Netizen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Netizen (a portmanteau of Internet and citizen) or cybercitizen is a person actively involved in online communities.

[edit] Description

Netizens can use the Internet to engage in activities of extended social groups, such as giving and receiving viewpoints, furnishing information, fostering the Internet as an intellectual and a social resource, and making choices for the self-assembled communities. Generally, a netizen can be any user of the worldwide, unstructured forums of the Internet. The word netizen itself was coined by Michael Hauben.^[1]^[2]

Netizens are Internet users who utilize the networks from their home, workplace, or school (among other places). Netizens try to be conducive to the Internet's use and growth. Netizens, who use and know about the network of networks, usually have a self-imposed responsibility to make certain that it is improved in its development while encouraging free speech and open access^{[disambiguation needed]}. Netizens' use of the Internet around the world has been marked by:

Medium	Description
E-mail	Delivery of letters by means of the Internet, as a replacement to the traditional based paper correspondence letters.
Online chat	Establishing of one-on-one or group conversations by means of the Internet.
Instant messaging	Software which enables real time conversations without the need of using a website (in contrast to online chats).
Internet fora	Web Sites which serve to hold discussions in defined subjects.
Online games	Multiplayer Computer games which are played through the Internet.
Blog	A kind of log in which the writer(s) writes in it in any possible subject in which he or she desires to talk discuss at any time the author(s) so desires, and in which the writer(s) control access to.
Feedback comment system	A Mechanism used in web sites to post responses from the internet users, which is mostly used in the news web sites, in blogs and in the other additional sites
File sharing	A technology which enables the internet users to share files from their computers with other internet users, and in return the same internet user is capable of downloading files from the computer of other internet users. This enables the fast distribution, not always legal, of software, music, etc.
Gopher	A distributed document search and retrieval network protocol designed for the Internet. Its goal is to function as an improved form of Anonymous FTP, enhanced with hyperlinking features similar to that of the World Wide Web.
Wiki	A collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.

Internet Commerce: Netizens are citizens of the internet community dedicated to the participation and civic responsibility of providing Internet commerce resources to the netizens of the global Internet community.

The term has been used most frequently recently in Korea where there are vigorous netizens movements. The election of President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea in 2002 is widely attributed to the support for him among South Korean netizens, especially OhmyNews.^[3]