What is a Netizen?
In 2006, Time Magazine made an interesting choice for person of the year. The person was “you” meaning more specifically, people who use the Internet to write articles, post videos or blogs, and contribute to different Internet groups. Essentially, the “you” referred to another word that has become more frequently used in the past few years, “netizen.” A netizen is a person who becomes part of and participates in the larger Internet society, which recognizes few boundaries save language. The word comes from the combination of the terms Internet and citizen. Netizens may contribute to specific groups around their interest, which can significantly vary. User groups might have a political focus, be based on fan interest in a person, films or books. They are usually specific to a certain topic and they are driven by netizen participation. It would be difficult to imagine a successful user group or blog where no discussion took place. Netizens may also organize a group through a variety of
Well, that is a very good question. In conducting research on-line to determine people’s uses for the ‘Net in early 1990s, I became very excited at the prospects of this new social institution. In response to the excitment others had (and which I also had), I felt that the people I was writing about were citizens of the Net. Sometimes people on the Net would call the users of the Net, a net.citizen (read net citizen) as newsgroups were all originally net.x, where x was the subject and this was used in describing net entities. This idea I changed into the english Net Citizen, which further led to Netizen. Here are some More thoughts on Netizens. Also, a speech I gave in Japan about the origins of Netizen, and an info page for the Netizens Association Mailing List. Those interested in reading the results of my research can retrieve my paper “The Net and the Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People’s Lives” in one of several ways: • Via FTP at wuarchive.wustl.edu • Via Plaintext WWW in
