The Role of Social Networks in the Information Age

This week I wanted to focus on Castells and Christakis and Fowler, under the specific theme of Networks. This will be important, not only in analysing the significance of networks when it comes to understanding knowledge and information, but I also suspect that such a focus will bear fruit for later topics (such as Virtual communities).

I felt it was important to cover Manuel Castells separately, because unlike the readings addressed in my last post, he examines contemporary society with due attention to the overarching global capitalist system and its most powerful entities. The film; The Network, does an excellent job of outlining this overarching system for us:

However, the real significance of Castells for me wasn’t so much his attention on the overarching context in which ‘Information Society’ exists, but rather his focus on the network (the concept, not the film).

I came across the work for Fowler and Christakis in a TED lecture. They distinguish the difference between groups (a set of people defined by an attribute) and networks (a group with a specific set of connections between people in the group). They argue that such ties are often more important than the individuals within the group. They assert that such ties explain why the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and why they are fundamental in trying to understand social phenomena. Their research has significant implications for our relations with people and for how society changes.

Christakis and Fowler explain that the two fundamental aspects of social networks are connection (the dynamic topology of the network) and contagion (what flows through the connection). They also explain rules regarding the structure and function of social networks:

1)      Networks are shaped by the people within them.

a.       Homophily (contagion) – People have the unconscious or conscious tendency to associate with others who resemble them and share interests, histories, political affiliations, etc.

b.      Structure (connection).

                                                               i.      People can influence how many people they are connected to.

                                                             ii.      People influence how densely interconnected others are in their network.

                                                            iii.      People can influence how central they are in the network (power).

2)      Networks shape the people within them.

a.       Location – Networks shape people based on the position they hold within its architecture.

b.      Transitivity ­– the degree to which other people who are connected have an impact on a person in the network who is connected to those people.

c.       Centrality – the degree to which those whom one is connected to are connected themselves makes one more or less susceptible to what is flowing through the network.

3)      Contagion spreads through a network based on people’s tendency to influence and copy one another and such influence extends to three degrees of separation and the structure of the network. This can happen in two ways:

a.       Hyperdyadic spread – A contagion spreads merely through contact (e.g. like a piece of gossip)  

b.      Spread through Reinforcement – A contagion spreads after reinforcement from several people in the network (e.g. for complex contagion such as norms or mores). Christakis research on the spread of Obesity can be attributed to this rule. He found that if you’re friends, friends, friend is obese, it significantly raises your risk of being obese too – even if you don’t know that person.

4)      The Network has a life of its own.

a.       A network exhibits emergent properties that are independent of its constituents. Christakis and Fowler point to the works of physicists who were able to accurately employ mathematical models to make accurate predictions of Mexican waves – demonstrating that one did not require knowledge of the biology or the psychology of the constituents to understand certain aspects of the social phenomenon.

It is useful to mention here that strong links between Christakis and Fowler’s theories and Barlow’s theories of information as a life from, as a relationship and as an activity can be observed. However, without going on such a (fairly enticing) tangent, I would like to bring the focus back to Castells article on the implications for ‘Information Society’.

Castells describes a globally networked Capitalist system that is extremely flexible, which allows it to simultaneously include and exclude people, territories and activities based upon the dominant values and interests that characterise the system. He also identifies that while the networking structure itself is decentralised, by nature of the overarching system in which it functions, it has allowed organisations to network and centralise to form supranational organisation with significant worldwide influence. Nations and organisations are surrendering sovereignty and control to supranational blocs such as the European Union, supra-military entities like NATO and supra-economic organisations like the IMF.

He argues that no major historical transformation has taken place in technology, or in the economy, without an interrelated organizational transformation. Castells argues that ultimately all networks come out ahead by restructuring, even if they change their composition, their membership, and their tasks. Network resilience is thus determined by such flexibility. Castells characterises some of the negative effects of networks in the Information Age:
 

1.       The de-socialization of labour and the increasing flexibility and individualization of labour performance.

2.       Over-exploitation of excluded classes and groups (women, immigrants, youth, etc)

3.       Social exclusion of groups by central groups who hold the main values of the system (a fundamental aspect that characterises that the power of the privileged in society is in their control over exclusivity)

Fowler and Christakis explain such exclusion as Positional inequality, which is caused not by whom one is, but by who one is connected to. However, they also point to the fact (as Castells does) that people with many connections may become better connected and be better rewarded whereas those with fewer ties may be left behind. They argue that this is the real digital divide. As Fowler and Christakis put it: “Network inequality creates and reinforces inequality of opportunity”.  (p. 302)

Christakis and Fowler go on to argue that the great project of the twenty-first century is to understand how the human super-organism comes to be greater than the sum of its individuals. There is no doubt, (especially in a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected through ICTs), that the implications on people around the world of Christakis’ and Fowler’s research, are very significant indeed.

What Fowler and Christakis seem to fail to focus on however, is the ideology held by central figures in a social network and how this influences network structure through exclusivity. It would be worth (thought I don’t have the time here to do it) looking into how power functions in such networks in the context of Foucauldian discourse theory.

However for now, I believe Castells does make the important point that ICTs and its acceleration of globalisation has in fact benefited primarily those in power – a much needed counter discourse to the ‘blessings of globalisation and the information age’ we commonly hear.

Given that the most influential, interconnected and centralised networks are those which function under a capitalist doctrine, it would be interesting to question to what extent an ideology influences the very structure and flow of a network. And further to this, to what extent would individuals of the network containing an overarching ideological doctrine be able to identify that doctrine? Also, would not the individuals who identify, criticize or challenge the dominant discourse not simply be sidelined, excluded and cast into Castells' fourth world?

An analysis of ideology, power, and how they function within a network is wanton here. Though I can’t help but feel that such a pursuit would make me feel a little bit like Alice... Tumbling down the rabbit hole.

References

Barlow, John Perry (1994) A Taxonomy of Information. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science.

Castells, Manuel (1999) Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Discussion Paper No. 114

Christakis, Nicholas A. & Fowler, James H. (2011) Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives – How You Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, Do. Back Bay Books, London.