[p2p-research] power of networks book

Fri Sep 17 15:17:56 CEST 2010

Dear Eli,

I have difficulty posting this item, to be post-dated on oct 6, thanks for
doing it for me!!

Title: Book of the Week (2): The power of networks and "cyberthrongs"

strong>Book: <a href="
http://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf">The<http://deugarte.com/gomi/the-power-of-networks.pdf%22%3EThe>Power
of Networks</a>. David de Ugarte.
Last Monday this week we presented David's book on Phyles, describing the
key economic institution of the network age. His view is rooted in a general
understanding of networks, which he presents in this book, which is also a
strongly recommended read.

<strong>Summary</strong>

“The main idea underlying this book is that the key to understanding most of
the new social and political phenomena lies in grasping the difference
between a world in which information spreads through a decentralised network
and a world in which information spreads through a distributed network.”

The fiive theses proposed in this book:
“1. The world, impelled by technological change, is changing the
structure of the network through whcich information is transmitted.
2. The structure of information – and therefore of power – took until
recently a “decentralised” form, with “hierarchical” powers and institutions
and individuals with “filtering powers”. But technologies like the internet
are impelling it to take an increasingly “distributed” form in which anyone
can potentially find, recognise, and communicate with anyone else.

3. This distributed world is creating a means of communication in its own
image: the blogosphere, the set of online tools for personal publishing and
communication.

4. As a whole, this mode of communication can, in increasingly larger parts
of the world and not precisely in the most spectacular manner in developed
countries, change the public agenda and turn questions which traditional
media filter or do not take up at all into topics for social debate. A blog
is not a medium, but the set of all blogs is.

5. Cyberactivism is a strategy for the creation of temporary alliances of
individuals who, using tools from that network, generate a critical mass of
information and debate which will make that debate transcend the boundaries
of the blogosphere and move into the “real world”; or which will perceptibly
modify the behaviour of a large number of people.

6. In such a world, everyone – businesses, social activists, and, in
general, anyone who wishes to spread an idea as widely as possible – are
driven to cyberactivism. That is, they are driven to communicate, bearing in
mind the way in which people will relay their ideas to others who in turn
will will do the same in a chain as long as possible.”

<strong>Excerpted from the Introduction:</strong>

David de Ugarte:

“That we are living in changing times and that those changes have
something to do with "social networks" has become a commonplace, almost a
cliché, by now. And yet nobody seems to be very clear about what those
networks are, and, above all, what is new about them. After all, if the
networks we are talking about are the networks established by people when
they interact, society has always been a network. And if we are talking
about activist movements, they have also been there forever, interacting
with each other in a sort of hyperactive parallel universe. There are
however two new elements concerning this issue that everyone intuitively
understands. On the one hand, there is the Internet and its most direct
consequence: the emergence of a new sphere of social interaction which every
day brings millions of people together. On the other hand, there is the
recent appearance of a wide literature on networks applied to every field,
from physics and biology to economics, as well as the inevitable spate of
popular science, marketing ploys, and advertising gimmicks.

Then there is a whole series of movements ranging from revolution to civic
protest, through a new kind of sophisticated hoopla which nobody knows very
well how to class, and which frequently fills newspaper pages. They first
event of this kind became well-known when in 2000 the crowds took to the
streets of Manila to demand President Estrada's resignation. The media then
remarked on the lack of leaders, and on how political entities and trade
unions were forced to follow the people instead of heading them. But that
was too far away from Old Europe and we paid little attention to it, just
enough for many of the thousands of participants in the demonstrations which
took place in Spain on 13th March 2004 to be aware of the role they could
play in bringing about a crucial change.

That was Mobile Phone Night, and even though the degree to which it
influenced the results of the presidential election the following day is
still a matter of debate, nobody can deny that it was a radically new moment
in Spanish history. In a short book published online just a few months
before, the Spanish economist Juan Urrutia had predicted such rallies, and
provided the methodological tools with which to understand them. He termed
them "cyberthrongs". A year and a half after that, in November 2005, the
French Police acknowledged their helplessness in the face of the Paris
suburb revolts, arguing that the speed with which the revolters acquired
veritable "urban guerrilla" techniques and experience made it impossible for
them to act effectively. Some claim that a mysterious new collective subject
has emerged. Howard Rheingold has spoken of "wise crowds". In this book I
won't treat them as if they were all part of the same movement, but rather
as symptoms of a new form of social organisation and communication which is
growing ever stronger, and through which very different, even mutually
contradictory, ideas can be upheld. Information rallies such as those that
led to the Madrid Big BoozeUp in the Spring of 2006 and to Dan Brown's
popular discrediting in Spain have also entered this cyberthrong hit parade
that shows that something is changing.

This book aims to define that something, and how we common citizens can gain
greater independence and power of communication through it. It has three
parts. The first part is a very brief history of how social networks, the
map of relationships through which ideas and information move, have changed
through time, driven by changes in communication technologies. The second
part focuses on the new political movements, from the Colour Revolutions in
Eastern Europe to cyberthrongs all over the world. It also sketches out the
two basic models of cyberactivism that lead to the massive spread of new
messages from the web. Finally, the third part tries to provide all kinds of
individuals, companies, and collectives with some useful conclusions
concerning how to communicate socially in a distributed network world, a
world in which we are all potential cyberactivists.” </em>
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