Sage Academic Books

The Network Society

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Author: Jan van Dijk

Pub. Date: 2023
Product: Sage Academic Books
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529739114
Keywords: nervous system, network society, information society, mass society, classification
Disciplines: General Media, Communication & Cultural Studies, General Media, Communication & Cultural
Studies, New Media & Communication Technology, Media Studies, General Sociology, General Sociology,
Media, Communication & Cultural Studies
Access Date: May 23, 2024
Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: 55 City Road
Online ISBN: 9781529739114

© 2023 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.

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Networks: The Nervous System Of Society

About this chapter

• How can the network society be defined? What is the difference between this concept and the con-
cepts of the information society and what I call the mass society? Why do we need these concepts
anyway? Are traditional classifications, such as capitalist society, (post)modern society or (un)sus-
tainable society, no longer adequate?
• It is told that social networks are as old as humankind. A short history of networks in past human
societies, as compared to their role in contemporary society, is presented.
• Networks currently appear at every level (individual, organizational and societal). A multilevel theory
of the network society will explain why this happens and why these levels are more and more linked.
• How can the network society and the mass society be compared?
• According to network theory, networks operate according to particular scientific laws. Social science
is able to apply some of these laws in seven so-called ‘laws of the Web’. Formulating these ‘laws’ is
one of the most important objectives of this book – they will return in almost every chapter as expla-
nations for the things that are happening on the Internet.

What is a network society?

Definitions of the information society, network society and mass society

Several concepts are available to indicate the type of society that evolves under the influence of information
and communication technology. The most popular concept is the ‘information society’, which is used in this
book in combination with the concept ‘network society’ to typify contemporary developed and modern soci-
eties marked by a high level of information exchange and use of information and communication technologies
(ICTs). In the concept of an information society, the changing substance of activities and processes in these
societies is emphasized. In the concept of a network society, attention shifts to the changing organizational
forms and (infra)structures of these societies.

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I start with my own complete definitions of these types of society and continue with a number of qualifications
of these definitions and their relationships with other classifications, such as capitalist society and (post)mod-
ern society. My definition of the information society is set out in Box 2.1.

It is the intensity of information processing in all these spheres that allows us to describe it as a new type
of society. The common denominator of the changes produced by the increasing information intensity of all
activities is the semi-autonomous character of information processing. Most activities in contemporary society
are dedicated to means, in this case means of processing and producing information. These activities tend
to keep a distance from their ultimate aims and to gather their own momentum and reason to exist. Manuel
Castells (1996) even claims that information has become an independent source of productivity and power.

While the information society points to the content, the network society concept emphasizes the form and or-
ganization of modern society. An infrastructure of social and media networks takes care of this. The definition
is given in Box 2.2.

This book compares the network society with the so-called mass society preceding it. The definition of this
type of society is given in Box 2.3.

Box 2.1 Definition of the information society

A modern type of society in which the information intensity of all activities has become so high that this
creates:

• an organization of society based on science, rationality and reflexivity;

• an economy with all values and sectors, even the agrarian and industrial sectors, increasingly
characterized by information production; this production lends a meaning to data as basic re-
sources of the economy;

• a labour market with a majority of functions largely or completely based on tasks of information
processing requiring knowledge and higher education (hence the alternative term knowledge soci-
ety);

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• a culture dominated by media and information products with their signs, symbols and meanings.

Box 2.2 Definition of the network society

A modern type of society with an infrastructure of social and media networks that characterizes its
mode of organization at every level: individual, group/organizational and societal. Increasingly, these
networks link every unit or part of this society (individuals, groups and organizations). In western so-
cieties, the individual linked by networks is becoming the basic unit of the network society. In eastern
societies, this might still be the group (family, community, work team) linked by networks.

Box 2.3 Definition of the mass society

A modern type of society with an infrastructure of groups, organizations and communities (called
‘masses’), which shape its prime mode of organization at every level (individual, group/organizational
and societal). The basic units of this society are all kinds of relatively large collectivities (masses) or-
ganizing individuals.

Other classifications

Later in this chapter, in the section ‘From Mass Society to Network Society’, and in the remaining chapters
of this book, I will elaborate on the network and mass society concepts. Here I want to draw attention to a
number of qualifications of the information and network society concepts. With good reasons, both concepts
are contested. Webster (2001) concludes that all definitions of the information society refer to more quantity
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of information, information products, information occupations, communication means and so on, but are un-
able to identify the qualitatively new (system) character of this type of society. Manuel Castells (1996) also
rejects the concept of information society as all societies in the past have been based on information. Instead,
he proposes the concept of ‘informational society’: ‘a specific form of social organization in which information
generation, processing and transmission become the fundamental sources of productivity and power’ (1996:
21).

In the next section, we see that all human societies since the invention of speech have been partly organized
in networks. The idea of the network society as something particularly new has been called a fashionable
and shallow concept with no theoretical basis. The fact that I try to improve on this status does not deny that
currently this statement still applies.

These qualifications suggest that other classifications of contemporary society also remain valid. All of them
are abstractions. Concrete human societies are always combinations of these classifications. From an eco-
nomic point of view, almost every contemporary society is capitalist. One type is called market capitalism,
another one is state capitalism. In political terms, a society is more or less democratic. Government might be
called ‘statist’, as in the few remaining communist countries; a ‘developmental state’, such as in most East
Asian countries, or a state-capitalist society such as China and Vietnam; a welfare state, such as in most
European countries; and a (neo)liberal state serving a market economy, such as the United States. From a
social and cultural perspective, present-day societies may be called modern, post-modern and late-modern
(whichever term one prefers), or traditional. In ecological terms, all contemporary societies are unsustainable.

In this book, the general classifications of information and network society will be related to these other clas-
sifications. For example, in Chapter 4 we will see that a network economy changes capitalism, in Chapter 6
it will be argued that a network state and digital democracy are able to alter government, and in Chapters 7
and 8 that networks such as the Internet transform social living and culture in (post-)modern society. In some
parts of the book it will be questioned whether ICT favours or harms a sustainable society.

A final qualification to add is that the information and network society concepts indicate long-term evolutionary
processes of human society. They are not concrete societal forms with precise historical beginnings and ends.
To clarify this, one might say that the information society did not start in 1751 with the appearance of the first
part of the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert, and the network society did not appear with the instal-
lation of the first telegraph line by Samuel Morse in 1844. Both are much older (Gleick, 2011; McNeill and
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McNeill, 2003). In the 19th century, after the industrial revolution, modernizing western societies gradually be-
came information societies (Beniger, 1986).

In the 20th century, their social structure, modes of organization and communication infrastructure, together
typifying a mass society, progressively changed into a network society (Castells, 1996; Mulgan, 1991; van
Dijk, 1991, 1993). So, contemporary societies are in the process of becoming information and network so-
cieties. Developed, high-tech societies have gone further down this road than developing societies that pre-
dominantly still are in the stage of being mass societies. High-connected North-American, European and
East-Asian countries are already network societies. Developing countries are a mix of network and mass so-
cieties. Usually, the big cities with a direct connection to global markets and infrastructures largely are part of
a (global) network society, but their poor urban districts and rural villages still are part of mass society.

A Short History Of The Human Web

Five successive worldwide webs

The history of human networking is much older than the last two centuries. Social networks are as old as
humanity. Human individuals have always communicated more with some people than with others, since the
time they lived in small bands and tribes. The bands and tribes of ancient human history consisted of a few
dozen (bands) to hundreds (tribes) of people. This number was big enough for people to maintain very in-
tensive relations with some members (direct family and kin) and less intensive relations with other members
of the band or tribe. The obvious biological necessity was a scale of coupling and mating that prevented in-
breeding.

According to the historians J.R. and W. McNeill (2003), the human web dates back at least to the development
of human speech: ‘Our distant ancestors created social solidarity within small bands by talking together, and
exchanging information and goods. Furthermore, bands interacted and communicated with one another, if
only sporadically’ (2003: 4). Their ‘bird’s eye view of world history’ as a series of expanding and thickening
webs, published in their brilliant book The Human Web (2003), is this section’s guide.

The McNeills portray world history as a succession of five worldwide webs. The extension of these webs was
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driven not only by biological necessity, but also by the need and desire to make new discoveries and material
conquests to improve the conditions of life. In these webs, not only speech and information in general were
exchanged, but also goods, technologies, ideas, crops, weeds, animals and diseases.

In the first worldwide web, humankind spread around the world in hunting and gathering tribes. The exchange
of ideas and cultural expressions (song and dance), technologies (bows and arrows, the control of fire) and
genes (exogamous marriages between members of different bands and tribes) swept across Africa, Asia and
Europe, and into the Americas and Oceania. This first human web remained very loose until the invention of
agriculture about 12,000 years ago. Settling enabled humans to sustain more continuous interactions among
a larger number of people at a local level.

About 6000 years ago, the local webs of settlements grew into metropolitan or city webs. They served as
storehouses of information, goods and infections. In this way, the first civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt,
the Indus, the Yellow River (China), Mexico and the Andes were created. These civilizations first established
connections among thousands and then among millions of people. This was the first time in history that those
connected actually remained strangers for each other: ‘For the first time, key relationships and important
everyday transactions routinely transcended the primary communities within which human beings had previ-
ously lived’ (McNeill and McNeill, 2003: 41). These civilizations were connected by transport caravans of pack
animals and vehicles across land and by ships along sea coasts and rivers.

The third human web was the Old World Web that grew out of the contact between and partial fusion of
civilizations in Eurasia and North Africa around 2000 years ago. It caused the rise of large bureaucratic em-
pires in India, China, the Mediterranean (Greece and Rome), Mexico and the Andes. Transport and commu-
nication improved considerably with the invention and spread of hub and spoke wheels, better roads, ships
with greater capacity and alphabetic writing. The first 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.

From about 1450 onwards, oceanic navigation brought the Eurasian and American civilizations into contact
with each other to produce a truly worldwide cosmopolitan web. It was a violent clash of European civilizations
overruling the native American ones. The result was an exchange of everything these civilizations had to offer,
including lethal diseases. Between 1450 and 1800, more and more people moved to cities and became en-
rolled in larger and larger social networks. The result was that information circulated faster and more cheaply
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than ever before. However, the majority of people in 1800 still lived on the land as farmers: ‘they knew little
about the world beyond their own experience, because they could not read and they only occasionally met
strangers’ (McNeill and McNeill, 2003: 212).

The fifth type of human web changed this last point: the global web that covers the last 180 years. This period
is characterized by urbanization and population growth after the industrial revolution. The human web was
not so much widening anymore, but thickening. The volume and velocity of communication and transport in-
creased markedly with the arrival of steamships and trains and the telegraph in 1844. Afterwards, the number
and use of new means of transport and communication exploded with automobiles and aeroplanes, together
with telephones, radios, televisions and, finally, computers and their networks.

In this book, the first period of this era of the global web is characterized as the mass society marked by mass
communication networks. In the second period, the network society evolves. With the thickening of the global
human web, it has turned inwards into society. It is no longer only quantitatively extending across the globe
and becoming more voluminous, but it is also qualitatively changing the infrastructure and working of current
societies. This comes to rest upon social and media networks of all kinds and at all levels of society.

Conclusions from network history

Before I explain the role of networks and the characteristics of the network society in detail, I want to focus
on the four important conclusions the McNeills have drawn from the history of the human web (McNeill and
McNeill, 2003: 5–8). The first conclusion is that all webs have combined cooperation and competition. Com-
munication sustains cooperation among people. Within a cooperative framework, specialization and division
of labour are able to make a society richer and more powerful. They also make it more stratified and unequal.
This inequality within society, together with the inequalities between societies, has always produced competi-
tion. Rivals share information too. It urges them to respond, for instance by cooperation with others.

The second conclusion is that the general direction of history has been towards greater social cooperation –
both voluntary and compelled – driven by the realities of social competition. Groups and societies that coop-
erated most improved their competitive position and chances of survival. It gave them economic advantage
(by the specialization of labour and exchange), military advantage (quantity and quality of warriors and the
organization of armies) and epidemiological advantage (building immunity against diseases by close contact).

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A third deduction from history is that, over time, the scale of human webs has tended to grow. So too has their
influence on history. The current global web is truly worldwide. No human society truly exists in isolation any
more. The volume, velocity and importance of messages exchanged have become so large that their impact
on contemporary society is incomparable to the effect of communication systems in ancient societies. This
impact is a major reason for the emphasis of the network society concept in this book.

Finally, it has to be concluded that the power of human communication, in both its cooperative and competitive
forms, has also affected the earth to an ever larger degree. Increasingly, economic and population growth,
urbanization and technology have produced an ecological impact. ‘We would not be 6 billion strong without
the myriad of interconnections, the flows and exchanges of food, energy, technology, money that comprise
the modern worldwide web’ (McNeill and McNeill, 2003: 7).

Networks At All Levels

Networks of nature and society

What actually is a network? This question comes to mind after this broad description of networks in human
history. After all, the concept appears in both natural and social sciences. Unfortunately, the following defin-
ition and account has to be rather abstract, but a precise definition and elaboration of the network concept
here will enable better future understanding. A network can be defined as a collection of links between ele-
ments of a unit. The elements are called nodes. Units are often called systems. The smallest number of ele-
ments is three and the smallest number of links is two. A single link of two elements is called a relation(ship).
Networks are a mode of organization of complex systems in nature and society.

In simple systems of nature and society, a static and hierarchical organization characterizes the relation of
elements. For example, the relation between the elements or parts of atoms, molecules and chemical sub-
stances is fixed and has a particular order. Change means a transition to another (kind of) unit. When matter
gets more complicated, especially when it becomes life, the elements have to be organized in more compli-
cated ways. Life organizes these ways while it exchanges energy with the environment and adapts to this
environment for survival. Networks are relatively complicated ways of organizing matter and living systems.

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They produce order out of chaos, linking elements in a particular way. Chaotic situations always appear as
soon as the elements of matter and living systems become less fixed.

Emphasizing the organization and the relation of elements entails less attention to the elements and units
themselves. The characteristics of units and elements, among them human individuals, and the way they are
made up, are not the focus of attention. Instead, every network approach in the natural and social sciences
stresses the relations of elements. It is opposed to atomistic views of reality and methodological individualism
in research (measuring social reality by adding individual attributes).

So, networks occur both in complicated matter and in living systems at all levels (see Table 2.1). Buchanan
(2002) mentions a couple of examples of physical networks. The first one is an ecosystem of earth surfaces,
flora and fauna, and the second one a river network organizing its downward water flow in branches adapting
to the ground and all kinds of obstacles. Examples become more numerous in living systems. All organisms
with many cells organize these cells in networks. When they become larger, they create special (network)
systems such as a nervous system and a blood stream. As a matter of fact, cells themselves contain net-
works. The most important one is the DNA string of genes (molecules). Nowadays it is common scientific
understanding that the complexity of life is not determined by the number of genes but by their relationships.

The largest nervous system of organisms on earth is to be found in the human brain. An increasing number
of neurobiologists and psychologists agree that the human mind works with neuronal networks that are orga-
nized on a higher level using mental ‘maps’ in particular regions of the brain. The connection between these
maps (themselves being neuronal networks) also reveals a network form. Gerald Edelman, one of these neu-
robiologists, argues that even human consciousness emerges from such connections of mental maps (Edel-
man and Tononi, 2000).

Human beings have created social networks at least since the invention of speech, as was explained in the
previous section. In these networks, the elements are social agents (individuals, groups, organizations and
even societies at large) and the links are created by communicative (inter)actions. Below I argue that social
networks figure at all levels and subsystems of society. In the course of history, humans have also created a
number of technical networks. Examples are roads, canals, all kinds of distribution networks and the telecom-
munication and computer networks that are important subject matter in this book. When the latter networks
are filled with symbols and information to connect human senders and receivers, they become media net-
works.
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Table 2.1 Types of network

Physical networks Natural systems of higher complexity: ecosystems, river networks

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 in 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

This book is about the relationship between social, technical and media networks – together they shape the
infrastructure of the network society. Even organic and neuronal networks receive some attention, for instance
in Chapter 8, which discusses the psychology of digital media use. However, the primary focus of attention is
social networks supported by media networks.

Networks at all social levels

Social networks supported by media networks are available at all levels and subsystems of society. Four lev-
els can be distinguished. They are portrayed in Figure 2.1, which shows the first picture of the abstract con-
cept of the network society in this book:

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Figure 2.1 Four social units and levels linked by networks

The second level is that of group and organizational relations. Individuals create all kinds of groupings or
collective agencies, some of them temporary and loose (such as project teams and mailing lists) and others
permanent and fixed (institutions and corporations). All contemporary groupings are supported by telecom-
munications and computer networks. They tend to loose, fixed group and organizational structures because
they enable virtual organizing at every scale. Internally, many organizations have become network organi-
zations of largely independent teams and projects. Externally, they assemble to form network organizations
cooperating in the execution of a particular task. They may even become virtual organizations that are more
or less independent from spatial, temporal and physical conditions as these conditions are substituted by net-
works of information and communication technology.

The third level is that of societal relations. Individuals, groups and organizations shape a society that is built

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on, and linked by, social and media networks. This goes for all subsystems of society. One increasingly us-
es the phrase ‘network(ed) or platform economy’ (Parker et al., 2016). In politics, some people talk about
‘network government’. Internally, this government links the bodies and institutions of the central government
and the public administration at every level (see Figure 6.1 in Chapter 6). Externally, it maintains strong rela-
tionships with organizations of citizens and with semi-autonomous or privatized public institutions (Fountain,
2001; Goldsmith and Eggers, 2004; Osborne, 2010; Slaughter, 2017; van Dijk and Winters-van Beek, 2009).
In the cultural sphere, the Internet has created a vast hyperlink structure of sources and artefacts of human
activity often called digital culture (Miller, 2011) or cyberculture (Bell, 2001). Finally, the societal infrastruc-
ture of interpersonal and group relationships has been intensified by the ever-stronger links between social
networks and telecommunication networks using email, social network sites and messaging services (Byam,
2015; Christakis and Fowler, 2009; Katz and Rice, 2002; Rainie and Wellman, 2012).

The final level is the level of global relations in the world system of societies and international organizations
(Mueller, 2017; Slaughter, 2004, 2017). We have entered the era of the global web as it was explained in the
previous section. This is created by expanding international relations and a scale extension of organization.
Both are strongly supported by international broadcasting, telecommunications and computer networking. De-
spite this ubiquity of networks at all levels, my conclusion is not that networks are already the basic units of
contemporary society, as they are in the view of Manuel Castells (1996, 2000, 2001). Instead, these basic
units are held to be individuals, households, groups and organizations increasingly linked by social and media
networks. In modern western societies, the individual is becoming the most important basic unit of society.
In others, this frequently is the family, kinship group or local community. The combination of social and me-
dia networks produced by both organizational and technological innovation forms the all-embracing network
structure of modern societies. This combination justifies the use of the strong metaphor of networks shaping
the nervous system of advanced high-tech societies.

Causes Of The Rise Of Networks

Historical and social causes

What are the causes of the rise of networks in contemporary societies? It is relatively easy to describe a

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number of historical and social reasons. It is far more difficult to uncover the basic social infrastructures and
modes of organization of societies explaining the rise of network structures. Let us start with the historical and
social reasons. McNeill and McNeill (2003) would explain the current rise of information and communication
networks as the last stage of the evolution of the global web. This web is no longer primarily widening, but it is
thickening. Ever more persons, animals, plants, diseases, goods, services, pieces of information, messages,
new ideas and innovations are exchanged globally and at ever faster rates.

Social explanations will emphasize the social need and appropriateness of the creation and use of networks
at all levels. At the individual level, we are witnessing the rise of networking as a method of making contacts
and improving social relations. Below, the concept of network individualization is used to describe this phe-
nomenon. The use of networking is an evident social need in an individualizing society. Networks can be
seen as the social counterparts of individualization. At the level of organizations, corporations and institutions
are no longer working alone. They have become a part of a comprehensive division of labour. Increasingly,
this division of labour is organized in networks of cooperating organizations. Moreover, organizations have to
open themselves more and more to their environment in order to survive in competition (business) and so-
cietal demand (government and non-profit organizations). The traditional internal structures of organizations
are crumbling and external structures of communication are added to them. Acquiring new combinations of
internal and external communication, they are better equipped to adapt to a swiftly changing environment.

Networks also cause a comprehensive restructuring of society at large. They give society the shape of a giant
machine where all people and things are linked immediately. Today, society and individuals are connected
instantly. Networks also link the abstract processes of scale extension and scale reduction in modern soci-
ety. At the one side they support globalization and socialization, and at the other side localization and indi-
vidualization. All of these historical and social explanations are valid, but they fail to answer the question of
why networks are built to satisfy these social needs. What is the presumed superior organizational quality of
networks and networking? To answer these questions, we have to dig deeper and consult network theory, a
theory that has made considerable progress in the last 25 years. Unfortunately, this means that the exposition
has to become fairly abstract.

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Systems causes: Adaptation, evolution and managing complexity

Networks are structures and they organize systems. Network theory is usually some kind of structural theory
and systems theory. The most general one is systems theory. In terms of this theory, a network can be defined
as a relatively open system linking at least three relatively closed systems. The relatively closed system is the
unit. As we have seen, we need at least three of them to create a network. These units can be conceived as
relatively closed systems because they contain elements that primarily act among themselves to reproduce
the unit in a (pre)determined way. Such a unit can be a human individual. As soon as these closed units are
forced, for one reason or another, to interact with their environment and to link themselves to other units in a
network, they create an open system. Such a system can be a continually interacting social network. In every
open system, the complete determination of, for instance, a hierarchical organization is lost and replaced by
chance and random events. That allows change and new opportunities. This process of opening up closed
systems is the secret of networks or networking as an organization principle. Popular images are the trans-
formation of a vertical column to a horizontal chain or a tower to a square (Ferguson, 2017).

This propensity of change is explained differently by two versions of systems theory that have inspired net-
work theory. The first version has a biological inspiration and the second a physicist and mathematical inspira-
tion. According to the biological inspiration, systems are conceived as organisms that have to adapt to a phys-
ical environment to survive (see, among others, Maturana and Varela, 1980, 1984; Prigogine and Stengers,
1984). This is the propensity of change here. In this reading, networks can be seen as adaptive systems. Our
brain is a complex adaptive system and the same goes for our bodies. Increasingly, our organizations and
societies are also complex adaptive systems. All of them are relatively closed. However, they have to adapt
to an ever more complex environment. Here they get the assistance of networks as relatively open systems.
According to Axelrod and Cohen (1999), adaptation occurs in three successive processes, which they derive
from evolution (systems) theory: variation, interaction and selection. However, I think the right order in this
theory is interaction, variation, selection and retention, and I will treat them in this order.

First, there is interaction. Everybody knows that you have to interact when you want a date at a party or a job
at a conference. Networks support interactions within and between system units, either individuals or organi-
zations. Individuals might be engaged in literally ‘networking’. Inside organizations they help to break through
the divisions of departments to enable the communication of more members than before in shifting teams and
projects. This offers them opportunities for changing and (self-)steering the organization.

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Increasing or intensifying interaction leads to more variation. First, this means a variation of scope as the
reach of information retrieval and communication is enlarged by new network connections. Everyone engaged
in networking will recognize this idea: one has to break out of one’s own small circle of people to obtain ex-
periences and contacts outside, even when they are very superficial and many do not like to leave their own
familiar group. Granovetter (1973) called this idea the strength of weak ties. Accepting the value of weak ties,
one should not deny the importance of strong ties. Variation also reaches into depth. Our own familiar envi-
ronment offers opportunities of interaction and information by means of intensive ties and high-quality com-
munication. It is the combination of variation in scope and in depth that makes networks strong as relatively
open systems emerging from relatively closed systems, but always remaining linked to them. A person en-
gaged in networking is not a roaming nomad, but someone who keeps a home base.

The final process is selection. Here the goal of networking is reached: choosing the most successful action
and actor, such as finding a job and a date. This serves the adaptation and survival of the particular system
concerned: retention. For example, an unemployed individual gets a job, a company finds the best chain of
suppliers and customers, and a society adopts a particular policy, organization and provision to uphold itself
in the process of globalization.

The second version of systems theory reveals a mathematical and physicist inspiration. Here systems are
conceived as units, both in nature and in society, containing elements that can be connected in ordered (clus-
tered) and disordered (random) ways. Here the propensity to change is the tendency of nature to produce or-
der out of chaos. For ages now, networks have been studied as mathematical objects called graphs. Graphs
depict the potential links between a collection of elements in a particular unit. A social-scientific application
is the discovery by the psychologist Stanley Milgram (1967) that on average every inhabitant (element) of a
given unit, in this case the United States, is linked by six intermediary persons, in the so-called six degrees of
separation, to every other inhabitant. This peculiar fact can only be explained by the other fact that groups of
people are closely linked and organized in clusters such as families, school classes and sport teams. These
clusters are often linked by so-called weak ties, a phenomenon described by the sociologist Granovetter (see
above). In the tradition of Milgram and Granovetter, a number of mathematicians and physicists have made
their way to social science to produce important discoveries in network theory that will be represented in the
sections and chapters that follow (Barabási, 2002; Barabási and Albert, 1999; Buchanan, 2002; Easley and
Kleinberg, 2010; Watts, 2003; Watts and Strogatz, 1998).

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This version of network and systems theory tries to explain how randomly distributed elements of a unit or
system link to each other in clusters and these clusters in a single whole (a particular order) (see Figure 2.2
below). In this way, a complex system is created, in this case a complex society that is highly adaptable to
environmental change. The question remains of how order appears in a system without a pre-existing centre
but with a number of interacting equals. The answer is connectivity: at a critical point, a transition phase in the
system, ‘all parts of the system act as if they can communicate with each other, despite their interactions be-
ing purely local’ (Watts, 2003: 63). This critical point appears as a sufficient number of (random) long-distance
weak ties connects a large number of local individual units ordered in all kinds of clusters (groups, communi-
ties, organizations) (see Figure 2.2 again). In this way, a so-called small world is created within a large-scale
or global environment. These small worlds 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
picked at random. You will more easily become acquainted with a friend in your neighbourhood or a class-
mate than with a stranger. Figure 2.2 portrays a network connecting a number of small worlds (clusters with
strong ties) with long-distance (weak) ties:

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Figure 2.2 A network connecting small worlds (clusters of strong ties) with weak ties

Social and digital media in contemporary society increasingly create small worlds and clusters in such a way
that any pair of individuals or organizations can be connected via a short chain of intermediaries. This leads
to statements, almost platitudes in the meantime, that we live in a connected world and that society is ever
more connected. In short, that it is becoming a network society.

The Seven ‘Laws’ Of The Web

To understand what networks really are and how they ‘behave’, we have to realize that they have particular
structural properties. These can be summarized in a number of ‘laws’ of the Web (an expression first coined

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by Huberman, 2001). They are not some kind of natural laws. They are defining and enabling conditions that
exert pressure on human behaviour in networks, but that can also be changed, as usually happens to struc-
tures according to structuration theory. Understanding these ‘laws’ helps to explain things we can observe on
the Web and it assists in finding mechanisms to intervene in the network structures concerned. Seven laws
summarize a large part of the general theoretical argument in the following chapters of this book.

The first and most important law is the law of network articulation (Box 2.4). In the network society, relations
are getting more important in comparison to the units or nodes, such as the individuals they are linking. This
law inspires us to take a relational approach in social theory and not an individualistic one. Individual charac-
teristics are very important in social theory but cannot be understood without their contexts of social, econom-
ic and cultural relationships. Relations float to the surface in every subsystem of society. They are realized by
a combination of social and media networks. Their effect substantially changes the economy, politics, govern-
ment, culture and daily life.

Box 2.4 The law of network articulation

In the network society, the social relations are gaining influence as compared to the social units they
are linking.

In Chapter 5, we will describe how we increasingly select and compose our own social relationships as a mat-
ter of network individualization. In Chapter 4, we will see that a network economy is created. In Chapter 6, it
will be observed that institutional politics and public administrations transfer power to other units, directly get-
ting in touch with each other via networks: transnational corporations, international bodies, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), local corporations, individual citizens and their social and political organizations. In this
way, the national state may be bypassed as the traditional centre of politics. Reacting to this shift of power,
the state itself transforms into a ‘network state’ linking increasingly independent and privatized government
agencies. In Chapter 9, we will find out that our current law system based on the notion of independent actors,
acts and property items is undermined by networks. And, in Chapter 7, we will observe the rise of a digital
culture of hyper-linked creations that will completely transform our current culture of separate creations and
media practices.

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Box 2.5 The law of network externality

Networks have effects on things and people who are external to the network. The more people partic-
ipate in a network, the more others are likely to join. There is a pressure to connect.

The second law is the law of network externality (Box 2.5). Networks have effects, called ‘network effects’, on
the people and things around them. The more people participate in the network, the bigger the effects are.
As a network grows, it exerts pressure on people to join. This pressure is stepped up at two tipping points.
The first occurs when a critical mass of users is reached. When about 20–25 per cent of a population are
connected, it makes ever more sense for others to join. This happens most of all in communication networks
such as email and social networking sites (SNS). After some time, when about two-thirds of people are con-
nected, a second tipping point arrives. Saturation sets in and connection rates slow down. Yet from this point
onwards, people are more or less forced to participate or risk social exclusion. In developed countries, both
tipping points have already occurred for email and SNS. This second law also explains the extraordinarily fast
growth of the Web.

Networks also exert influence on things – not only on computers, telephones and TV-sets, but on all kinds of
objects, such as machines of industrial work and the devices of the Internet of Things. There is a pressure to
connect all of them to speed up and control production and distribution processes. As networks are systems,
their connections have to follow common standards. A network with standards that are accepted by many
people has power (Grewal, 2008). This is the power to decide who is able to connect to the network and use
it for communication with others. Broadly, people prefer a general standard because in that case they can
reach many others in the same system. In this way, critical mass can be reached. This is one of the reasons
for the steady popularity of Microsoft’s operating systems and other software. Next to Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS and Linux, browsers such
as Internet Explorer, Mozzilla Firefox and Google Chrome, mark-up languages such as HTML, mobile phones
with Android (Google) or OS (Apple), and search engines such as Google Search and Bing or the Chinese
Baidu and WeChat, are important software standards.

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Box 2.6 The law of network extension and organization

When networks such as the Web grow, they tend to become too big and have to be organized. The
main solutions are to offer more intermediaries and to programme network architectures in seven lay-
ers, which are filled with digital code and driven by data.

The third law of the Web reveals the internal dimension of network growth. The law of network extension
holds that networks quickly become too big to directly link every unit or node to every other (Box 2.6). When
this happens, they form internal structures of clusters of units that can reach each other more easily (see
Figure 2.2 for an image). They also create bridges between clusters and central meeting places: these are
intermediaries. While in the early days of the Internet many people thought that intermediaries were no longer
required, as people would serve themselves and link to each other, the contemporary Internet is dominated
by all kinds of intermediaries, from search engines, portals, price comparison sites and marketplaces (such
as eBay) to SNS and dating services.

While intermediaries solve the problem of network breadth, seven network layers deal with the depth of orga-
nizing large networks. On every layer are all kinds of programs filled with digital code and data. Digital code
and data are the substance of network operations organized in layers. The network layers are discussed in
the following chapter, and the programs, for instance those managed by artificial intelligence and Big Data,
are also discussed in the following chapters. Using these programs and data, the information society is merg-
ing with the network society.

Box 2.7 The law of small worlds

In large-scale networks, most units are not neighbours, but still can reach almost every other unit in a
few steps (on average six to three degrees of separation), creating a small world. Explanation: units

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are grouped in clusters with strong ties; they reach people in other clusters by long-distance and often
weak ties. Taking these steps, the influence of people by contagion reaches three degrees.

In large-scale networks such as the Web, units can reach almost every other connected unit in a few steps,
in this way creating a small world (Box 2.7). This has been demonstrated by, among others, Stanley Milgram
(1967), with his famous observation of the six degrees of separation. This means that, on average, every
world inhabitant is connected to every other in only six steps when all available social networks of these inhab-
itants are used. The secret that explains this phenomenon is that actors are grouped in clusters with strong
ties, and that they reach people far away in another cluster by long-distance ties, often weak ties (see Figure
2.2). Examples of clusters with strong ties are extended families, neighbourhoods, groups of colleagues and
school classes.

When not only social networks are used, but also media networks, the number of six steps could be reduced
to five, four or even three, as has been demonstrated in research using email, web-page links, Facebook and
Twitter messages for a test (Albert et al., 1999; Cheng, 2010; Watts, 2003).

An important question is how far actions and communication carry on this average of six degrees of sep-
aration. According to Christakis and Fowler (2009), the answer is three. According to the three degrees of
influence rule, they show that the phenomenon of contagion on average reaches three steps further than the
source and then gradually dissipates. Think about friends of friends. This goes for attitudes, feelings and be-
haviour and for a very broad range of phenomena, such as political views, obesity, emotions or non-verbal
behaviour – laughing, coughing and dancing are contagious – and even happiness.

The law of small worlds explains why our world is ever more connected and interactive using the Web and
other communication networks.

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Box 2.8 The law of the limits to attention

As everybody in a network is able, in principle, to connect and communicate with everyone else in the
network, there is a limit to attention 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.

Many people think that everything is available on the Internet as the number of senders and receivers is end-
less. They suppose that there is an audience for every new voice. However, this is a basic mistake. People
forget that sending may be boundless, but attention is limited (Box 2.8). It is easy to speak on the Internet,
but difficult to be heard (Hindman, 2008). Let us suppose that every new Internet user has the same period
of time to read and to write online. In that case, the new Internet user would on average find an audience of
only one! Fortunately, most Internet users take more time to read, listen and view than to write and produce.
Moreover, it takes more time to produce than to consume messages on the Internet. So, fortunately, the au-
dience for a new voice is larger than one. However, it is still limited. The more people generate content on
the Internet, the smaller their audiences become. Most weblogs are read by very few people; the majority of
Twitter messages are never read; and most personal web-pages have a very small audience.

The limitation of Web audiences is strongly reinforced by ‘Googlearchy’, the rule of the most heavily linked
(Hindman, 2008). Google and other search engines rank the most popular websites at the top of their results
page. In this way, they become even more popular (this is an instance of the power law discussed below).
Because of the law of network extension, we simply have to use search engines and other intermediaries.

So, in theory, the Web may offer equal chances to numerous senders, but in practice audiences are unequally
divided. Hindman (2008, 2018) has even shown that media concentration on the Internet is bigger than in the
traditional mass media (see Chapters 4 and 7). The largest part of the Internet audience goes to a few big
players, such as Google, MSN, Apple and Facebook. At the other end of the scale, another large part goes
to the numerous senders with very small audiences. This is the so-called ‘long tail’ (Anderson, 2006). But the
middle is missing: surprisingly few middle-sized media in terms of audience can be observed on the Internet

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(Hindman, 2008: 82–102).

Box 2.9 The power law in networks

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
and contagion.

This distribution of a small number of units or nodes with many links, a large number of units or nodes with
a few links and the missing middle is explained by the so-called power law (Box 2.9). This is a statistical
regularity for large-scale, so-called scale-free networks. Scale-free means that there is no assumption on the
number of nodes and links in the network. Nor is it assumed that every node is linked to every other or that
the distribution is normal. The Internet, for example, does not have a fixed number of nodes; every user is
not linked to everybody else and the distribution is not normal (this would mean a fat middle: a bell curve).
Instead, there is a power law distribution. This is marked by many nodes with a few links and a few nodes
with a very large number of links: ‘They have the power.’ In more common-sense language, it is called ‘the
rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer effect’ on the Internet. Yes, the poor are also getting
poorer, mostly not in absolute but in relative measures. The law of the limits to attention is responsible. Those
with few links have increasing problems finding an audience.

There are three mechanisms explaining the appearance of this regularity. First, there should be a large and
growing number of units and links that forces people to choose according to the law of network extension.
Second, the new units decide to choose links to other units in the network following preferential attachment.
In social networks this means that people tend to flock round the ‘most popular guy’. In media networks such
as the Web, the most conspicuous example is that search engine users tend to go to the first hits on the list. In
this way, the most popular links become even more popular. This also goes for Facebook and Twitter. Those
who already have most friends and followers regularly assemble most new connections. The third mechanism
is contagion. Observing and simulating the behaviour of others stimulates people to follow each other and

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flock to the most popular.

The power law helps to explain inequality in networks. In this book, it will be shown that networks tend to
increase inequality, despite the fact that they are also able to spread knowledge, information, contacts and
other valuable things.

Box 2.10 The law of trend amplification

Networks are relational structures that tend to amplify existing social and structural trends. When tech-
nologies such as ICT networks and computers are used, they serve as reinforcing tools.

The last ‘law’ of the Web returns in every chapter of this book. It is the main contribution of this book to the
known laws of the Web in network theory. A basic statement of this book is that networks such as the Internet
tend to reinforce existing structures of society instead of overthrowing them. The effects of the Internet and
other digital media on society are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The technology of networks might be
revolutionary, but its social effects on society are not. A very popular view is that things have never changed
so fast and as deeply as they have in contemporary society, by the current communications revolution among
others. However, already at the start of the following chapter, we will see that changes in the former commu-
nications revolution of modern history, about a century ago, were perhaps even more pervasive for society
and everyday life in those days than they are today. Remember that a communications revolution is not equal
to a societal revolution! This also goes for the network society that gradually evolved from the mass society
and did not, for example, put an end to capitalism.

In this book, many examples will be given to show that digital media reinforce existing social trends – they
are trend amplifiers (Box 2.10). The background reason is that networks are relational structures that em-
phasize and reinforce existing relations between people embedded in social structures. The relation between
units is reinforced in particular when people use digital media as tools. For example, social inequality in most
developed and developing societies was already increasing when digital inequality arrived (see Chapter 5).

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It happens to be that the higher educated, who usually have the best digital access and skills, increase their
advantage over the lower educated with less.

From Mass Society To Network Society

A systematic comparison

Finally, we are ready to understand the main characteristics of the network society as compared to that of the
mass society. This comparison is made in Table 2.2. It will serve as a summary of the argument in this section
and an introduction to the following chapters where the network society is described in detail.

The mass society was defined earlier in this chapter as a social formation with an infrastructure of groups,
organizations and communities (‘masses’) that shapes its prime mode of organization at all levels. The main
components of this formation are all kinds of relatively large collectivities. Historically, the mass society char-
acterizes the first phase of the era of the global web, as it is called by McNeill and McNeill (2003). This society
evolved during the industrial revolution when large concentrations of people came together in industrial towns
and trading centres. Typical of these concentrations was that the traditional communities already existing in
neighbourhoods and villages were largely maintained when they were combined on a larger scale in cities
and nations.

The basic components of mass society are large households and extended families in the rather tight com-
munities of a village or a city neighbourhood. In large companies, other mass associations appear, such as
closely cooperating shifts and departments. The basic components or units of the mass society are homoge-
neous. This does not mean that internal conflict or opposition is absent, but that all units concerned largely
reveal the same characteristics and social structures. For example, the large households consist of standard
nuclear families with a mother, father and many children. Local communities also are relatively homogeneous
or unitary and they are marked by physical proximity.

The mass society is marked by scale extension. Corporations, governments and other organizations grow
larger and larger and they become bureaucracies. They spread across nations and the world at large to create
a global web of 19th-century empires and multinationals. However, the scope of the mass society remains
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local: the organization of its basic components is tied to particular places and communication is still over-
whelmingly local. The mass society is an assembly and connection of relatively homogeneous separate local
places. These basic components or units of the mass society are marked by the physical co-presence of their
members. This means high connectivity inside and relatively low connectivity outside. The mass society is
very much clustered with strong ties of high density (in local communities and extended family structures) and
it contains relatively few weak ties connecting these clusters at long distances in diffuse network structures.

The internal relations in the units of the mass society are centralized. Bureaucratic and vertically integrated
modes of organization prevail. There are relatively few very influential centres: the national, regional and local
state, the army, a number of large corporations, churches or other cultural institutions and a limited number
of mass media. The complement of centralization is that the inclusiveness of relations is high as well. The
number of connected members is high and few of them are isolated or excluded. The mass society is marked
more by solidarity than the network society.

Table 2.2 A typology of the mass society and the network society

Characteristics Mass Society Network Society

Main components Collectivities (groups, organizations, communities) Individuals (linked by networks)

Nature of components Homogeneous Heterogeneous

Scale Extended Extended and reduced

Scope Local ‘Glocal’ (global and local)

Connectivity and connectedness High within components High between components

Density High Lower

Centralization High (few centres) Lower (polycentric)

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Inclusiveness High Lower

Type of community Physical and unitary Virtual and diverse

Type of organization Bureaucracy Infocracy

Vertically integrated Horizontally differentiated

Type of household Large with extended family Small with diversity of family relations

Main type of communication Face to face Increasingly mediated

Kind of media Broadcast mass media Narrowcast interactive media

Number of media Low High

In the mass society, every unit (community, household) has access to only one or perhaps a few of each type
of mass media, such as one local newspaper, followed by one national newspaper and one or a few radio
and television channels. So, the number of media is relatively low as compared to the current standards in
network societies. Essentially, they are all broadcast media. However, generally speaking, face-to-face com-
munication is much more important than mediated communication in the mass society.

In Figure 2.3 an attempt is made to depict the social and communicative structure of the mass society:

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Figure 2.3 The structure of the mass society

In the course of the 20th century, the structures of the mass society were gradually replaced by the structures
of the network society. This happened first in developed or modern societies. The reasons for this replace-
ment will be discussed in the following chapters, as they derive from problems of organization and communi-
cation in the economic, political and cultural systems and the general social infrastructure of these societies.
The characteristics of the network society are described below in order to compare them with the mass soci-
ety.

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Characteristics of the network society

As has been argued above, in the contemporary process of individualization, the basic unit of the network so-
ciety has become the individual who is linked by networks. Traditional local collectives, such as communities,
extended families and large bureaucracies, are fragmenting. This is caused by simultaneous scale extension
(nationalization and internationalization) and scale reduction (smaller living and working environments). Other
kinds of communities arise, consisting of people who, on the one hand, continue to live and work in their own
families, neighbourhoods and organizations, but on the other hand, frequently move around in large-scale
social networks that are much more diffuse than the traditional ones. Daily living and working environments
are getting smaller and more heterogeneous, while the range of the division of labour, interpersonal commu-
nications and mass media extends. So, the scale of the network society is both extended and reduced as
compared to the mass society. The scope of the network society is also both global and local, sometimes
indicated as ‘glocal’. The organization of its components (individuals, groups, organizations) is no longer tied
to particular times and places. Aided by information and communication technology, these coordinates of ex-
istence can be transcended to create virtual times and places and to simultaneously act, perceive and think
in global and local terms.

The social units of the network society are fragmented and dispersed. This means that the density of contacts
and ties within these units is relatively low as compared to traditional families, neighbourhoods, communities
and organizations in the mass society. Instead, the elements of these units, the individuals, select their own
contacts and ties beyond these units. Using all kinds of telecommunication, they develop an extremely high
level of connectivity between themselves as individuals and accordingly between the units of the network so-
ciety of which they are a part.

Networks are relatively flat and horizontal, so-called heterarchical social structures. However, this does not
mean that they do not have centres. Think about the spider in the web. Networks usually do not have a single
centre – they are polycentric, as some nodes are (much) more important than others. For this reason, the
network society is less centralized in the sense of having single centres in the economy, politics, government,
culture and community life. They are replaced by a multitude of centres cooperating and competing with each
other.

The network society is less inclusive than the mass society. You may be a member of some part of the mass

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society by birth or ascription. In the individualized network society, you have to fight for a particular place. You
have to show your value for every network, otherwise you will be isolated within it, or even excluded from it.
In the network society, you have to stand firm as an individual. You are not that easily taken along in solidarity
by proximate people.

In the network society, face-to-face communication remains the most important kind of communication in
many ways. However, gradually it is also partly replaced and supplemented by mediated communication. A
multitude of interpersonal and mass communication media are used for this purpose. Broadcast mass media
reaching everyone are accompanied by, and partly replaced by, narrowcast interactive media reaching select-
ed audiences. They lead to all kinds of new communication forms and groupings between interpersonal and
mass communications, such as chat and instant messaging groups, online teams at work and online commu-
nities of interest. Online communities add to the thinned-out physical communities of the network society with
their small and diversely composed households. Figure 2.4 represents the complicated social and commu-
nicative structure of the network society:

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Figure 2.4 The structure of the network society

The advent of another structure of a society implies that the relations between its parts are changing. In the
network society, both abstract relations and concrete ties between individuals, groups and organizations are
transformed. Often these changes run against popular views about social and media networks. For instance,
one popular view is that networks are not a hierarchic but a ‘flat’ mode of organization. Most often, horizontal
and flexible networks are opposed to vertical and ponderous columns of organizations. Some people even
suggest that networks are democratic by nature. Or they suppose that they are more transparent than the
institutions they partly replace. Another popular view is that networks are open and accessible to all, contrary
to fixed and closed organizations with their memberships. A less positive popular connotation is that networks

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are breaking the social cohesion of modern societies. They cut right through existing institutions and every-
one appears to communicate alongside each other in their own subcultural network. A final popular view is
that computer networks are no longer tied to place, time and physical conditions and that they are offering us
more freedom in this way. In this book, it is argued that all these popular views are one-sided, to say the least.
Networks are not necessarily more ‘flat’, democratic, open, free, accessible, physically unconditional or less
socially coherent than other modes of organization and communication.

Conclusions

• The network society should be defined as a modern type of society with an infrastructure of social
and media networks that characterizes its mode of organization at every level: individual, group/
organizational and societal. This can be compared to an information society that is marked by a
particular substance: a high information intensity of all activities in society. It can also be contrasted
with the mass society: a previous type of modern society with an infrastructure of groups, organi-
zations and communities (called ‘masses’).

• Social networks are as old as human kind. First trade networks were added, and subsequently
transportation and production networks. In the course of the 20th century, information and com-
munication networks became so important that it has now become possible to speak of a network
society.

• Currently, networks serve at every level of society and they connect these levels. The Internet, for
example, simultaneously serves individuals, organizations, communities and societies. We have
never had such a medium in history before.

• The growing importance of networks can be explained by historical and social causes and by sys-
tems causes. Historically, it can be shown that individuals, organizations and societies needed
them to realize their social, cultural and economic objectives. Systems theory adds deeper causes
defining networks as relatively open systems linking closed systems of individuals and organiza-
tions. In the biological inspiration of evolution theory, networks are seen as structures that help
social units to better adapt to their environment. In a mathematical and physicist inspiration, net-

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works are a way to create order out of chaos. They consist of long-distance links connecting a
large number of local individual units ordered in all kinds of clusters (groups, communities, organi-
zations). In this way, a ‘small world’ is created with a decreasing number of degrees of separation
and a growing number of degrees of influence via higher connectivity.

• Following these deeper causes, network theory has formulated seven ‘laws’ of the Web. These
laws are no natural necessities as they are continually changed by human beings. Nevertheless,
they exert pressures that are able to explain many trends of the network society in the following
chapters.

• With the distinctions and theories formulated in the first part of this chapter, a systematic and rec-
ognizable comparison can be made between the network and mass society.

• nervous system
• network society
• information society
• mass society
• classification

https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529739114

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