From Mass to Network Society Presented By: Jessica Fine and Andy Gniadek.

From Mass to Network SocietyFrom Mass to Network Society

Presented By:

Jessica Fine and Andy Gniadek

Author: James R. BenigerAuthor: James R. Beniger

• Associate Professor of Communications and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and University of Southern California, in Los Angeles.

• He has a B.A. in History from Harvard University.

• He has published two books: The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (Harvard University Press, 1986) and Trafficking in Drug Users: Professional Exchange Networks in the Control of Deviance (Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Control Revolution, IntroductionControl Revolution, Introduction

• The articles discuss how businesses and government need to exert control over people under them by either monitoring or directing behavior.

• Between the 1840’s and 1920’s, most of the important information processing and communication technologies were invented, and they are still used today.

• The typewriter, telegraph, telephone, radio, and punch card processing are some of these inventions and are all mechanisms that monitor and direct behavior.

• The production of products, distribution, and consumption of materials has become mechanized.

Control Revolution, IntroductionControl Revolution, IntroductionContinuedContinued

• From the time of the railroad, there has been a problem of getting out information to society, and we still have this problem today but it has gotten more complicated with the new technologies.

• “Indeed, bureaucratic organization tends to appear wherever a collective activity needs to be coordinated by several people toward explicit and impersonal goals, that is, to be controlled.” (Beniger, 13)

• “The reason why people can be governed more readily qua things is that the amount of information about them that needs to be processed is thereby greatly reduced and hence the degree of control-for any constant capacity to process information-is greatly enhanced.” (Beniger, 15)

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• Why has communication become more complicated?

• What makes getting information out to people so hard?

• Do bureaucracies cause the loss of information?

• Do you think the previous two quotes speak accurately about the information dissemination today?

Author: David RondfeltAuthor: David Rondfelt

• He worked for 30 plus years at RAND and worked closely on U.S Latin Security Issues.

• Most recently, he has worked mainly on ideas about the Information-Age modes of conflict. (e.g., cyberwar, netwar, swarming) and principles for cooperation (e.g., guarded openness, noopolitik).

• He is a co-author (mainly with John Arquilla) of In Athena's Camp:

Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age (1997), The Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico (1998), Countering the New Terrorism (1998), The Emergence of Noopolitik: Toward an American Information Strategy (1999), Swarming and the Future of Conflict (2000), and Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (2001).

Author: John ArquillaAuthor: John Arquilla

• He earned his degrees in international relations from Rosary College (BA, 1975) and Stanford University (MA, 1989; Ph.D, 1991).

• He is an associate professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

• He has written Lessons from the War with Saddam Hussein (RAND, 1991), Dubious Battles (Crane Russak, 1992), and From Troy to Entebbe (University Press of America, 1996), as well as many articles, book chapters, and monographs on a wide range of topics in security affairs.

Network, Netwars, and the fight for Network, Netwars, and the fight for the futurethe future

• Conflict is put on the World Wide Web by terrorists, criminals and social activists.

• They all are fighting to get their message across to promote the issues that are important to them.

• The authors say: There are five critical levels of theory and practice for networks. They are the technological, social, narrative, organizational, and doctrinal levels.

• To be a netwar actor you must get all these five critical levels of theory right.

Network, Netwars, and the fight for the futureNetwork, Netwars, and the fight for the futureContinuedContinued

• To activate a really great netwar, you must be highly networked, have strong social ties, secure communications technologies and project a common story about your organization and your purpose.

• In order to fight off criminals and terrorists, our military, government, law enforcement, and intelligence organizations must collaborate and work together.

• “Swarming may well become the key mode of conflict in the information age. But swarming doctrines and strategies have barely begun to emerge for the conduct of terrorist, criminal, and social conflicts.” (Ronfeldt, Arquilla 11)

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• What is our future going to be like?

• How will government respond to a network structure versus a hierarchical structure?

• The narrative structure of the network is very important. How do we deal with “disinformation, misrepresentation, and outright

lying”? (Ronfeldt, Arquilla 10)

Author: Chris AndersonAuthor: Chris Anderson

• He is the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine.

• He lives in Berkeley, California with his wife and four small children.

• Before taking over Wired in mid-2001, he was with The Economist for seven years in London, Hong Kong, and New York in many positions such as Technology Editor to US Business Editor.

The Long TailThe Long Tail

• Talks about new accomplishments in distribution, manufacturing and marketing, which allow us to deliver to our customers more products that are outside the “tail” or demand curve that is dictated by shelf space and other limiting factors.

• The author says: You could not afford to fill those magazine pages or store shelves unless you could sell in large quantities.

• Consumers only got what store managers or editors considered to be popular items.

The Long TailThe Long TailContinuedContinued

• Anderson says today with the Internet, consumers can buy almost anything online and retailers can stock products that are not considered to be the “hits”, and he refers to these products as niche products.

• “Take books: The average Barnes and Noble carriers 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon’s book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles.” (Anderson 1)

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• What do you think is the next thing that will be entirely downsized and moved to be Internet based?

• How can small businesses survive in society today?

• What do you think of the niche market argument?

Author: Barry WellmanAuthor: Barry Wellman

• He got a B.A in History from Lafayette College in 1963.

• He got a M.A in Sociology from Harvard University in 1965.

• He got a Ph.D in Sociology from Harvard University in 1969.

• Currently, he is a co-editor Information, Communication and Society, special section on Communication and Information Technologies, to be published in 2008 best papers from American Sociological Association 2007 annual meeting.

Community: From neighborhood to Community: From neighborhood to networknetwork

• Talks about how today much of communication takes place in the home on a computer and not in bars or other public places.

• The Internet helps you interact with people everywhere, not just in your neighborhood and social group.

• CMC has allowed us to communicate more frequently and to more people. It has changed how we connect to others.

• Internet and cellular phones are person to person technologies and with them, you do not have to be in a particular place to use them.

Community: From neighborhood to networkCommunity: From neighborhood to networkContinuedContinued

• People or communities that interact online usually have similar or like ideas. They may be involved in the same work or interested in the same things.

• Online, you can talk to one person and they can forward your message to another, and as a result you are in indirect contact with that person, and they can directly contact you.

• You can now contact more people with the same interests and people can use multimedia to connect with others depending on what is available at that time.

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

• How do you contact other people?

• Do you contact them by text messaging, calling on a cellular phone, land phone or by instant messaging?

• Why do you contact them in that way?