas telling Wall Street and the world they had 21billion dollars in cash. Where was that money? Youguessed it, “in the VEBA.” In the beginning of theyear General Motors decided to take 6 Billion dollarsout of the VEBA to cover three consecutive quartersof one billion dollar losses. Loses that grew frompoor sales, rebates, the employee discounts madeavailable to the public and massive recalls. However,during that time nobody, neither in General Motorsor their “Cooperation Partner” (the UAW) spokeof the VEBA.

Consequentially, General Motors and their“Cooperation Partner” had to come up with somekind of scheme to free up that VEBA money. Natu-rally, the plot was propagated in the media, newspa-pers across the country and in GM and Delphi plants

as “Excessive Healthcare & Legacy Cost.”In the media, the centerpiece of the negotiations

was to find a way to HELP UAW members, most ofwho never ever heard of a VEBA or knew oneexisted. Who on the shop floor associates Healthcarewith a VEBA?

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The cleverly designed scheme provides GeneralMotors with the right to absolve its existing VEBAand replace it with a new VEBA. Clearly, new trust-ees, chosen from a consortium of five industrialunions that represent GM workers, will manage thenew VEBA. The member’s benefits of those fiveunions were and are covered in the old and newVEBA respectively. Interestingly enough, by transfer-ring control of the new VEBA over to the unions,General Motors will only have to maintain enoughmoney in the old VEBA to cover white-collar employ-ees’ benefits. Why, because all the union representedworkers have been thrown out of the old VEBA andplaced into the new one.

Now consider this, the old VEBA has 15 billiondollars in it while the new VEBA will only have 1billion dollars. Secondly, GM reported in the newsthat it cost $200 millions a year to administer the oldVEBA. Common sense and logic makes it difficult tounderstand how workers healthcare and legacy costare better secured by 1 billion dollars, than they areby 15 billion dollars. Nevertheless, the “CooperationPartners” have decided that this is what is best forthe workers.

In the mean time General Motors can let theGOOD TIMES ROLL because they have foundanother source of income. Obviously, it is not fromselling cars, but then again we know they do not maketheir primary income from selling cars because everyyear they continue loosing market share. Therefore,since there is nothing else to sell off in GM exceptGMAC, which they are trying to do now, they gettheir hands on at least 10 billion dollars in the oldVEBA and they look forward to the time they sell offGMAC and maybe get another 25 billion.

Much like the automaker, the union is fastarriving at the point where the institution, the UAWInternational Union, can survive maybe with out anydues paying members at all. The latter is possiblebecause the UAW has alternative sources of incomeas well. At present day, only one third of the UAW’sannual flat line income is generated from union dues.The other sources of income are from interest earnedoff the strike fund, retirement trust, joint funds chargebacks and service charges on those joint funds charge-backs.

General Motors on the other hand is probablywalking into a $10 billion win fall they can do whatthey want. More importantly, GM has absolved thecompany of a 25 billion dollar legacy cost. It is a

great deal for the “Cooperation Partners” but aterrible deal for the helpless masses of retirees whohave been denied any democratic input, democraticvoice, or democratic due process. Equally, it is atragedy yet to happen to active workers who havebeen duped into believing that this negotiations isgoing to be NO COST to them, of course, not untilsuch time when workers themselves become helplessretirees.

The real tragedy is the betrayal of trust of bothour members and retirees and the very instrumentthat was written and designed to protect membersfrom this type of tyranny, “The UAW Constitution.”If you do not feel like reading the entire book maywe encourage you to read the preamble? Moreover,if you have never read it before, you need to NOW!

Then again we believe the actions taken duringthese negotiations by the UAW International Uniondelivered the final blow to the Union by driving adividing rod through its heart and sole of the union“THE UAW CONSTITUTION.”

Next year members will be selecting delegateswho will attend the UAW Constitutional Conven-tion. WHY we ask? Why even hold a ConstitutionalConvention? The officers of the international unionhave proven they have no regard and have aban-doned the principles set forth in the constitution andlest we forget they made a solemn pledge to upholdwhen they took office. Instead, the “CooperationPartners” choose to do as they damn well please inspite of those beautiful words and the intent of thatbook.

A lawyer and friend recently asked the follow-ing question. “Will the UAW as we have known it bearound in the next five years?” We concurred that itwould NOT! Ironically, we did not have any idea atthat moment that the end was so close at hand.

Keep in mind the “Cooperation Partners” willsurvive, but the UAW as a Trade Union is alreadyconstitutionally dead.

“I never did give anybody hell, I just told thetruth and they thought it was hell.” Harry S. Truman

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GM Buyouts No ‘Christmasin March’

Media coverage and Internet dia-logue key to empowering workers

by Ronda Hauben

If one were to look at some of the headlines inthe U.S. press on March 23, the day after GeneralMotors made an announcement to offer buyouts andearly retirement to its hourly workforce, it might haveseemed as if U.S. auto workers had a reason tocelebrate Christmas in March. Headlines like “Gener-ous GM”, “In the Giving Spirit”, “Take the Moneyand Run” appeared in the pages of newspapers aroundthe country.

Other articles, like one in The Washington Post,raised the spectre of the previous “good years.” Thearticle explained, “The surprise here is not that thegolden era for autoworkers has come to an end butthat it lasted as long as it did.” (1)

“A Gleam of Hope for GM” was the headline inthe Business Week article announcing the recent GMmoves. “The automaker has cut a deal -- a verygenerous one -- with the UAW that could put it on theroad for lower costs.” The writer explained how GMannounced an early retirement plan for its hourlyworkers that would let them retire, with a certainincentive payment, depending on years of service, orjust take a lay off, and be paid a lump sum payment.This the article tells us, will allow GM, and the partscompany, Delphi, which GM spun off as a separatecompany, to substantially cut their hourly work force.

An online Web site noted that Google recorded1,325 news stories about the GM/Delphi early retire-ment and buyout program. Despite the large numberof news organizations covering this announcement,however, there has been little serious analysis in themainstream media of the importance of what ishappening or of its implications.

While most of the mainstream press carriedarticles expressing relief that the GM and Delphicorporations had found a way to lower the wages theypay to workers, there is another view of what ishappening that has gotten little attention in the U.S.press.

In one of the rare articles raising a differentviewpoint, Robert Kuttner writes in the Boston Globe:

“Who would make the cars? A new gener-

ation of lower-paid workers. It is a mark ofGM’s fragility that the UAW considers thisabout the best deal the union can get.”Kuttner notes that, “labor costs are actually

about $10 an hour higher in Germany” than in theU.S., and yet the problem that GM is having doesn’tseem to be a problem for the German auto makers.He proposes that the problem isn’t workers’ wages,but something else. What is wrong, he writes, is“management thinking and...the official free-marketideology.”

Irrespective of the buyout and early retirementplan, Delphi has set March 30 as the deadline whenit must have an agreement with the UAW or itthreatens that it will file a motion on March 31 tovoid its contract with the UAW. A press release atthe Delphi Web site announced:

“Delphi will continue talks in an effort toachieve a comprehensive agreement nolater than March 30, 2006. Absent agree-ment with all parties, Delphi will file nolater than March 31, 2006 its motion underSections 1113 and 1114 of the U.S. Bank-ruptcy Code to initiate the process of seek-ing court authorization to reject the collec-tive bargaining agreements and terminatehourly post-retirement health plans and lifeinsurance.” (5)Delphi is the largest auto parts company in the

world. It employs 185,000 worldwide. In the U.S. itemploys 50,000, with 33,650 of these employees arehourly workers. (6) In Mexico, Delphi employs over70,000 workers.

In 1998, GM was encouraged by Wall Streetanalysts to take its parts operation and spin it off intoa separate company. (7)

Given the size and the international scope ofDelphi, there are serious questions raised about whyit is declaring bankruptcy in its North Americanoperations, but is allowed to continue its operationsoutside of North America without any effect of thebankruptcy declaration.

Among the workers who are affected by theDelphi bankruptcy, there is the suspicion that thebankruptcy is but a ploy to rid itself of a unionizedworkforce.

The response to the proposed buy out amongmany of the workers is confusion about whether itwill benefit them to take it. Among the dissidentworkers, however, the issue raised is how the buyout

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will affect the future of labor in the U.S. and theliving standard of the workers who follow them intothe factories and other large corporations.

The dissident workers don’t attribute the gainsmade by workers at companies like GM or Delphi tothe generosity of the companies. Instead, as oneworker explains, “The only thing we’ve ever been‘given’ by the corporation is what they gave up whenwe had one hand twisted in their collar and the otherhand ready to slap them down.”

The fact that there are negotiations going on eventhough there has not been a membership decision toreopen the union contract, strikes some workers as anominous sign. If they take early retirement, what is toguarantee them that they will get the retirementbenefits they are promised. “No amount of conces-sions will ever appease them,” is a view that is voicedabout why it is a dead end for workers to go alongwith the early retirement proposed packages or thecontract the UAW is negotiating with Delphi. Astrategy of giving concessions, some workers claim,will only lead to more and more demands by thecompany. “No one should be negotiating in themiddle of a contract,” is a feeling that is expressed.

The fact that the early retirement offer is beingagreed to by the UAW without consulting the mem-bership and having a vote by the UAW membership,is seen as a confirmation of the loss of membershipcontrol over what the union officials do. This leavesout any role for the rank and file and their concerns.

Workers at Delphi or who are supporting thedissidents in UAW to oppose the anti-democraticmeans that the UAW is using, are looking back at the1936-37 sit down strike and the militant tradition ofthe UAW.(8) Another important aspect of UAWhistory which is less well known, however, is thetradition of recognizing the need for a press whichallows for debate among the rank and file on theissues that affect them. One auto worker, Carl John-son, often explained the importance of such a press ina column he wrote in his local union newspaper, “TheSearchlight,” which was the official union newspaperof the Chevrolet Engine Plant in Flint, Michigan. Sitdown strikers like Carl Johnson, and his son KermitJohnson, who was one of the leaders of the Plant 4 sitdown, had been part of the actions of 1936-1937which made it possible to win the UAW.

In the years following the victory of the Flint SitDown Strike, Carl Johnson advocated the need for anuncensored press for workers, a press that would

make it possible to debate the issues important to therank and file. (9)

Johnson explained the need to welcome all fromthe ranks of labor to be part of the discussion. Hewrote:

“But who, from the ranks of Labor? Letthem all speak -- that’s what Free Speechwas intended for! Let them all present theirview in a forum. From that the reader willhave a fair chance to decide.” (October 29,1949, “The Searchlight”)Johnson felt that most of the institutions in

society during this period were controlled by thelarge corporations and so a press that could beindependent was needed. He writes:

“We must bare in mind the obvious factthat our education institutions, the schools,the Daily press, the radio, etc. are all con-trolled by Big Business – by that smallsection of the population which sufferslittle from the hardships of depression andwar.” (March 1, 1945, The Searchlight)He was not proposing a press that would be

dominated by officials of the international union.Instead, the involvement and participation of therank and file were critical to the vision Johnson hadfor such a press if it were to help to set a basis fordemocratic decision-making and actions. He writes:

“The rank and file...have nothing to loseby advancing ideas and opinions whichmay, for the time being, be at variance withpopular concepts. Moreover, a rank andfiler with ideas of change which promisegreatly improved conditions for him as wellas for his fellow workers has therein thenecessary incentive to express those ideas.It is important to understand, therefore, thatthe future welfare of the rank and file de-pends largely upon the part the ranks playin shaping that future....” (January 11, 1951,The Searchlight, These are excerpts arefrom “The Searchlight: the Voice of theChevy Worker.”)The importance that Carl Johnson and other

UAW pioneers attached to discussion and debateamong the rank and file became embodied in theway they structured their local union newspapers.One such newspaper, The Searchlight, the localunion newspaper of UAW Local 659, in Flint,Michigan, was censored by the International Union

Page 10

in 1949/1950 and took up a fight against that censor-ship at the 1951 UAW convention. Losing their fightagainst the censorship, however, made it more diffi-cult for them to carry on their program of continuingtheir fight for gains for labor.

Today, with the Internet, there is a new form ofmedia making it possible to discuss and debate howto respond to the actions of corporations like Delphiand GM. The discussion on some online forums,newsgroups, and web sites recognizes that the effortto understand the problem that the Delphi bankruptcyposes is not one that can be solved quickly. Its notlike “instant coffee” but more like understanding theneed to plant “seeds” and “nurture the fruit.” (10)

NOTES

(1) “Laying to Rest a ‘Generous’ Way of Life” The Washington

Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti-

cle/2006/03/25/AR2006032500097.html

(2) News & Features, By David Welch, BusinessWeek March 24,

2006 http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/mar2006

/bw20060323_907896.htm?chan=autos_autos+index+page_

autos+lede

(3) From the Archives, Auto News, Thursday, March 23, 2006

h t t p : / / w w w . c l e v e l a n d . c o m / w e b l o g s / a u t o n e w s /

index.ssf?/mtlogs/advance_autonews/archives/ 2006_03.html

(4) Robert Kuttner, “Making U.S. Manufacturing Work” Boston

Globe, March 25, 2006 http://www.boston.com/business/articles

/2006/03/25/making_us_manufacturing_work/

(5)Delphi Docket (PDF) http://delphidocket.com/documents

/0544481/0544481060217000000000001.pdf

(6) Critical Moment, January 26, 2006, “The Worker’s Docket:

A Summary of Facts and Ideas from the Delphi closings by Fred

David” http://criticalmoment.org/node/91/

(7) Detroit Free Press, “Time Line of GM and Delphi’s Tra-

vails,” March 23, 2006. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll

/article?AID=2006603230498

(8) Michael Hauben, “In Celebration: A Past To Remember, A

Future To Mold: The 50th Anniversary Of The Flint Sit-Down

Strike” http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/michael/flint.txt

(9) Ronda Hauben, “The Story of the Searchlight”

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/searchlight/sl.1.txt

(10) Some online forums and Web sites include: UAWforum

Delphi Bankruptcy Discussion

http://www.uawforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3

http://futureoftheunion.com/

Newsgroups on Usenet:

alt.society.labor-unions

soldiersofsolidarity

2006-03-28 ©2006 OhmyNews

[Editor’s note: The following article tells the story ofthe first protests in France which led one month laterto the withdrawal of the new labor law against whichthe students and workers were protesting.]

French Youth Up in ArmsOver New Labor Law

‘First Employment Contract’ givesemployer right

to fire indiscriminatelyBy Ronda Hauben

The demonstrations in Paris in May 1968 havebecome a symbol of the protest movement that sweptthe globe in the 1960s. The massive demonstrationson March 7, 2006 in 160 towns and cities in France,and the subsequent student strikes and universityoccupations and demonstrations, planned or inprocess, have raised the question as to whether theserecent protests will lead to a similar social unrest asoccurred in the 1960s.

On March 7, up to a million people in Francedemonstrated in opposition to the French govern-ment’s plan to pass a new law that was then in theFrench Senate. The law has come to be known asCPE, the “Contrat Premiere Embauche”; in English,the “First Employment Contract.” Despite theprotest, the government passed the bill the next dayso that it is now a law. The law was passed in a waythat sidestepped the debate and discussion that is atraditional part of the legislative process in France.

This law applies to those under 26 years of agewho find a new job. It gives the employer the right toterminate the new hire’s employment within twoyears without having to give any reason. UnderFrench law, the employer has only a month toterminate the employment of a new employee who is26 or older without having to provide a reason. Afterthat, French labor law provides protection for theemployee so that employment isn’t ended withoutobjective cause.

Does Electoral Politics Fit Democracy?

The unemployment rate in France is an esti-mated 10 percent of the French workforce. This

Page 11

includes an estimated 20 percent of young people whodo not have jobs. There have been various proposalsoffered for how to lower this high rate of unemploy-ment. One such proposal is to make it possible forthose in the current workforce to retire earlier thanpresently possible in order to open jobs for those whoare currently unemployed.

The new law, however, takes a very differentapproach to the high rate of youth unemployment. Itis based on an initiative introduced by the FrenchPrime Minister Dominique de Villepin. It providesthat those under 26 who work for companies withmore than 20 employees can be dismissed from theiremployment in the first two years without any reasongiven for their termination. Students and others whooppose the law say that this treats them in a discrimi-natory way. Not only is it normally difficult to get ajob, but under this new law, an employer will have anincentive to end a young worker’s employment beforethe two years are up and hire another employee whois under 26. For those seeking jobs who are 26 orover, this new law provides an incentive for employ-ers to give preference to younger workers who can behired and then fired as a new form of temporaryemployment.

Last August a similar French law was put intoeffect by Executive Mandate that applied only toemployers with fewer than 20 paid employees. Underthis law, known as the CNE, (in French “ContratNouvelle Embauche”) a small employer can hire anddismiss people before they have worked for theemployer for two years without having to provide areason for the dismissal. There are many instances ofworkers protesting that they lost their jobs unfairlyunder this law. The very competitive pressures thatleads employers to desire such flexibility to fire atwill, also is a pressure on the employer to terminate anew worker before the two years are up and to hiresomeone else who is not covered by the labor laws.The new labor law, the CPE, is modeled on the CNE,but applies to larger employers.

The French Senate passed the CPE in a hurriedway and at night, on March 8 and 9, cutting shortdebate using a special procedure known as Article49.3 of the French Constitution. Students, studentorganizations, and other young people across Francewere dismayed by the prospects of having to workunder the conditions provided by the new law. Frenchlabor unions also oppose the new law, along with theSocialist Party and other parties, including the Green

Party.In response to the French government passing

the law after the large protest demonstrations, therewere student strikes and sit-ins at universities aroundFrance, including at the Sorbonne University inParis. An estimated 600 students were part of theoccupation of the Sorbonne on Friday, March 10.Other students demonstrated in the streets surround-ing the Sorbonne to support the sit-in. Early Saturdaymorning, about 4 a.m., however, the police forciblyejected those who were still occupying the univer-sity.

Dismay has been expressed by those whooppose the CPE that the police forcibly broke up apeaceful protest and entered a university. Studentsvow to continue the struggle to get the law changed.Continuing demonstrations and student strikes areplanned, including a demonstration for March 16,and another one on March 18.

Press reports about the demonstrations describehow students are not only frustrated by the law, buteven more so by the lack of response from thegovernment to their protests. One student com-plained, “We feel we have the support of the peoplein the street but that the government just doesn’tcare.”(1) Others explain that they escalated theirprotest to a sit-in because they were enraged that thegovernment passed the new law disregarding themassive demonstrations against it.

Students describe how they feel they have nomeans to influence the decisions made by the gov-ernment. At the heart of the discontent is dissatisfac-tion with the lack of democratic processes that madeit possible for the French government to impose suchan unpopular law on French citizens.

This problem of a disconnect between thecitizens and their government is being expressed inother European countries, not only in France. In therecent German election, many were unhappy withthe Hartz IV labor laws that the German governmentis instituting to take away the social benefits thatGerman workers have felt important to maintain.Since both of the main political parties supported theHartz IV laws, it was difficult for those opposed tothem to express their dissatisfaction in the electionand to find a way through the election to make achange in government policy regarding the newlabor laws.

Similarly, in Great Britain, there is widespreaddiscontent about various aspects of the British govern-

Page 12

ment’s programs and policies. Elections there also donot provide a means for expressing this dissatisfac-tion, as a recent research study published in GreatBritain demonstrates.

The report, “Power: An Independent Inquiry intoBritain’s Democracy,” (http://www.powerinquiry.org/report/index.php) was published at the end ofFebruary, 2006. It is the result of research funded bythe Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the JosephRowntree Reform Trust, Ltd., which supports re-search “promoting democratic reform, constitutionalchange and social justice.” The researchers explainthat, “The POWER Inquiry was set up in 2004 toexplore how political participation and involvementcan be increased and deepened in Britain.” Theproduct of their research is a harsh critique of thefailure in Great Britain of any means for citizens toparticipate in the decisions that affect their lives. Thereport suggests that elections are not playing this role.This problem is not peculiar to Great Britain, but the“majority of the established democracies are facingsimilar problems despite the differences in theirrecent political and economic histories and the varia-tions in their constitutional arrangements,” the reportexplains.

What the report documents is that there is wide-spread recognition among the citizenry that theirviews and desires are not part of the political pro-cesses, nor are they of interest to the politicians whomake the decisions. Citizens, especially those who arebetter informed via the Internet, feel the need morethan ever to have their views taken into considerationby the government officials who make decisions.However, these decisions are being made in ways thatexclude citizens more than ever before. Essentially,citizens are being “evicted” from the political pro-cesses.

The report includes a set of recommendationsabout what is needed to change the situation. Theresearchers plan to hold a conference to discuss thereport, its implications and recommendations itcontains. But the significance of the report is that itdocuments how the discontent being expressed in thestreets, and on university campuses in France inresponse to the new labor law, is part of a widespreadfailure of governments to provide for the democraticneeds and desires of their citizens. The same was seenin 2003 when millions of people in the U.S. andelsewhere expressed opposition to any invasion ofIraq. The Bush regime went ahead anyway.

The government processes ongoing in Franceare an example of the broader problem, that thePower Commission identified, a problem that dem-onstrates that there is a fundamental flaw in howcountries like France, Great Britain, Germany andthe U.S. claim to practice democracy. The problemis decreasing means for citizens to influence thedecisions that effect their lives.

In 1968, a similar problem resulted in wide-spread unrest and mass movements to try to correctthe injustices and the lack of democratic processesavailable to citizens. The events unfolding in Francetoday, reinforced by the problems described in thereport published in Great Britain, demonstrate thatthere is a need for change in the democratic decisionmaking practices of the countries with some of themost praised traditions of democracy. The problemof extending the democratic processes practiced bygovernments is a problem still to be solved. TheFrench students and the French labor movement areactively protesting the actions of the French govern-ment and fighting for more democratic politicalprocesses.(1) Angelique Chrisafis, French students revive spiritof 68, The Guardian, March 10, 2006.

2006/03/13 © 2006 Ohmynews

First NYC Transit Strike in25 Years

Workers object to lower pensionbenefits for new hires,

despite $1 billion surplusby Ronda Hauben

At 3:05 a.m. on Dec. 20, 2005 Roger Toussaint,the President of the New York Transit WorkersUnion (TWU) announced that the transit workerswho operate the New York City buses and subways,were on strike. This is the first transit strike in NewYork City in the past 25 years. The last strike lasted11 days and was in 1980.

Toussaint said that the Metropolitan TransitAuthority (MTA), which is in charge of the transitsystem, has a $1 billion surplus.(1) Yet the contractoffer the MTA made provides little of a wage in-

Page 13

crease and is a contractual cutback in health andpension benefits, as new hires would be required topay more for their benefits.

An important issue that caused the strike is thatthe MTA contract offer would pay new hires lowerpension benefits. This is a strategy to divide the unionand weaken it by creating a two-tier system, with oneset of workers having better benefits than another set.Also such a system provides a material incentive formanagement to harass older workers and to try to getrid of them, so as to replace them with lower-paidemployees. A serious grievance of transit workers isthat they are already subjected to unjust disciplinaryactions by management. Against the more then33,000 transit workers there are perhaps 15,000outstanding disciplinary actions being contested bythe union.

“This is a fight over whether hard work willbe rewarded with a decent retirement -- overthe erosion or eventual elimination of healthbenefit coverage for working people,” saidToussaint.The President of the Transport Workers Union of

American, the parent union of the TWU, is reportedto have said he wasn’t in support of the strike and thatthe union should return to the bargaining table insteadof striking. Without a strike, though, workers feltthere was not much of a reason for the MTA tochange the hardball tactics they were using against theworkers. Toussaint explained:

“The MTA knew that reducing health andpension standards at the authority would beunacceptable to our union. They knew therewas no good economic reason for their hardline on this issue - not with a billion dollarsurplus. They went ahead anyway.” (2)The Mayor of New York City and the Governor

of New York State have encouraged the hardlinetactics of the MTA rather than supporting a seriouseffort to settle the contract dispute.

The Union initially asked for an 8 percent wageincrease each year, but reduced that to 6%. But theywere committed to maintaining the same pensionbenefits for new hires as for older workers.

A small wage increase of 3 percent, 4 percent and3-1/2 percent in the three years of the contract wasoffered but as the new hires would have to pay morefor their pensions, this would effectively give them aneven lower wage than other union workers.

A rally was held on Monday in support of the

transit workers. Some of the issues raised by transitworkers as problems they have been faced withinclude the closing of toll booths and the reassign-ment of workers to cleaning and other chores, thelarge number of disciplinary actions against workers,and the proposal to eliminate the conductor on trainswho is there to monitor what is happening with thetrain and the passengers. (3)

The sentiment among union members in the cityis that they are fed up with management insisting on“givebacks” and continually cutting workers’ wagesand benefits. Other unions said they would do whatthey could to support the transit workers.

There is a law called the Taylor Law whichprohibits public employees in New York State fromstriking. The MTA has gotten a preliminary injunc-tion from the New York State Supreme Court thatwill allow it to impose large fines on the union, andfine each worker two days pay for each day theystrike. Also, New York City Mayor Bloomberg hasfiled a lawsuit asking that the workers be fined$25,000 each day they strike.

The transit workers feel that if they don’t standup for better working conditions when there is asurplus in the budget, that they will only be agreeingto ever worsening working conditions. The transitworkers are in a stronger position than other workersin the city in terms of their ability to fight for betterconditions not only because of the MTA surplus butalso because of the crucial role transportation playsin the life as such a big city.

If they win the strike, that is a support for otherworkers in their fight for higher wages and betterworking conditions. If the transit workers agree toaccept cutbacks in their benefits and even poorerworking conditions, that encourages other employersto lower wages and benefits.

The transit workers did not want to strike. Theyhad let the deadline for the strike on Thursday pass,and continued to try to negotiate. The response of theMTA, however, was to continue to demand cutbacksfrom the union. The transit workers have called onall in the city to recognize their importance of thestrike and “to rally in solidarity to show that theTWU doesn’t stand alone.”(4)

Notes:

(1) The MTA has a history of hiding their surpluses and

keeping different sets of books. See for example:

http://www.osc. state.ny.us/press/releases/apr03/042303.htm

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( 2 ) h t t p : / / t w u l o c a l 1 0 0 . b l o g s p o t . c o m / 2 0 0 5 / 1 2 /

toussaint-twu-local-100-on-strike.html

(3) See http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/12/62121 .html

(4) The web site for the union is: http://www.twulocal 100.org

The web site for the MTA is: http:// www.mta.info/

This article appears in Telepolis and is reprinted with their

permission.

[Editor’s note: The following talk was presented atthe XXII International Congress of History of Sciencein Beijing China on July 26, 2005. The symposium itwas part of was the first international symposiumfocusing on netizens that we have heard of.]

The International and Scientific Origins

of the Internetand the Emergence

of the Netizensby Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

“Netizens are Net Citizens who utilizethe Net from their home, workplace, school,library, etc. These people are among thosewho populate the Net, and make it a re-source of human beings. These netizensparticipate to help make the Net both anintellectual and a social resource.”from “Further Thoughts about Netizens”

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netizens/tunis-ppf/RHauben.txt

I am happy to be here today and to be the firstpaper in this symposium. The symposium is titled“Computer Networks, the Internet and Netizens:Their Impact on Science and Society”

It is an honor to have this symposium in Asia, inBeijing, as new and important developments regard-ing the Internet are being explored by netizens inKorea, China and other countries in East Asia. Alsothis is a period when the future of the Internet and itsdevelopment is being contested. There is a struggleongoing between the U.S. government and a numberof countries around the world who are meeting underthe sponsorship of the UN’s World Summit on

Information Society (WSIS) to try to determine themanagement model that is needed for the interna-tional administration of the Internet’s infrastructure.But to solve a problem like this it is useful to havesome idea of how the Internet was developed andwhat are the salient aspects of that development.

In my talk today, I want to explore these aspectsand in turn try to unravel some of the myths aboutthe Internet and its origins that hide its actual charac-ter. I have a draft paper I have prepared where Iexplore the issues in greater detail that I will speakabout today. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netizens/tunis-ppf/RHauben.txt

First, a common view of the Internet is that itwas created within the U.S. by the U.S. Departmentof Defense as a way to have a communicationsystem that would survive a nuclear war. This is afallacious view of the origin of the Internet. It isinaccurate in many aspects.

Notably:

1) The Internet was created as a scientific researchproject by an open and international research pro-cess, not as a secret Department of Defense productoriented development.2) The Internet is an international and not an Ameri-can creation. Though many American researchersdid critical work to develop the Internet, the researchwas part of the activity of an international researchcommunity.3) The goal of Internet research was to create ameans to make communication possible across theboundaries of different networks. During the periodof the birth of the Internet (1973-1983), countrieslike Great Britain, France, Canada and others wereeither actually creating their own national or specificcomputer networks, or were developing plans to doso. These networks would all be different technicallyand would be owned and operated by differentpolitical and administrative entities. How to providefor communication across the boundaries of thesediverse networks was the problem to be solved.

In my paper I go into greater detail about theprocess of creating the protocol TCP/IP to make itpossible to communicate across the boundaries ofdissimilar networks. I show a graphic of the researchcollaboration by Norwegian researchers connectedwith NORSA (NORwegian Seismic ARray). Actu-ally the research organization was the Norwegian

Page 15

Defence Research Establishment (NDRE, “ForsvaretsForskningsinstitutt”), British researchers connectedwith University College London, and Americanresearchers working as part of the Information Pro-cessing Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA.

But for my talk today I want to focus on what Ipropose are some of the scientific origins of theresearch that have made the Internet possible. And Iwant to argue that it is these scientific origins, whichare poorly understood and not often recognized, butthat are at the essence of the nature of the Internet.

To understand these scientific origins of theInternet’s development, I want to step back to theearly post World War II period. During this periodthere was a scientific ferment to understand thescience of communication. A community of scientists,mathematicians, engineers and social scientists wereinterested in exploring the processes of communica-tion. One means they adopted was to participate in aninterdisciplinary community of researchers who metbi-yearly or yearly. Essentially the researchers pur-sued different disciplines and spoke different scien-tific languages.

Their effort was to try to bridge the boundariesthat separated their disciplines. The meetings of thegroup were known by different names, but during oneperiod they were called the Josiah Macy Jr Founda-tion conferences on Cybernetics(also known as“feedback” or “self organizing systems”).

JCR Licklider (or Lick as he asked people to callhim) was a research scientist who had made certainscientific advances in communication research. HisPhD thesis broke new ground by mapping where inthe brain of the cat, different pitches of sound werereceived and how this led to the perception of differ-ent frequencies of sound.

Also Licklider had made an engineering break-through which is referred to as “clipped speech”. Hewas able to identify what small part of the place onthe sound wave was critical for the sound to beperceived. (This was helpful to the U.S. militaryduring WWII in identifying how pilots could get helphearing vital sounds despite lots of backgroundnoise.)

Licklider was deeply interested in the study ofcommunication. Though he only attended one of the10 Macy Foundation meetings on Cybernetics, he,along with other scientists, received support from theNational Science Foundation(NSF) in the U.S. to

have a meeting in 1954 at MIT similar to the MacyFoundation meetings on Cybernetics that ended in1953. The title of the conference was “Problems inHuman Communication and Control”. The notes ofthe meeting were then transcribed. Licklider editedthe notes. The proceedings was published, much inthe same way the Macy Conference proceedingswere published.

An important interest of Licklider’s was in theworkings of the brain and how more advancedcomputer development could help the researchcollaboration of scientists and engineers. Of particu-lar interest was a form of modeling. In a paperwritten with Robert Taylor in 1968, Licklider andTaylor wrote:

“By far the most numerous, most sophisti-cated and most important models are thosethat reside in men’s minds.”An example of how the computer could help

represent models for Licklider was the programSketchpad created by Ivan Sutherland. Describing ademonstration he had seen of Sutherland’s modelingprogram, Warren Teitelman, then a graduate studentat MIT, writes:

“Sutherland sketched the girder of abridge and indicated the points at whichmembers were connected together by riv-ets. He drew a support at each end of thegirder and a load at the center. The modelshowed the girder sagging under the loadand a number appeared on each membershowing 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, ableto maintain its weight. This is an example of theencouraging potential that Licklider envisioned if thescientific research community could acquire thetechnology they needed for their modeling.

Licklider not only felt that modeling was criticalfor scientific research, but for society as well. De-scribing the modeling that Licklider believed charac-terized the functioning of the brain, he and Taylorwrite:

“In richness, plasticity, facility andeconomy, the mental model has no peer,but in other respects it has shortcomings.”The primary shortcomings of such a model is

that is that it is stored in the brain of only a singleindividual. Hence:

Page 16

“It can be observed and manipulatedonly by one person”In order for such models to serve a social func-

tion, there is a need, as Licklider and Taylor explain,for the models in the head of individuals to becomepart of a collaborative process. They explain:

“Society rightly distrusts the modelingdone by a single mind.”More specifically: “Society demands (...) [what-ed]amounts to the requirement that individualmodels be compared and brought into somedegree of accord. The requirement for com-municating which we now define concisely[as-ed] ‘cooperative’ modeling –[is-ed]cooperation in the construction, main-tenance and use of a model”Licklider and Taylor then explain that like the

process they believe is ongoing in the brain, what isneeded for such cooperative modeling is:

“a plastic or moldable medium that canbe modeled, a dynamic medium in whichprocesses will flow into consequences.”Most important for such a medium is that it

supports collaborative contributions and processes -that it be:

“a common medium that can be contrib-uted to and experimented with by all.”Licklider and Taylor envisioned that the develop-

ing online community would find the capability forsuch collaborative modeling as the Internet developedand that having access to this plastic collaborativeenvironment would be a boon to the advancement ofsociety and of science.

Along with the need for such a moldable mediumfor scientific collaborative development, Licklideralso maintained that there would be a need for acollaborative community with the capability tosupport continuing network development and tointervene to help with the problems that woulddevelop when government officials who didn’tunderstand the nature of computer technology, wouldbe charged with making the decisions needed for itsdevelopment.

Licklider was part of a community of scientistswho had seen poor technical and political decisionsmade by governments. (For example the bombing ofcivilians during WWII by the Allies). At a series oftalks held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of MIT,the British scientist, civil servant, and writer, CP

Snow, was invited to give a talk on “Scientists andDecision Making.”

During his talk, Snow described the gap thatwould exist between understanding the nature of thenew computer technology that was being developedand the understanding of government officials whowould have the responsibility for the decisions abouthow to support the development of computer tech-nology. Snow explained how such a problem re-quired a situation similar to a phenomenon that inphysics is called Brownian Motion. Referring towhat happened in Great Britain after World War IIwhen the whole society began discussing the needfor national health care, Snow outlines this phenome-non:

“I believe that the healthiest decisionsof society occur by something more likeBrownian movement. All kinds of peopleall over the place suddenly get smitten withthe same sort of desire, with the same sortof interest at the same time. This forms aconcentration of pressure and of direction.These concentrations of pressure graduallyfilter their way through to the people whosenominal responsibility it is to put the legis-lation into a written form.”You may notice, perhaps, that this description

by C.P. Snow of a form of Brownian Motion forsociety, sounds similar in some ways to the conceptof the ‘public sphere’ that the German philosopherJurgen Habermas explores in his writing.

Shortly after the talks for the MIT centennial,Licklider was invited to join the Advanced ResearchProjects Agency (ARPA) to set up an office forresearch in computer science and an office forresearch in behavioral science. The office for re-search in computer science he called the InformationProcessing Techniques Office (IPTO). (1962-1986).Licklider was its first director and he was followedby Ivan Sutherland. There were several subsequentdirectors, and then in 1974, Licklider was invited toreturn as director.

In his writing and talks after he left the IPTO in1975, Licklider describes the problems he encoun-tered to get support for basic research in computerscience within the U.S. Department of Defense andthe need for citizens who will actively take up theeffort to deal with the problems when they develop.

Licklider is not asking for citizens to vote onevery issue. Instead he outlines how voting is insuffi-

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cient as a way to work to promote the public interest.He writes:

“(V)oting in the absence of understand-ing defines only the public attitude, not thepublic interest. It means that many publicspirited individuals must study, model,analyze, argue, write, criticize, and work outeach issue and each problem until they reachconsensus or determine that none can bereached – at which point there may be occa-sion for voting.”

(Licklider, 1979, p. 126)Licklider describes the need for citizen involve-

ment in government decisions to help determine howto support the continuing development of computertechnology. More significantly, Licklider proposesthat people will not be interested in governmentprocesses until they have a means to participate inthose processes. He foresees how computer develop-ments will provide that means. He writes:

“Computer power to the people is es-sential to the realization of a future in whichmost citizens are informed about, and inter-ested in, the process of government.”

(Licklider, 1979, p. 126)The process for citizen involvement in the

development of computer technology that Licklideroutlines is a process that characterizes the kind ofdiscussion that I found on some of the earliest mailinglists and Usenet newsgroups that developed in theearly 1980s. This process functioned for neededtechnical discussion, such as with the ARPANETTCP/IP Digest when the cutover to TCP/IP wascarried out. (See Ronda Hauben, “A Study of theARPANET TCP/IP Digest and of the Role of OnlineCommunication in the Transition from theARPANET to the Internet”, http://umcc.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/tcpdraft.txt)

Such discussion also helped to develop andspread the vision for ubiquitous computer networkingthat was discussed on the Human Nets mailing listand other mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups duringthe early 1980s. But more fundamentally, the emer-gence of a public spirited online citizenry thatLicklider believed so important to the continuedsupport and development of computer and networkingtechnology was identified through the research doneby a college student in the early 1990s.

In 1992-3, as part of research done for a collegeassignment, the student, Michael Hauben, posted a

series of questions and some preliminary researchabout the developing network on Usenet news-groups. (Usenet is a worldwide discussion forum.)He also posted his questions on a few Internetmailing lists. Michael was surprised as replies to hisquestions began to arrive in his mailbox. Throughsubsequent posts, and analyzing the replies hereceived, he recognized that a new form of con-sciousness, a new identity was being acquired bymany of those who wrote to him. In my paper, Idescribe how a number of the replies Michael re-ceived indicated how people online were not onlyinterested in how the developing Net was contribut-ing to their own lives, but also many were seeking tospread access to the Internet to others.

Michael had seen the word ‘net.citizen’ referredto online. Thinking about the social concern andconsciousness he had found among those who wroteto him, and about the non-geographical character ofa net based form of citizenship, he contracted‘net.citizen’ into the word ‘netizen’. Netizen hascome to reflect the online social identity Michaeldiscovered doing his research.

Michael wrote a paper he titled, “The Net andNetizens: The Impact the Net has on People’s Lives”describing the research he had done and the contribu-tions he received from many parts of the world.Michael’s research was done in 1992-1993 just at thetime that the Internet was spreading to countries andnetworks around the world which were becomingconnected to the Internet. He posted his paper onUsenet and several Internet mailing lists on July 6,1993 in 4 parts under the title “Common Sense: TheNet and Netizens: the Impact the Net is having onpeople’s lives”. People around the world wroteMichael that they found his paper of interest and theterm netizen quickly spread, not only in the onlineworld, but soon began appearing in newspapers andother publications offline.

Michael continued to do research into thehistory and impact of the Internet, and to post hisarticles online. During this period I collaborated withMichael, also doing research and writing that wasposted online. People who found our writing ofinterest suggested we gather them into a book. Wecollected our papers into an online book title“Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net”which was put online in January 1994.

Netizens, as Michael wrote, are those whoembodied the social conscious and public purpose

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similar to that which Lickldier had considered impor-tant for the continued development of computertechnology and of the public policy to support thatdevelopment.

Michael was invited to speak at a conference inBeppu Bay in Japan in November 1995. In his speechhe explained why he felt it was important to distin-guish between the more general usage the media haspromoted, that anyone online is a netizen, and theusage that the he had introduced, reserving the title‘netizen’ for the online user who actively participatesto make the net and the world it is part of a betterplace. He explained:

“Netizens...are people who understandit takes effort and action on each and every-one’s part to make the Net a regenerativeand vibrant community and resource.Netizens are people who decide to devotetime and effort into making the Net, this newpart of our world, a better place.”

Michael Hauben, talk given on November24, 1995 at the Hypernetwork ‘95, BeppuBay Conference in Beppu, Japan. The themeof the conference was “The Netizen Revolu-tion and the Regional Information Infrastruc-ture.”

Individuals from around the world adopted andhelped to spread the consciousness and identity of thenetizen. A specially interesting development at thepresent time are the netizens of South Korea.

South Korea is one of the most wired nations inthe world. Over 70% of the population has access tohigh speed Internet. Along with the spread of highspeed Internet access in Korea is the development ofnetizenship among the Korean population. I documentsome of the significant aspects of this development inmy conference paper.

In a way that is similar to how Michael describedthe interactive, collaborative online processes that heand those who wrote him in the early 1990s, research-ers in South Korea are documenting similar processesand the impact of netizens on Korean society. Oneparticularly interesting aspect of these developmentsis that online processes are being adopted by formerlyoffline institutions and that online clubs have devel-oped offline organizational forms as well.

Also these researchers document how onlinecollaborative discussion processes among Koreannetizens are creating the kinds of collaborative socialmodels that Licklider believed were needed for

scientific and social advancement.

Implications and Research QuestionsRaised

The online plastic collaborion which makespossible interactive modeling that Licklider andTaylor describe in their 1968 paper is a helpfulanalogy through which to view the online world thathas evolved as the Internet has developed and spreadaround the world. The social consciousness of usersas online citizens, as netizens has also evolved andspread.

In this symposium today we will hear other talkswhich will explore or differ with the framework I amproposing.

I want to argue for the need for specific studies,whether historical or contemporaneous, of how theinteractive collaborative modeling that lickliderproposed as essential to further social and scientificdevelopment of technology is being explored via theInternet. Also I want to propose the need to bringthis area of study into the public policy activities ofthose who are trying to contribute to the continueddevelopment of the Internet and the management ofits infrastructure. For example, the WSIS meetingsbeing held in conjunction with the UN demonstratethe need for an appropriate model for the manage-ment of the Internet’s infrastructure. But outdatedmodels that developed prior to the Internet aredominating the discourse among those involved inthe WSIS process.

There are a number of other research questionsthat arise from my paper and study. I hope thoseinterested in these issues will find a way to continuethe discussion begun in this symposium after theCongress as well.

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[Editor’s note: The following biography by SimonButler appeared as part of the 250th birthday celebra-tion for Columbia University.]

Michael Hauben: Sketch for250th Birthday of

Columbia University

Michael F. Hauben (1973-2001)

Internet Pioneer, Author

Columbia College 1995,

Teachers College 1997

“I like to think of you as a netizen.”

While the prevalence and universality of theInternet today may lead some to take it for granted,Michael Hauben did not. A pioneer in the study of theInternet’s impact on society, Hauben helped identifythe collaborative nature of the Internet and its effectson the global community. Credited with coining andpopularizing the term netizen (net + citizen), Hauben,with his mother, Ronda, cowrote the seminalNetizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet andthe Internet (IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997),which outlined the growth and role of the medium inthe world and was published in both English andJapanese.

Born on May 1, 1973, in Boston, MichaelHauben was an early participant in electronic bulletinboards. He graduated from Columbia University in1995 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science;following that, he entered the program Communica-tion, Computing and Technology at Teacher’s Col-lege and received a master’s degree in 1997. Ofparticular interest to Hauben was understanding thedemocratization of the Internet and the participationof netizens in the global community to build the Net.He viewed the Internet as a reflection of democracyat work. An editor of the online newsletter “TheAmateur Computerist,” Hauben gave talks on theInternet in locales ranging from Beppu, Japan, toCorfu, Greece, to Montreal, Canada, to the Catskillsregion in New York. After sustaining injuries result-ing from an accident in December 1999, when he washit by a cab, Hauben died in June 2001. A championof the Internet, he truly was a netizen.

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/IEC/pioneers.html

Submitted by Simon Butler, Columbia College 1995,who is solely responsible for the content.

[Editor’s note: The following comment appeared onthe weblog of Hee Won Kim on August 5, 2005.http://hypercortex.net/ver2/index.php?pl=4#]

Misunderstanding about‘Netizen’ 05/08/10 00:02

The concept ‘netizen’ is very frequently usedespecially in Korea. Most people, however, use theword just based on their common idea rather thanquote the concept accurately. I think people misun-derstand this important concept. The Korean word‘nurikun(????),’ which is an equivalent for the‘netizen,’ proves that people don’t understand themeaning of netizen and don’t use the concept prop-erly. Because the word ‘nurikun’ means ‘generalinternet users’ or ‘general users on the web.’Does it have something to do with the originalmeaning of netizen? Absolutely not.

Mrs. and Mr. Hauben had visited Seoul, andthey flied back to the U.S. yesterday. I met andtalked with them at a coffee shop near Yonsei Uni-versity on August 5. Their son, Michael Haubencoined the word netizen. (His work was alreadyquoted several times by Korean researchers, as youknow.) Nowadays Mrs. and Mr. Hauben is doing thenetizen research after their son. They told me thatalmost all Korean people identified themselves as thenetizens. “Yes, I’m a netizen...!” I agree with them.Netizens are everywhere here in Korea! (How couldit be!)

Netizen is not the word that point any casualinternet users. “They are people who understand ittakes effort and action on each and everyone’s partto make the Net a regenerative and vibrant commu-nity and resource. Netizens are people who decide todevote time and effort into making the Net, this newpart of our world, a better place.” (by MichaelHauben, 1995) This is a sophisticated concept. If youhave the consciousness of social/political participa-tion and take action, you can be a netizen. If you just

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enjoy web surfing, it’s very hard to say that you are anetizen although you spend great time for the internet.

Still many people including journalists use theword netizen carelessly. Also, ‘nurikun’ cannot showthe original meaning, it’s not the equivalent but just anew word. There are interesting cases that actualizethe power of netizens in Korea, but because of this,the concept seems to be used excessively. You canfind more about the netizen in the book: [Netizens :On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet]<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0818677066/qid=1123592989/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2090333-9880743?v=glance&s=books>.You can read the full text here: Netizens: On theH i s t o r y a n d I m p a c t o f t h e N e t<http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/>.

Advancing “News guerrillas”

OhmyNews and 21st CenturyJournalism

by Ronda Hauben

In his autobiography, Oh Yeon Ho, the founderand chief executive of the Korean newspaperOhmyNews, describes how an Internet craze grippedSouth Korea in 1999 when he was launching [extern]OhmyNews. “We were late to industrialization, butlet’s lead in digitalization” was one of the slogans ofthe government and media at the time. “We shall leadKorea to become an information superpower,” wasanother phrase repeated during this period. Thistranslated into web editions of the major Korean printnewspapers. “So the closed and elitist journalisticculture was transferred intact to the Internet,” Ohobserves.

With regard to his Internet background, Oh wasthen “a country bumkin.” At the time, “I wasn’t veryused to technology,” he admits. He had spent theprevious 10 years, since 1989, as a journalist for theKorean publication, the monthly Mahl, owned by thecivic group, the Citizens’ Coalition for DemocraticMedia. As a journalist, he gave lectures to universitystudents about how to become a reporter. Oh titled hislecture, “Every citizen is a reporter.”

He was particularly concerned with the imbal-ance of power in the media environment in South

Korea. There were eight conservative media organi-zations and only two that were progressive, themonthly Mahl and the Hankyoreh. He noticed howthe conservative media companies in South Koreawould determine what was considered news. If astory was published in the monthly Mahl it wouldget little attention by other media. If one was pub-lished by one of the conservative media organiza-tions, however, it would be considered news.

OhmyNews and the ‘386'

Hoping to make the South Korean media land-scape more progressively balanced, he put some ofthe money he obtained from selling his home intocapital to support the creation of the first SouthKorean Internet newspaper which he decided to call“OhmyNews. “Five ‘386' generation businessmenwho sympathized with the aims of OhmyNews alsoinvested seed money. (The ‘386' generation is a termused to describe the generation that participated inthe student movement of the 1980s that helped totopple the military dictatorship in South Korea).

These five and Oh were the first stockholders ofOhmyNews. Oh asked web designers he knew towrite a program. By the end of 1999, he was betatesting a new online form of newspaper. The firstedition of OhmyNews was December 21, 1999. Atthe time OhmyNews had a staff of four and receivedtwenty articles from citizen reporters. By the officiallaunch date, February 22, 2002 at 2:22 p.m., whenthe incorporation papers were signed, there were 727citizen reporters.

His goal, Oh explains, was to create a mediaculture where “the quality of news determinedwhether it won or lost” not the power and prestige ofthe media organization that printed the article.Fortunately, Oh was embarking on an undertakingthat would depend upon the nature of the Internet,which provides an online environment created to beplastic, malleable, interactive, general purpose, andwhich supports collaborative efforts (see “Dawn ofthe Internet and Netizen”). http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=242311&rel_no=1&back_url=

Every citizen is a reporter

These qualities of the Internet would help him to

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create an online publication which three years later, inOctober 2003, would be ranked 6th in a survey ofKorea’s Most Influencial Media by Sisa Journal andMedia Research. OhmyNews turned a profit for thefirst time three years after its birth, in 2003. Jean Min,the Director of the International Division ofOhmyNews, explains that today 70% of the fundingfor OhmyNews comes from advertisements, and 30%comes from news content sales and other sources.OhmyNews hopes this will change to a 50-50 mix toprovide more stability.

The current personnel structure of OhmyNews ismade up of full time staff. There are also columnists,international correspondents, and citizen reporters,who are not part of the paid full time staff. Accordingto Oh, there are currently 75 paid staff, which in-cludes 45 reporters. Among the reporters, 12 areeditors for the submissions received from citizenreporters. Min estimates that there are currently39,000 citizen reporters. Describing the thinkingwhich led him to the concept of the citizen reporter,Oh writes:

Every citizen is a reporter. Journalistsaren’t some exotic species, they’re everyonewho seeks to take new developments, putthem into writing, and share them withothers. This common truth has been tram-pled on in a culture where being a reporter isseen as something of a privilege to be en-joyed. Privileged reporters who come to-gether to form massive news media wieldedpower over the whole process of news pro-duction, distribution, and consumption. Theseriousness of the problem is that the mas-sive media power is the final gutter of Ko-rean capitalist society. There is a lot aboutthose media that is dirty, and yet they havepackaged themselves as clean and actedself-righteously towards the rest of society.We therefore stand up to them raising highthe flag of guerrilla warfare. Our weapon isthe proposition that ‘Every citizen is a re-porter.’ We intend to achieve a’News alli-ance of the news guerrillas’.

“The Revolt of 727 News Guerrillas: A Revolution inNews Production and Consumption”.

Explaining what he means by guerrilla warfare,Oh elaborates:

“The dictionary definition of guerrilla is ‘amember of small non-regular armed forces

who disrupt the rear positions of the en-emy.’ Citizen reporters can be called guer-rillas because they are not professional andregulars and they post news from perspec-tives uniquely their own, not those of theconservative establishment.”Some citizen reporters write only occasionally,

but others submit articles regularly. Each day be-tween 200 and 250 articles are submitted to thenewspaper. Oh explains that about 70% of these willbe published. The website is changed daily, andsometimes several times a day. The staff decides onthe placement of the articles, whether they are toappear on the front page, or in one of the sections.Articles that appear on the main page of the website,or that are listed in the index of new articles on thefront page, are likely to get more public attentionthan articles that are in the sections. Also a list of themost frequently read articles from the previous weekappears each week. These articles continue to getattention for an additional week. A print edition ispublished once a week containing some of thearticles that appeared online during the week.

Creating a better world

If a citizen reporter’s article is used, the citizenreporter earns W2000 (W1000 = approx .80 euro),W10,000, or W20,000. Articles that appear on themain page earn W20,000, those that appear at the topof one of the sections, earn W10,000, and those thatappear somewhere else in the online publication earnW2,000. OhmyNews reports that when citizenreporters are asked why they submit their articles toOhmyNews even though they are paid so little, theyrespond that they want to contribute to creating abetter world.

Explaining the criteria used by the editors tochoose which of the articles submitted by citizenreporters will appear in OhmyNews, Oh writes,“Beginning with current events, how much sympathythe articles will arouse, how lively they are and howmuch social impact they will have.” A graduatestudent studying blogs reports that bloggers feel thatblogs are less influential in South Korea becausemany potential bloggers prefer to be citizen reportersfor OhmyNews.

OhmyNews celebrated its 5th birthday onFebruary 22, 2005. Oh describes the first 5 years ofOhmyNews as the first stage of the young newspa-

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per’s development. An objective during this stage wasto gain a standing as a serious newspaper in SouthKorea. This was achieved by critiquing the activitiesof the big conglomerates and the big media. Coveragewas given to important Korean progressive eventslike the campaign to win the Presidency of SouthKorea for Roh Moo-Hyun, or the campaign to turnback his impeachment. Oh also describes how articlesabout those with little power were written and pub-lished in OhmyNews. Another goal during the firststage of OhmyNews’s development was to spread theOhmyNews model to the world.

English Edition of Ohmy News

The newspaper has been written up in majornewspapers around the world. This has broughtinquiries from people in a number of countries askingfor advice about how to create a similar newspaper.To respond to these requests, an English edition ofOhmyNews was created on May 27, 2004, andpublishes regularly. Articles are from citizen reportersaround the world, from columnists or from the staffwho work on the OhmyNews International (OMNI)edition.

Oh explains that OhmyNews has now entered itssecond stage. The objective of this stage is to “gobeyond criticism of the existing social establishmentto propose alternatives for a new society.” To achievethis goal, OhmyNews will rely on staff reporters.Recognizing the influence a newspaper can have, Ohstresses the need for such influence to be used in aresponsible way. Another objective in this secondstage is to develop multimedia further, to aim to setup an Internet TV program, for example. This, how-ever, takes money to fund, so it may not be a goalachieved very soon. With respect to the internationaledition, Oh doesn’t foresee developing it as a compet-itor to current international newspapers like the NewYork Times or the Washington Post.

Instead, he hopes to spread the model, conceptand vision of OhmyNews in order to help interestedpeople in other countries to create their own nationalversions of OhmyNews. “In each country there aremany specific, unique conditions to succeed,” heexplains, “If there are enough OhmyNews models inother countries, we can make an alliance to exchangearticles and to help each other.”

There are online users who are working to extenddemocracy in South Korea and who consider them-

selves ‘netizens’. Many ‘netizens’ have contributedto OhmyNews and it, in turn, has helped them toachieve important accomplishments in the currentdemocratization of South Korea. For example, withintwo months of the birth of OhmyNews, four report-ers were sent to cover the Blacklist campaign toprevent corrupt or incompetent politicians frombeing reelected in the April 2000 election.

Even more significant was the campaign wagedby ‘netizens’ to help Roh Moo-Hyun, a politician notin the mainstream of Korean politics, win the Presi-dency of South Korea in December 2002.OhmyNews also played an important role in thiscampaign. In the Spring of 2004, ‘netizens’ andOhmyNews challenged the impeachment of Roh byorganizing and reporting on the massive candlelightdemonstrations in which many thousands of peopleparticipated.

More than a mere dream

Among the problems facing OhmyNews is thefrustration of some citizen reporters with the diffi-culty of communication they have with the staff. Ohhas a plan to try to improve such communication. Inaddition, some international citizen reporters havecomplained about the difficulty of getting the pay-ments they are due for their articles.

On a recent visit to Seoul, I asked people I metwhether they knew of and read OhmyNews. Manyresponded that they knew of OhmyNews, whileseveral said they read it. In talking with people inSouth Korea about OhmyNews, some felt it wasbiased toward the current President, Roh Moo-Hyun,who it had helped to put into office. Others praisedit as one of the few progressive publications in SouthKorea.

Just this past June, OhmyNews had an interna-tional forum in Seoul, inviting citizen reporters fromaround the world, and from all parts of South Koreato take part. The event was a significant gathering tosponsor and to fund for a young media organizationthat is but five years old. The daily Korean onlinepublication and the English edition are a continuingdemonstration that Oh’s commitment to contributingto the creation of a 21st century journalism as aninteractive and participatory journalism is more thana mere dream.

How the development and spread of the Internetwill affect the future of journalism is still to be

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determined. In South Korea, OhmyNews and netizenshave demonstrated that there is a different form ofjournalism vying to become the journalism of thefuture. Also they are demonstrating that the impactthis new form of journalism will have on politics isnot to be underestimated.

© Heise Zeitschriften Verlag

[Editor’s note: The following is a paper read at the‘Computer Networks, the Internet and Netizens: TheirImpact of Science and Society’ symposium on July26, 2005 as part of the XXII International Congress ofHistory of Science in Beijing. It was followed by aninteresting discussion. A slightly different version ofthis paper was previously presented in November,2001 at the Asia-Pacific Journalist Meeting in Tokyo,Japan by Li Xiguang. The numbers are 4 years old butthe general picture it paints helps understand some ofthe press situation in China today.]

The Impact of New Communication

Technologies on ChinesePress Politics

by Li Xiguang*, Guo Xiaoke, and Xu Yong

Abstract: The function and role of the Chinesepress have changed dramatically from the days whenit functioned strictly as an ideological Party mouth-piece and government cheerleader. Foremost amongthe drivers of change for China’s media is the Internetwhich has weakened the government control of pressand information.

The Internet means different things to differentpeople in different societies. To some, it provides anopportunity to make money, to others, it meansfreedom from press controls. For still others, theInternet is a public forum in which citizens of a closedsociety can discuss politics. In the past six years theInternet has developed rapidly in China, as it has inthe rest of the world. This poses new challenges to thecountry’s press system and media policy.

With the flourishing of satellite TV, cable TV,and the Internet, a new media environment has taken

shape in China. Official news outlets are beingoutnumbered by their nongovernmental, commercial,and overseas counterparts. The Internet is becominga public medium for people with different ideas andviewpoints.

For decades Chinese media consisted of news-papers, magazines, publishing houses, broadcastingstations, and TV stations under the control of propa-ganda authorities at all levels. Today, besides morethan 2,000 daily newspapers, 900 TV stations, andover 90 million cable TV users, there are nowprobably more than 300,000 websites. These includenews websites, professional information sites,corporate sites, institutional sites, and personalhomepages. The recent figure could be more than 30million Chinese Internet users, operating about 11million computers, spending at least one hour a dayat web pages. Nearly 64% use the Internet to readnews. Some 24% of adult users and 40% of youngusers visit overseas websites, including those basedin Taiwan and the United States. These news outletsdo not need to be approved by the CommunistParty’s propaganda departments.

In the past the government easily controlled andeven manipulated popular opinion by limiting thepublic to only official information source. Watchingthe 7 p.m. evening news (“Xinwen Lianbo”) onstate-run CCTV, the China Central Television, hadbeen a national ritual at the family dinner table.Besides daily news coverage, the party and govern-ment depended on the program to put across theirmajor propaganda campaigns and political mobiliza-tions. But today the program is losing audience sharedramatically, particularly among young viewers whospend most of their time on the Web, watchingVCDs and cable TV.

In the days of the single-source news, peoplehad no way to verify the information they received.For a long time the propaganda authorities effec-tively controlled the flow of information, newssources, and information outlets. But in the age ofthe Internet, this media system is facing the chal-lenge of news from multiple sources. Members ofthe public no longer rely on official informationsources to form their opinions. Instead, when a bignews event happens, people compare, analyze, andbalance the information they get from differentsources. They form their own viewpoints afterdiscounting what they consider biased information.

The Internet is developing with unprecedented

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speed. Its advance in China can be compared with theinvention of paper by the Chinese 1,000 years ago.The Internet has brought the country into the age ofglobal communications as well as the global village.Until a few years ago Chinese authorities controlledthe flow of news and information by jammingshortwave radio broadcasts and banning any individ-ual from installing a satellite TV antenna. Anyonewho wanted to own a fax machine had to register withthe Telecommunications Ministry. Today the ruleabout registering fax machines with a local govern-ment office is still there. But with the advent of theInternet, the Telecommunications Ministry has foundits fax machine controls outdated. The governmentstrictly controls the radio broadcast through a fre-quency licensing system. But today people can starta website station or directly listen to webcasts via theInternet instead of on air frequencies.

The Internet has technically eliminated the lastobstruction to a free flow of information. To stop thecirculation of information on the Net is as futile as achild trying to block bursting Yangtze River dam withhis fingers. The great wall that has blocked the freeflow of news and information is now collapsing asmore and more Chinese families get access to theInternet. In today’s China the most effective way tostaunch information flow would be to assign a police-man to every computer in the country.

Newspapers, radio, and TV are converging in theInternet world. How will this convergence and thegrowing number of Internet users affect traditionalChinese media concepts and official media policy?

Propaganda officials and media policy-makers inChina could hardly imagine that mass media woulddevelop at such a fast pace. Only two years ago, whena journalism school graduate chose an occupation, theoptions were simple: newspaper, magazine, radio, orTV. But today newspapers, radio, and TV havebecome one on the Internet and multimedia platforms.The demarcation lines have disappeared. Readers ofthe Internet edition of the People’s Daily can down-load audiovisual material. So in this sense, newspa-pers have entered the broadcast market. If you visitthe homepage of CCTV, you will find that it providesdetailed text news and material for readers. So TVstations have also entered the newspaper market.

Under current policies, Chinese newspapers, TVstations, radio, and news agencies must operateseparately and under the control of various party andgovernment organizations. The People’s Daily, for

example, cannot own a radio station, while a newsagency like Xinhua is not allowed to own a TVstation. Under this policy, the country has only onewire service-Xinhua. But tens of thousands of newswebsites are operating like mini-Xinhuas. They posta wide variety of stories, either gathered by their ownInternet reporters or based on clippings from Chineseand foreign media (even though the government bansthe use of Western wire stories on the Web). Popularportals such sina.com, yahoo.com, eastday.com, andso on are functioning like quasi news agencies.

Traditional media (newspapers, magazines,radio, and television) in China are characterized bythe following features: * They are restricted by geographic region; * Restricted by audience numbers; * Restricted by licensing system; * Restricted by the high costs of entering the market; * Restricted by high delivery costs as well as the unreliability of newspaper and magazine mailing; * Restricted to one-way communication in which audiences are completely passive.

But the World Wide Web has brought to Chinasharply contrasting conditions: * Unlimited audience numbers; * No need for licenses to launch electronic publications; * Low costs to enter the Internet: a computer, a modem and a phone line; * Not restricted to a single region or country, news and information on the Internet travel to all users worldwide at the same speed; * The Internet has opened a system of two-way communication -- in stark contrast with China’s long-standing, indoctrination-oriented propaganda system.

For decades, both for political and technologicalreasons, the Chinese media have never been a forumfor public discussion and debate. But the advent ofchatrooms via Internet technology has provided theChinese people with a channel for the free flow ofinformation. Its chief characteristics: 1)People can provide information anonymously; 2) An equal opportunity for participants to speak their minds; 3) Topics for discussion are unlimited and cannot be preset;

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4) Internet users are both readers and publishers; 5) An ability to give readers what they want instead of what the government thinks they want; 6) The airing of information that traditional media dare not publish; 7) Censors’ inability to keep pace with the online media.

As a result, * Chatrooms in China have aired ideas and debates that simply aren’t accessible through traditional media; * The reader-interest-based content makes the agenda-setting function more consumer-driven than government-driven; * People’s attitudes are being shaped by information from chatrooms rather than from the official media.

For Chinese, the Internet has opened the door toa free flow of information. Internet chatrooms haveprovided Chinese with an unlimited space to ex-change information freely and anonymously. Theyhave been described as electronic versions of thebig-character posters that were the most efficientmeans of mobilizing public opinion during the Cul-tural Revolution.

As a popular part of Chinese online media, chat-rooms are posing a big threat to the government-controlled press by revising and reconstructing itsagenda. Agenda-setting theory holds that the massmedia determine what is important by leading news-casts with a particular story or printing it on page one.When news gatekeepers no longer consider an item ofimportance, they allow it to slip off the public agenda.For decades, China’s mass media effectively setagendas for propaganda purposes. But with so manynews outlets in the age of globalization, people’smedia behavior is influenced by the so-called selec-tive processes. People have developed many ways ofrevising and reconstructing the agenda set by theofficial press.

For example, the People’s Daily launched the“Strong Nation Forum” chatroom to give its readersa chance to react to the news and vent their emotions.But most Chinese have used this system not only todiscuss the news but also to post news stories unre-ported in the official media. Such media behavior hasmade audiences pay attention to issues ignored by theofficial press, making hidden agendas transparent.

As a result, the list of issues for discussion anddebate in cyberspace are reconstructed topics se-lected from both the Chinese and the Western media.

During the recent U.S.-China plane-collisionincident, our research found how Chinese publicopinion is shaped in the Internet Age. Our studyanalyzed all related news reports, editorials and otherarticles that appeared in the People’s Daily betweenApril 2 and April 30.

Chatrooms have changed the fundamentalmovement of news in China. The official press hasalways wanted the Chinese people to have the“right” information and perspective. But the authori-ties are losing the battle to control information andfree expression on the Internet. Chinese websiteshave displayed a liveliness not found in the tradi-tional media. The Internet is changing China, throw-ing the country open to ideas and debates that simplyare not accessible through traditional media. But intheir eagerness to develop the Net, China’s topleaders appear willing to tolerate a certain amount offrankness that would otherwise be stamped out. TheInternet has become a powerful and popular channelfor both the government and ordinary Chinese tohear and to be heard.

If the people of one country do not trust theirown national media, they will turn to the interna-tional press, including that of the country which is inconflict with theirs. Setting the agenda for anothernation through media and the Internet has become a“soft power” in international politics. The globalmedia and foreign media could influence any coun-try’s agenda-setting. The more trust the press gainswith users, the more effectively it will set agendas.China’s official press cannot expect that its chosentopics will become the chief public concerns. In theage of globalization, if the Chinese do not start pressreform soon, the Western media will eventually setthe public agenda for China.

The people and public opinion are importantelements in a society and in a political system. Fordecades popular opinion in China has been under thestrict control of the party and the government. Buttoday agendas are being set through the Internet. TheNet is transferring the national concerns of theChinese to a global level. That makes China part ofa globalized community, whose agenda has beenunder the control and manipulation of the globalmedia.------------------------------------------------------------

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*Professor/Director, Center for International Commu-nications Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing,China. 100084, www.media.tsinghua.edu.cn,[email protected]

EDITORIAL STAFFRonda Hauben

W illiam Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben

(1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

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