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Political Action in the Network Society Notes

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Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG)

Political Action in the Network Society LJX030B05 Academic year Table of contents Lecture 1: The Network Society: How do digital media connect to politics in the age of the Network Society? Lecture 2: Echo chambers, filter bubbles and political polarization Lecture 3: Cyber politics Le...

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international relations
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political action in the network society
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Political Action in the Network Society

LJX030B05
Academic year 2020-2021

Table of contents

Lecture 1: The Network Society: How do digital media connect to politics in the
age of the Network Society? ................................................................................. 2
Lecture 2: Echo chambers, filter bubbles and political polarization .................... 4
Lecture 3: Cyber politics ....................................................................................... 7
Lecture 4: Digitization, networks and their impact on journalism ..................... 11
Lecture 5: Social movements and networked action........................................... 15
Lecture 6: Information disorder in the network society ...................................... 18

1

,Lecture 1: The Network Society: How do digital media
connect to politics in the age of the Network Society?
The main focus of social network studies is on the relations among individuals, organizations.
Social networks have been with us for a long time, since the Roman Empire, to Dutch
Colonial Empire, to European train system. Networks shape and define communication
among cities and among people. Networks are a set of points connected to each other, it can
be for example stock exchange markets or political elites or any entity, any individuals. There
are three main characteristics of networks. Firstly, it is its binary logic, meaning that you are
either in the network or outside of the network, there is no in between. Secondly, the
structures of network are decentralized, which is the key characteristic. Thirdly, there is a
utilization of the individuals, organizations, states, meaning that people are in contact with
you because you are useful to them. Bitcoin is a good example for network. Bitcoin is
established on decentralized block chains, making it very attractive for actors to engage in its
workings. In the developed countries technological, explosion of social networks and mobile
revolution have all created the space for the Social Network Revolution, that was created by
cultural social movements that changed how we think about society (this emerged in 1960s
with the United Nations and Western Europe).

There are 9 causes for this revolution, separated into three main groups: the increasement of
widespread connectivity, weaker group boundaries, and increased personal autonomy. Result
is networked individualism.

Nodes: users
Ties: who mentions who
Tie strength: number of mentions
Centrality measures: the number of times a node is between the shortest path to other nodes.
This tells us who is the authority node in the network
Brokerage: it depends also what is the position of nodes in network. For example, if someone
in the network is central to its existence and also for the flow of the information. If he
disappears then there would be no network that gives the “broker” a lot of power in the
network. “Brokerage position” They connect people from one side to the other.

In this Social Networks we are moving from groups to networks. This can be difficult for us
as humans as we have grown up in an environment where groups are easier to understand.
However, humans are nowadays positioned in the center of networks and these networks
make who we are as a person. There are not anymore, those shortcuts of how we think about
ourselves as well as other people and inclusion and exclusion as it was present within groups.
Additionally, as there is a visibly growing absence of groups the prominence and power
associated with certain groups is also diminishing. In networks these hierarchies are not as
steep if not nonexistent. These changes have been provided by the evolution of
communicational technology, mobile revolution, social network revolution, and internet
revolution. Although these networks are very different from groups, they still generate
sources of connectivity, social capital, information and so on – this has not been lost from
groups.

2

, There are two type of ties in networks, bonding and bridging ties. Strong ties (bonding ties),
for example, family or friends are those that are in the inner circle of our networks and the
weaker ties (bridging ties), for example, colleagues from our past job, are on the outside of
this circle. However, these bridging ties provide us with a new perspectives and new
information more than those that are in our inner circle, which can be very relevant to us. For
example, an old colleague can tell us about new job opening in his firm. However, the strong
ties provide us humans with efficiency and social support, which can be for example
emotional support and physical support. Both of these ties bonding and bridging ties need to
be taken into account when looking and analyzing networks of individuals.

The core of social network and how it has been turned toward a network operation system,
which is built on mutual trust between individuals in the network. Trust is the rule of social
network, without it it is impossible to establish any kind of relation.

Furthermore, in today´s age the mass self-communication over the Internet has created a
space for social interactions and production of new networks, which allow connection of
global audience. As these networks are usually free to be downloaded this only increases the
spread of such networks. Messages of autonomous origin and wide range of diversity are
distributed without any limitations in the mass self-communication networks, which has not
been possible to achieve with mass media who used to be the gate keepers of information.

In such an environment, social movements or rebellious individuals have the space to spread
their message and to grow their following due to this autonomy. They have not been created
with the technology, rather they use this technology to their advantage. Many studies have
also shown that Internet is increasing the civic engagement of a population, where individuals
have more power to influence political or economic power. However, it is important to stay
critical of this and to think how much an individual is actually able to change course of action.

Additionally, big corporations are also able to facilitate their interests in these networks, for
example fast foods paying for their advertisement to be shared on social platforms such as
YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. It is an interesting to see that these big corporations do not
desire to create these networks themselves but rather buy them after their creation.

Slowly but surely, this is also resulting in a connection of mass media outlets and self-
communicating networks into one. This is for example observable when CNN takes Twitter
posts of Mr. Trump and uses in their news coverage. Therefore, traditional media outlets are
not anymore, the gatekeepers of the news and scandals happening throughout the world.
Additionally, not only mass media had to adjust to this new space of communication but also
political realm. In a past, all three groups of people (politicians, journalists, citizens) have
been separated and did not interact with each other that much. However, today this
environment is becoming highly networked, meaning that politicians can now contact directly
citizens and also citizens can contact politicians. Nowadays, politicians are strongly
dependent on these new forms of communications, where they connect with their followers on
much more personal levels. Citizens are now becoming journalists, meaning that boundaries
of groups are being erased. For example, Donald Trump or Joe Biden using Twitter nowadays

3

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