Network Society: How Social Relations rebuild Space(s)

By Roberta Iannone, Emanueal Ferreri and Maria Christina Marchetti

The present volume attempts to critically evaluate claims that modern society may be read and understood as a network. Accepting that this perspective holds some potential, the question becomes how to best capitalize on it. To analyze society as a network means to respond not only to the “actual needs”, but also to highlight the &quo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vernon Press
• Release date: Aug 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781622731367

Roberta Iannone

Roberta Iannone is Associate Professor of General Sociology at the Department of Political Sciences of Sapienza, University of Rome. She achieved her PhD in "Sociology of culture and political processes" in 2005 at Sapienza, University of Rome. She is also Vice Director of Quarterly Journal of Science of Administration (FrancoAngeli). Since 2008 has been teaching General Sociology, Sociology of Classical thought and Sociology of economic and labour processes in several Italian Universities. At Sapienza University of Rome, she actually teaches General Sociology and Advanced course of Sociology. Her research activity mainly focusses on the analysis of social and cultural change, particularly referred to the problem of relationships and their role to construct modern society. During the last period, she was also interested in topics related to the network, the governance, the social capital and in digital divide, as a phenomenon of social exclusion in online and offline experience.

Book preview

Preface

Paolo de Nardis

What is the network society?

Roberta Iannone provides a complete and articulated definition of the concept of network that renders, in a clear and effective way, the descriptive content of the analysis, giving us at the same time a key to depict the contemporaneity. This perspective is enlarged and enriched by the interesting contributions of Cristina Marchetti, Laura Mariottini, Emanuele Ferreri and Manuela Ciprì.

This approach constitutes a way to avoid the traps inherent in an ontological method and to base the analysis of this relevant theme starting from an assumption: the Network can be realistically depicted as an element able to shape and define the contemporaneity.

Since last century 70s, I have always considered very interesting the attainment of this conception. It undoubtedly originates from functionalism, but overcomes it by including a strong axiological element based on reciprocity, collaboration and trust.

From a modern epistemological point of view, in my opinion, it is quite important to try to avoid the ontological approach in order to consider the concept of network society merely as a concept: an instrument to explain reality, rather than an instrument pretending to objectify an analytical category presenting it as the exact reality.

So we can say the network society is a powerful instrument to analyze contemporaneity – as demonstrated by the interesting works of the present research –, but without the pretension to exhaust all the ranges of the possible interpretations of reality. This should be read by making use of a large set of concepts, none of which really exclusive. All instruments then must be checked according to the principles of verifiability, replicability and publicity of the results.

That said, the heuristic fecundity of the proposed concept could not be denied because deeply investigated and analytically founded on a large number of sociological literature on the subject, produced during the last quarter of a century both in Italy and abroad. The main contribution of this literature led to a fascinating and important idea: contemporary western societies, developing along the late segment of modernity, do not govern themselves according to the traditional scheme of the state-civil society (of political and business world) and according the mono-regulative top-down model, but they organize themselves according to a horizontal network.

Under this perspective, the horizontal self-organization of the societies plays a role of substitution and supplementation of public powers, whenever they are weak or completely missing in their essential functions of distribution, regulation and control.

This is a conception that gave birth to the neo-corporative conception of the social sphere and that redefines it in a neo-functionalist and neo-morphological way. The old social pyramid squeezes and molding a horizontal-reticular society, with the consequent fall of old schemes and hierarchies.

The theoretical sources of this neo-pluralistic morphology of the social sphere, from both an ideological and cultural point of view, are part of the present research that, in identifying the sociological conscience implicit in this interpretation of reality, aims at redefining a snapshot of social life, on the grounds of the major cultural currents. Yet, the latter does not seem always conformed to such a geometrical approach, with quite clear returns to the past models, falling in the misleading vision of the so called autumn of the State and of its regulative function.

If we refer to the pluralistic approach in sociology, we find one of the most important author, Gurvitch. In his work, the organization factor of a social group has a fundamental role for the capacity of generating norms. Forerunners of this approach could be philosophers and law theorists, like Duguit, Van Gierke, Hariou and others. Moreover, along the lines of a sociological research on education, considered in connection with the organization factor, we can examine some important positions by Sellznick, a sociologist of law, who came from the sociology of organization. Here, it is possible to recognize the same pluralistic approach to the study the late-modern society, closely related to an explicit need to explain how complex organizations can be a vehicle to education and of expectations on justice and law.

In this case, the endo-organizative perspective makes room to a pluralism defined according to the principles of justice of an industrial kind that amounts to the reality of a complex organization.

Hence, reshaping the old vision of the classic pluralism with this new conceptual model, considering pluralism as a system, it seems we can affirm that beyond the absorption of values and norms coming from political power, it is at work the same mechanism of absorption emanating from the centers of economic and social power and from the media.

In this perspective, pluralism meets functionalism, giving birth to a way of modeling characterized by a functionalist neo-morphology of the social sphere.

On the light of these contributions and of the neo-pluralistic framework developed by these authors, in this research the aim is to go further, by applying a relational lens (rather than a proper paradigm) to the study of the network. The pluralistic fulcrum of the sociology of law and organization needs to be reconsidered and integrated, rather than contradicted, according to the most recent theoretical achievements on the relational sociology. In this sense, the aim of this work is to investigate the networks and their properties in terms of social capital and governance, with the goal to reconstruct the ideal conscience of the new reticular society in its shades and lights.

Rome, February 2016.

Introduction

The key questions of the present volume are why and how to read society as a network. At the base of these interrogatives, there are at least three reasons:

1. First, the fact that the network has colonized the common use of the language and the collective imagination. Everyone talks about networks in different areas (politics, economics and health care, among others) and referring to different concerns (conformity, cooperation, multilingualism, social control and the crisis of the welfare state, to name but a few).

In each situation, it assumes the most varied features: from a device that saves, to a mesh that traps. In these aspects, the role of the InterNet ‒ as the network of networks ‒ emerges. It becomes a metaphor and, at the same time, a support both for the Network Society and the contemporary societies even when creating new divisions – as exemplified by the concept and the phenomenon of the digital divide.

2. The second reason is that the study of the network is essential for the description of some of the processes through which we explain contemporary society since the late ‘70s: the postmodern and post‐industrial society; the fluid and flexible social processes; the organizations as cooperative and anti‐bureaucratic systems; the actors as results of multiple identities and as points of intersection of different social circles; the end of the fixed and immutable order of hierarchies and the advent of the governance; the birth of the global village; globalization; the mobility and transnationalism; the new forms of solidarity and horizontal communities; the transition from welfare state to the welfare society, etc.

3. The third reason is related to the implications the network society has in terms of linguistic practices and discursive production of space during the process of construction of both individual and collective identities. The movements of the individuals in the geographic space, resulting from the globalization processes of migration and mobility, generates a process of dislocation that involves the loss of the relationship between natural, socio‐cultural and geographical boundaries, while producing a partial relocation of old and new symbolic productions. Consequently, at the base of the postmodern processes of identity construction we cannot find the traditional relationship, related to socio‐territorial aspects, but a more complex net, that involves transnational and multilingual discursive practices.

Therefore, to analyse society as a network means not only to respond to the actual needs, but also to highlight the opportunities and the utilities, and to investigate if society is really relational or only perceived as such – as exemplified by these processes and the related concepts.

From a strictly scientific perspective, to answer the question how to read society as a network means to ask: a) if the conceptual categories (especially the concepts of structure and exchange) and the paradigms of the traditional analysis (holism and individualism, both in the functionalist and the conflictive versions) are still sufficient; b) if the new conceptual categories/theories/instruments are needed for a more proper representation of the reality we face in order to investigate it, to explain it or, at least, to understand it.

Starting from the reflection on the already established social networks, the individuation of the fundamental differences between groups and networks, the analysis of the logics of the networks as well as of the social capital formation and links, we want to seize the spatial dynamics, seemingly following opposite paths. Paths that bring back to a common denominator: the de‐spatialization and re‐spatialization, namely the processes of dematerialization of space(s) and its reconstruction by specific relational dynamics and forms.

The study of the networks is therefore not attributable to a single theory but to more theories converging towards a unique perspective (spaces) and logical reasoning, each one with its own uniqueness.

In other words, the strength of this volume is represented by the multidimensional and interrelated looking at the Network Society, emerging from converging multidisciplinary perspectives (sociological, anthropological and linguistic), and from applications that the NS provides, namely, international (European Governance), institutional, public (linguistic landscape of the city of Rome) and mediated ones (communication technology).

Our starting point is the contribution of Roberta Iannone. She examines the disappearance of the vertical traditional society and the transformation of contemporary societies through new forms and new spatial processes; it is to say through reticularity. The network connects and creates bridges through an intelligence that is more collective than connective. Thus, the network society comes through the space of flows and the space in‐betweennes. Moving from this theoretical aspect, her essay aims to outline the contours of the network society, answering the key question: What is network society? Particular attention is given to: the principal meaning of network society and the differences with the more traditional descriptions of the societies; the role of the nodes compared to individual subjects; social ties in relation to the collective social formations; and flows in relation to functions. The paper sheds light on the link between the technologies of network communication and information society; the space‐time compression and its consequences for human experience; the problems related network access, but also the problems about the control of flows; the conflict between the net and the self, and the power in terms of inclusion and exclusion from the network.

Then, Emanuela Ferreri deepens the analysis, measuring the hypothesis of solidity.

The overall aim of the essay is to outline and qualify some features for an anthropology of network and networking activities. Particular attention is given to the notions and analytical concepts of structure and structural conditioning; cultural frames and patterns; global dimension and processes of globalization, cultural identity and social subjectivity.

The specific aim regards the application of ethnographic methods in favour of the social analysis of network and networking activities. Through a case study, she analyses the implications of the participant observation, starting from the involvement and the reflexivity of the researcher herself. The network is considered as a crossing space of physical places. With its endless activities, the network crosses the socio‐cultural space in a very invasive way. In socio‐anthropological terms, the network dimension captures and expresses a stringent solidity: it becomes a means of expression and elaboration of gender, generation, ethnicity, of social‐ideological and therefore political affiliation.

Like any other technological extension of human thinking and acting, computer artefacts, allowing on‐line/off‐line activities, will be investigated as the extension and projection of an anthropological condition: the fundamental and inalienable human indeterminacy.

The network creates a favourable environment for the production and dissemination of ‘falsifiable’ constructs, which are going to be fully analysed and interpreted. These refutable constructs persist along paths that continually intersect ‘large collective states of mind’ with ‘substrates’ or ‘discourses’ enabling cultural prejudices, stereotypes and erroneous scientific assumptions to transform a questionable collective perception in a ‘legend’, in a new collective and public ‘cultural text’.

To accept and refuse, to admit and deny, to use and dispose of, to adapt, modify and destroy tangible and intangible products, material and symbolic productions: what could ever be more anthropologically grounded? And, what could ever be more solid for society and for culture?

The researcher also concentrates in the Ethnography of the networking. Inside networking activities, the intensive exercise of de‐localization and re‐localization of the sociality (and thus of the social dimension itself) is quite equal to the intensity of an ideological exercise of polarizing and exchanging private and public dimensions. Processes and transformations of the relationship between intra‐identity and inter‐identity dimensions are the main effects in the spotlight.

All the connections‐relationships identified in networking activities, potentially affect a process of cultural reinforcement or not reinforcement, through the use of conceptions and experiences that we can define: ‘distance and proximity’, ‘separation and contiguity’, ‘difference and similarity’, ‘symmetry and asymmetry’, ‘hegemony and subordination’, ‘identity and otherness’, ‘universal and particular’. Everything can (or cannot) generate completely new meanings and cultural sense; the game of relationship‐connection can (or cannot) draw new social spaces. At this point, the essay faces two important issues (in disciplinary, interdisciplinary and epistemological terms): – can the network be considered an ethnographic place? – And, does the networking produce ethnographic encounters? If yes, under what conditions and limits?

The rise of the network society implied a redefinition of the way space was conceived, as Maria Cristina Marchetti states in her contribution. In the sociological debate, there are two prevailing notions of space: on the one hand, there is the physical space, which is geometric and material, (a room, a city, a State); on the other the social space, which is abstract, and immaterial, strictly related to the space of interaction. Classical sociology unified both the notions, focusing on the analysis of social interactions within physical space (face‐to‐face model).

The network society implies a dematerialization of the space or as Magatti stressed, a de‐spatialisation and re‐spatialisation of space. This process involves both politics and the Nation‐State; economy, globalization and internationalization of the markets; society and the way social relations are conceived.

A new form of space sprouts. Castells defined it the space of flows typical of the network society. Nodes and hubs have a crucial role in the space of flows. The location in the node links up the locality with the whole network. Both nodes and hubs are hierarchically organized according to their relative weight in the network. Nevertheless this hierarchy may change, as it depends upon the evolution of activities processed through the network. Indeed, some places may be switched off the network, and their disconnection implies an instant decline, with an economic, social and physical deterioration.

Given these general assumptions, the essay aims to analyse the main consequences produced in the way political space is conceived. Modernity conceived political space as State‐centered, both at national and international level; during the Westphalian system the State has been the main player in the political space to such a point that political space nearly identified with it.

In this field, is now observable the rise of new political actors, stressing the passage from an institutional notion of power (government) to a wider one (governance) opened to non‐institutional actors. Very often they create networks to play their role and redefine the political space; different levels are involved in the decision‐making, in the restructure of the political space according to the actors each time involved in it, and in their (multi)level action.

The European Union is an interesting test bed of this process. Since the White Paper on European Governance ‒ COM (2001) 428 – the consolidated practice to involve the stakeholders in the European decision‐making has been officially recognised by the Treaty of Lisbon (art. 11). From this point, several political actors involved in the European decision‐making process, boosted the creation of trans‐European networks, particularly active at the level of civil society and pressure groups. Networking has a central role in the way they act both for the consequences on the European decision‐making and for the contribution they give to the European integration process and democracy.

The essay entitled Network Society and Public Space. Latin American Migrants and the Linguistic Landscape of Rome by Laura Mariottini, starts with the consideration that the rise of the network society deeply transformed the spatial organization of the social relations and transactions. This lead the researchers to reconsider public and urban spaces both as representations of processes inherent to the historical, social, political, ideological, geographic and demographic factors as well as elements that participate in the melding of the wider social and cultural reality.

In the most general sociolinguistic theoretical framework, a recent paradigm known as Linguistic Landscape (LL; Landry & Bourhis, 1997) has grown significantly. It aims to provide analysis and to interpret the relationships between languages and spaces as a result of the increased mobility and the migration phenomena. These two social processes enhanced the multicultural character of our cities and of our daily experiences with language and linguistic diversity, since it is at a local level that multilingualism became the norm.

The moulding of a Linguistic Landscape pertains to complex issues related to many actors who write, read and contest it according to their attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and engagement at individual, societal and political level. All these different actors, the signs they write (or