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

Chapter 2: What is a Network Society?

• Information Society.
• Organization is based on science, rationality, and reflexivity.
• Economy is increasingly characterized by information production.
• Labor market with a majority of functions based on tasks of information processing requiring knowledge and higher education.
• Culture is dominated by media and information products with their signs, symbols and meanings.
• The concepts of “information society” and “network: society” are different in their emphasis:
• Information society emphasizes the changing substance of activities and processes in a society.
• Network Society emphasizes the changing organizational forms and (infra)structures in a society.
• Network Society.
• Infrastructure of social media networks characterizes its mode of organization at every level (individual, group/organizational, and societal).
• These networks increasingly link every unit of part of the society.
• In Western societies the basic unit is becoming the individual linked by networks.
• In Eastern societies the basic unit of the network society might still be the group (family, community, work team) linked by networks.
• Mass Society.
• An infrastructure of groups, organizations, and communities that shape its prime mode of organization at every level (individual, group/organizational, and societal).
• The basic units of this society are various types of relatively large collectivities (masses) organizing individuals.
• Criticisms of the definition “Information Society.”
• Over emphasizes quantity of information, information products, information occupations, communication, etc., with little to no emphasis on the qualitatively new character of this type of society (Webster).
• All societies in the past have been based on information.
• Alternative concept suggested, “Informational Society:” a specific form of social organization in which information generation, processing, and transmission. become the fundamental sources of productivity and power (Castells).

The Human Web.

• From the moment humans began communicating there have been social networks.
• Five historically successive worldwide webs.
• First worldwide web.
• Hunter Gatherers.
• Migrated globally.
• This web remained very loose until the invention of agriculture roughly 12,000 years ago.
• Second worldwide web (metropolitan or city webs).
• Began roughly 6000 years ago.
• The first civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus, the Yellow River (China), Mexico, and the Andes are created.
• For the first time in history important relationships and everyday transactions regularly transcended the primary communities in which individuals had previously lived (McNeill and McNeill).
• Third human web (Old World web).
• Grew out of the contact between and partial fusion of civilizations in Eurasia and North Africa around 2000 years ago.
• Caused the rise of large bureaucratic empires in India, China, the Mediterranean, Mexico, and the Andes.
• Transportation and communication greatly improved with the invention of spoke wheels, better roads, ships with higher capacity, and alphabetic writing.
• Tensions in the worldwide web appeared as epidemics spread, religions clashed, and different civilizations and their rural hinterlands not only borrowed ideas, habits, and customs from each other, but also rejected them, defending their own.
• Fourth worldwide web (cosmopolitan web).
• Began around 1450.
• Oceanic navigation brought Eurasian and American civilizations into contact.
• Populations increasingly migrated to cities and therefore engaged in growing networks.
• Information circulated faster and cheaper than ever before.
• Most of the population still lived on farms and engaged in agriculture.
• Fifth worldwide web (global web).
• Covers the last 160 years.
• Characterized by urbanization and population growth.
• Human web thickens rather than widens.
• Communications dramatically increase with volume and speed.
• New means of transport and communications exploded with planes, trains, and automobiles, with telegraphs, telephones, radios, televisions, and computers and networks.
• Four important conclusions by historians J.R. and W. McNeill on the human web.
  1. All webs have combined cooperation and competition.
  2. The general direction of history has been toward greater social cooperation.
  3. The scale of human webs has tended to grow, as well as their influence on history.
  4. Human communication has also affected the earth to an ever larger degree.

Networks of Nature and Society.

• Network: A collection of links between elements of a unit.
• Units are often called systems.
• The smallest number of elements is three.
• The smallest number of links is two.
• A single link of two elements is called a relationship.
• Networks are a mode of organization of complex systems in nature.
• Types of Networks
• Physical Networks: Natural systems of higher complexity (ecosystems, river systems).
• Organic Networks: Organisms (Nervous system, blood circulation, strings of DNA in cells).
• Neuronal Networks: Mental systems (neuronal connections, mental maps).
• Social Networks: Social systems with concrete ties to abstract relationships.
• Technical Networks: (technical systems: roads, distribution networks, telecommunication and computer networks, etc.).
• Media Networks: Media systems connecting senders and receivers and filled with symbols and information.

Networks at All Social Levels.

• Individual relations: Individuals creating ties to family members, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues, etc.
• Group and Organizational Relations:
• Can be temporary and loose (project teams and mailing lists).
• Can be permanent and fixed (institutions and corporations).
• All contemporary groupings are supported by telecommunications and computer networks.
• Because of this fixed group and organizational structure tend to loosen as virtual organizing becomes enabled at every scale.
• Societal Relations: Individuals, groups and organizations shape a society that is built on, and linked by, social and media networks.
• Network State.
• Internally it links the bodies and institutions of the government and the public administration at every level.
• Externally it maintains strong relationships with organizations of citizens and with semi-autonomous and privatized public institutions.
• Global Relations: The world system of societies and international organizations.
• The era of the global web.
• Created by expanding international relations and a scale extension of organization.
• Strongly supported by international broadcasting, telecommunications, and computer networking.

A Multilevel Theory of Networks.

• The network society must be analyzed in terms of levels of networking.
• Kontopoulos’ The Logics of Social Structure (1993).
• The world must be analyzed as a level structure “Levels are not juxtaposed layers; every level is rooted to lower levels, down to the chemical and physical ones. Therefore, same-level or intra-level analysis must be supplemented and enriched by cross-level or inter-level analysis.”
• At every level, particular properties emerge that only apply to that level:
• personality of an individual.
• the measure of formality of a group.
• the extent of centralization of an organization.
• The phase of development of a society.
• Character of networks as a particular mode of social organization.
• Hierarchical mode of organization.
• Lower levels are fully included in the higher levels.
• Units at these levels are simply aggregated to form units at a higher level.
• Individuals add to groups and organizations and both add to society.
• Lower levels are superseded by the higher ones.
• The higher level controls the lower one.
• Heterarchical mode of organization
• Lower levels are only partially included in the higher levels.
• Control is interactional as it is found on all levels.
• Lower levels contain relations and structures that overlap with those at higher levels
• Networks belong to this mode of organization
• Using these relations and structures, networks cut right through all levels and connect them.
• Networks realize complex interactions within and between levels which increases the flexibility of organization.
• Example: Internet.
  
• Radical network approach.
• Not only are relations stressed, but also the characteristics of the units they link.
• This recognizes the conflict that can occur between the two, such as the relations of digital communication networks transcending space and time in the global 24-hour economy and the limitations of human biology (rest, food, etc.) which cannot fulfill the 24/7 expectations of the technology and economy concerned.
• Does not consider networks as the basic units of contemporary society, but rather the individuals, households, groups, and organizations which are increasingly linked by social and media networks.

Causes of the Rise of Networks.

• Historical and Social Causes.
• At the individual level the rise of networking is an explicit and increasingly systematic method of making contacts and improving social relations.
• At the levels of organizations, corporations and institutions are no longer working alone, but are increasingly opening themselves to their environment to survive competition (business) and societal demand (government and NPO’s) and acquiring new combinations of internal and external communication so that they are better equipped to adapt to a swiftly changing environment.
• At the level of society they have accelerated modernization by supporting globalization and socialization, as well as localization and individualization.

• Systems Causes: Adaptation, Evolution, and Managing Complexity.
• Systems theory.
• Network is defined as a relatively open system linking at least three relatively closed systems.
• The relatively closed system is the unit.
• These units are seen as closed systems because they contain elements that primarily act among themselves to reproduce the unit in a predetermined way.
• When they are forced to interact with their environment and link to other units in a network, they create an open system.
• Open system.
• Complete determination is lost and replaced by chance and random events.
• Allows change and new opportunities.
• The process of opening up closed systems is the secret of networks or networking as an organization principle.
• Two versions of systems theory have influenced network theory.
• The first, derived from evolution theory, focuses on adaptation which occurs in three successive phases.
• Interaction: Networks support interactions within and between system units. As these increase or intensify it leads to more;
• Variation: of both scope (wider connections) and depth (intensity).
• Selection: The final process by which the most successful actions and actors are chosen, the goal of networking.
• Retention occurs here as selection serves the adaption and survival of the particular system concerned.
  • Unemployed finding jobs.
  • Societies organize to adapt to globalization.
• The second version is inspired by mathematics and physics.
• Systems are conceived as units containing elements that can be connected in ordered (clustered) and disordered (random) ways.
• Graphs are used to depict potential links between a collection of elements in a particular unit.
• Propensity to change is the tendency to produce order out of chaos.
• Complex systems are created by revealing how randomly distributed elements of a unit or system link to each other in clusters and these clusters in a single whole, or particular order.
• Connectivity is used to explain order in a decentralized system.
• Despite their interactions being purely local, at a critical point/phase, all parts of the system act as if they can communicate with each other.
• These clusters are called small worlds.
• Ordered individual local units (groups, communities, organizations).
• Have internal links and reveal order because two elements that are connected to a common third element are more likely to establish a link to each other than two elements picks at random. (Friendships typically begin with a friend of a friend as opposed to a stranger).
• Are increasingly created by social and media networks in a contemporary society.

The Seven Laws of the Web.

• Defining and enabling conditions that exert pressure on human behavior in networks.
• The law of network articulation.
• The first and most important law.
• In the network society, social relations are gaining influence as compared to the social units they are linking.
• The law of network externality.
• Network Effects: The effects networks have on the people and things external to the network
• The more people participate in the network the bigger the effects are.
• As a network grows it exerts pressure on people to join.
• Pressure is increased at two tipping points.
• When a critical mass of users is reached, roughly 20-25%, pressure is greatly increased for others to join (email).
• When the critical mass of users reaches roughly two-thirds occurs saturation sets in and connection rates slow down, however the pressure from this point onward indicates that people are more or less forced to participate at the risk of exclusion (SNS, growth of the Web)
• The law of network extension.
• Reveals the internal dimension of network growth.
• Networks quickly become too big to directly link every unit or node to every other.
• As they become too big they form internal; structures of clusters of units(small worlds) that can reach each other more easily.
• They create intermediaries, or bridges between clusters and central meeting places. (Link Search engines, portals, price comparison sites and market places, such as eBay, to SNS and dating services).
• The law of small worlds.
• In large-scale networks, most units are not neighbors, but still can reach almost every other unit in a few steps (six degrees of separation) creating a small world. (Extended families, neighborhoods, groups of colleagues and school classes).
• Three degrees of influence rule: the phenomenon of contagion on average reaches three steps further than the source and then gradually dissipates.
• The law of the limits to attention.
• There is a limit to attention in a network because the time to read, listen, or view for receivers runs out.
• The more people write/produce content on the Web, the smaller on average their audiences become.
• Googlearchy: the rule of the most heavily linked (in searches, most popular sites listed at the top).
• The power law in networks.
• Power law distribution is marked by many nodes with a few links and a few nodes with a large number of links – The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer effect.
• In large scale-free networks those units already having many links acquire even more, while most units keep only a few links.
• The mechanisms are a continuous growth of links, preferential attachment (audiences going to the first hits on the list), and contagion (observing and simulating the behaviors of others).
• Helps to explain inequality in networks.
• The law of trend amplification.
• Networks are relational structures that tend to amplify existing social and structural trends. When technologies such as ICT networks and computers are used, they serve as reinforcing tools.
• The higher educated, who usually have the best digital skills, increase their advantage on the lower educated with less.

From Mass Society to Network Society.

• A systematic comparison
• Mass society:
• Large collectivities
  • Large households
  • Extended families in close proximity
• Basic components are homogenous
• Scale extension: Corporations, governments, and other organizations become larger and become bureaucracies
• Scope remains local: the organization of its basic components is tied to particular places and communications is still overwhelmingly local.
• High density: bureaucracy and vertical integration.
• Face-to-face, broadcast media
• Internal relations are centralized.
• Homongenous and inclusive
• Network Society:
  • Individuals linked by networks.
    • Small households and diverse relationships
  • New kinds of groups (live locally-act globally-glocalization).
    • Scale extension and reduction.
  • Heterogeneity: fragmented and diverse.
  • Lower density: polycentric and horizontally differentiated.
  • Mediated communication, narrowcasting and interactive.
  • Flexiblity, but lack of inclusiveness.

Technology (Chapter 3): Van Dijk. 2012. The Network Society, 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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