The Network Society (Key Concepts)

by Darin Barney
Polity Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 2004
198 pp. Trade $24.95
ISBN: 0-7456-2669-6.

Reviewed by John Knight
User-Lab
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

John.knight@uce.ac.uk

This is a flawless book. It shows what a changing world we live in, is academically sound, and is also a good read. It is aimed at students although its potential audience is much wider than that. It is a perfect combination of comprehensive research and critical thinking and forms part of 14 'key concepts' published by Polity. The writing and editing are good although some sections may be hard going for students.

The book starts by asking the question, "What is a network?." The answer is that networks comprise "nodes, ties and flows" (p. 26), and the author brings together a number of political strands including globalisation, post-Fordism, the information society, post-industrialism ,and post-modernism. The network society is, however, more than the sum of past political trends. Drawing on the work of Manuel Castells's, The Rise of The Network Society, Barney points to the unique qualities of the time (pp. 25-34):

"In Castells's formulation, "the network society . . . is made up of networks of production, power and experience,which construct a culture of virtuality in the global flows that transcend time and space" (Castells 1998: 370)."

Castells looms heavily in the book, and his assertion that society (and commerce) is increasingly "informational" and "globalised" (p. 28) outlines the unique character of the network society. This means that power and conflict emanate from access to the network (p. 30) and creates a tension between "placelessness" (p. 31) and people's need for "rootedness". Lastly, human activity is expanded across borders and time zones in the network society.

The first section looks at network technology. Here Barney departs from Castells and critiques instrumentalist, substantivist, and social constructivist theories of technology and offers a "composite view" (p. 42). This approach sees technology as neither entirely deterministic nor neutral but instead mutable in the hands of human agency.

Barney considers the essence of network technology. Starting from characteristics of the technology, he notes its artificial nature and embedding of "instrumental rationality" within seemingly neutral tools. He also notes the positive aspects of networks in facilitating two-way communication, localisation, and "the reconstitution of local identity, interests and power" (p. 47).

Network technology is also contextualised with issues in design, situation and use. In terms of design, the author surveys Langdon Winner (p. 49) and Lawrence Lessig (p. 51) to show how design fixes value and affordances for its users. As open systems, however, networks provide an arena for contesting these values and opportunities, pointing to the positive and negative qualities of the time.

The character of network technology is then described in terms "time-space compression" (p. 61) and "deterritorialisation" (p. 62). In effect, this means increasingly scattered and interlinked' methods of communication, production, and consumption across time and the globe. He notes that "[n]ever has there been a mass communication system that seems so little contained or constrained by territorial expanse" (p. 62). Finally, decentralisation and control and interactivity and customisation are considered as unique features of the technology.

The interpretative focus of the chapter is perhaps the book's only weakness. By giving more weight to the influence of digital networks on consumption, Barney could have brought the issue much more alive. For example, in the rise of Amazon, ebay, text messaging, and cheap air travel, the matrix of human and technological networks is tangibly present. However, given the breadth of the subject, the author comprehensively covers the key issues, allowing the reader to see the bigger picture.

The next section concerns the network economy. This takes in everything from enterprise, work, and the changing nature of property. The history begins with the formulation of an information economy in the 1960s and the liberalization of the telecommunications sector in the UK and US. Whether or not these factors have created a new economy is perhaps less important than global and national initiatives and forces towards a "knowledge economy"; naturally predicated by network infrastructure.

The last two chapters concern politics and identity. Both are influenced by a collapse of legitimacy of the old, increasing fragmentation, and new networks. The penultimate chapter starts by showing how communication technologies such as print can be enablers. This is brought into the context of the network society, the rise of globalisation, and the changing role of enterprise and the state. The "state's apparent crisis of sovereignty" (p. 114) is, the author argues, a result of deterritorialization, although he surveys alternative interpretations of the geo-political map. Again, the author provides a balanced overview of the components of the subject.

The network society is both spur and brake on political involvement, and the author is ambivalent whether the changes it brings about are good or bad. He notes the rise of new (transnational) opposition movements at the same time as the ascendancy of the old (national) media. These developments are contained within a "new politics" that is highly networked and symbolic. The author argues that "[t]he new politics is thus a politics over information management and control in the "space" constructed by prevailing media of communication, as a necessary precondition of access to more material forms of power" (p. 122).

The author suggests that identity is an increasingly important question in the face of the delegitimising of organisations. The chapter begins with a quote from Castells:

"In a world of global flows of wealth, power and images, the search for identity, collective or individual, ascribed or constructed, becomes the fundamental source of social meaning…Identity is becoming the main, and sometimes the only source of meaning in a historical period characterized by widespread destructuring of organisations . . . "(Castells 1996:3)' (p. 145).

The author uses Castells's three categories of identity consisting of legitimising identities, resistance identities, and project identities. The latter refers to the increasingly flexible forms that identity takes in the epoch. Drawing on the work of Sherry Turkle, the mutability of identity is discussed, and the chapter concludes by looking at community. Avoiding Castells's positive reading of the situation, the author is more concerned about whether the network society is real or a useful focus for understanding.

Darin Barney has written a great book that covers all of the issues provoked by the network society. Despite being aimed at students, its constituency is much wider and as its author suggests its focus is at minimum a useful (p. 181) tool for understanding contemporary events.