Notes from Van Dijk. 2012. The Network Society, 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Chapter 1: Introduction

The 21st Century: The Age of Networks.

• In contemporary society, what connects our networks relies less on physical constraints, such as roads and cables, and more on electronic communication.
  • Individual.
    • Social Networking Sites (SNS).
    • Emails.
    • Texting.
    • Instant Messaging.
    • Blogging.
  • Organizations.
    • So dependent on electronic networks that when they break down the organization cannot function. “The Network is down.”
  • Global.
    • Media networks.
    • Social networks.
    • Economic Networks.
    • Online communication has become so vital for nations that in the event of war it could be argued that shutting them down could be more effective than bombing nearly any material enemy infrastructures. (Cyberwarfare) (see also).

What is at stake when it comes to the development of new information and communication technologies?

• Social Equality:
  • Distribution of knowledge. (Digital Divide).
  • Who has access to what information? Why?
• Democracy:
  • Well-informed citizenry?
  • More direct communications with, and participation in, institutions of decision-making?
• Freedom:
  • Freedom of choice for consumers.
  • Privacy.
• Safety
  • Disabled, Sick, Elderly.
  • Overdependence on vulnerable technology?
• Quantity and Quality of Social Relationships.
  • Improving with communication technology or decreasing?
• Perception of ourselves and the world around us.
  • Diversifying or reduced?

Communications Revolutions.

• Media as a form of communication can be fixed in space (one place) and time or it can act as a bridge between places and time. Language.
• Structural communication revolutions involve fundamental changes that occur in our communication regarding time and space.
• The first two prehistorical communication revolutions created bridges from which we could transcend communications that were fixed in time and space.
• Bridging places: Sending smoke, drum, fire signals, messengers.
• Bridging time:  Illustrations on pottery and inside caves.
• The structural communications revolution of writing.

The Modern communications revolution.

• New media eliminated the distinction between media that are fixed in, or bridge, time and space.
• The new media are a combination of online (Internet) and offline (word documents and PDF’s) media which are a combination of transmission links and artificial memories (text, data, images and/or sounds) that can also be used in different devices (laptops, phones, ebooks) in different places.
• This combination creates an interplay between face-to-face communication and online mediated communication.
• Technical communications revolution: a fundamental change in the structure of connections, artificial memories and/or the reproduction of their contents.
• A revolution in the reproduction of writing: The Printing Press.
• During the second half of the 19th Century another technical revolution took place.
• Invention and construction of long distance connections by cable and air (telegraph and telephone).
• The introduction of new analogue artificial memories (photograph, film, audio recording tape).
• New techniques for reproduction (rotary press).
• The Current Communications Revolution: The Last 50 years.
• Large mainframe computers (The Whirlwind) and satellite telecommunications were fabricated.
• The introduction of smaller and more powerful computers which have been increasingly connected to networks.
• Large-scale introduction of computers, computer networks, terminal equipment, programs and services.

Characteristics of the New Media (Multimedia).

1. Integration.

• Convergence: The process of the integration of telecommunications, data communications, and mass communications.
• Integration occurs at one or more levels.
• Infrastructure – combining two different types of communications.
• Transportation – connections carrying different types of media.
• Management – companies managing different types of media (ATT).
• Services – media offering a combination of information, communication, transaction and entertainment services (Facebook).
• Types of data – multimedia containing sound, text, images, and data.
• Integration process is enabled by two revolutionary techniques.
• Full digitalization of all media (digital code).
• Broadband transmission through all connections by cable and air.

2. Interactivity: Sequence of action and reaction.

• Four levels accumulative levels of interactivity.
• The possibility of establishing two sided or multilateral communication.
• Space Dimension.
• Degree of synchronicity.
• Time Dimension.
• Extent of control exercised by interacting parties.
• Behavioral Dimension.
• Acting and reacting with an understanding of meanings and contexts by all interactors involved (Face-to-face interaction).
• Mental Dimension.

3. Digital Code and Hypertext.

• Digital Code:
• Every item of information and communication can be transformed and transmitted in the form of bytes (Binary Code).
• Replaces the natural codes of the analogue creation and the transmission of items of information and communication.
• Effects of using digital code.
• Uniformity and standardization (HTML).
• Increase in quantity of items of information and communication.
• Break-up of the traditional linear order of large units of information and communication into hyperlinks of items in accordance with the wants of the reader, viewer, or listener (hypertext).
• Information Traffic Patterns.
• Allocution: the simultaneous distribution of information to an audience of local units by a center that serves as the source and decision agency in respect of its subject matter, time, and speed.
• Consultation: the selection of information by (primarily) local units, which decide upon the subject matter, time and speed, at a center which remains its source. (Wikipedia).
• Registration: The collection of information by a center that determines the subject matter, time, and speed of information sent by a number of local units, who are the sources of the information and who sometimes take the initiative for this collection themselves (electronic reservations, online shopping, internet banking).
• Privacy Issues.
• Conversation: exchange of information by two or more local units, addressing a shared medium instead of a center, and determining the subject matter, time, and speed of information and communication themselves.
• New media added the ability to combine speech, data, and text in one message, form which pictures could be added. (meme, gif).
• These patterns reflect a clear shift of patterns to local units.
• For the first time history, the new media will enable us to make a deliberate choice between mediated and face-to-face communication in a large number of social activities. (Skype).

Communication Capacities of the New Media.

• Communication capacities: the potentialities and limitations that cannot be removed (inter)subjectively from media. It defines (objective) and enables (subjective) features.
• Two main approaches to examining the opportunities and limitations of mediated communication as compared with face-to-face communication.
• Objective: Use objective characteristics of media and channels as a starting point.
• Subjective: Emphasizes the (inter)subjective characteristics of the use of media.
• Nine communication capacities.
• Speed.
• Reach.
• Storage capacity.
• Accuracy.
• Selectivity.
• Interactivity.
• Stimuli Richness.
• Complexity.
• Privacy Protection.

What is a Network Society? (Chapter 2): Van Dijk. 2012. The Network Society, 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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