Networking the Web

The Information Society, 2002

2013

Networks play a central role in the biology of organisms and their physiological functioning, social organizations and relationships, domestic and international political processes, business, finance, development of new ideas and discoveries in science and technology. The World Academy’s project on ‘The Science of Networks’ focuses on the various dimensions of networks and the principles governing their operation. This is the first in a series of articles applying concepts of Network Science to explore un­tapped potentials for accelerating the development of global society. Society is a highly complex, interconnected, living network of relationships. The entire process of social development and civilization from early times can best be understood as the progressive growth of the number, type and complexity of interactions and relationships between people, places, activities, and ideas. Moore’s law for the micro-processor is a subset and technological expression of a principle that has been operative in society since before the invention of agriculture. Networks govern the operation of society at multiple levels and scales in Space and Time. They determine the movement and exchange of material things, interactions between individuals and groups, interrelationships between activities, systematic linkages between organizations, collection and dissemination of information, accumulation and organization of knowledge, and exchange and development of ideas. The exponential growth in the power and productivity of modern society is an expression of the laws of network science. This article examines the development of the physical dimension of social networks the begins with the linking together of small isolated communities into clusters and their organization around larger urban commercial and political centers. It explores the role of language as a networking tool, the transformative power of roads and railroads, the rise of cities as multi-functional centers, and the role of printing, media and the Internet as catalysts for human interaction and social development. The concept of integration, which is so critical to the power of networks, is also the key to unlimited expansion of social productivity and human welfare.

tripleC-Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, 2010

We propose to build up a philosophy of the Internet instead of building up its scientific theory. Our philosophy of the Internet includes several components of the philosophy of technology, information, communication, culture and organization because we use four different coexisting contexts for the better understanding of the nature of the Internet: the technological, the communication, the cultural and the organism ones. This philosophy of the Internet shows that the Internet is the sphere of a new mode of human existence, basically independent from, but built on and coexisting with the former (natural and societal) spheres of existence, and created by the late-modern humans. , human existence man aims: to build up a specific community. Every element of the human communities and the community itself are created by communication. Communication via Internet is a technology of building up virtual, open, extended communities. A deeper understanding of the communication via Internet is based on a communication situation analysis, including considerations on the active role of the media, the specificity of computers as communication machine, and the possibility of the highest level of individual control of the situation. From communication point of view the Internet is an intentionally created and maintained network of artificial, extended, virtual communities which are based on networked communication machines and individual human control over the communication situations.

2008

This paper discusses current web developments, such as Web 2.0 and Social Software, as dynamic techno-social systems. Underlying our concept is the idea that the World Wide Web is an evolving techno-social system that transforms from a web, which was predominantly triggering cognition (“read-only”) towards a web of human communication (“read/write”) and co-operation. Based on this understanding of knowledge, we outline three evolutionary stages of web development and hence define Web 1.0 as a tool for cognition, Web 2.0 as a medium for human communication, and Web 3.0 as networked digital technologies that support human co-operation. The latter is yet not fully in existence, but it shines forth in online co-operation systems.

New Media & Society, 2004

From couch potatoes to cybernauts? The expanding notion of the audience on TV channels' websites 155

Future Internet, 2010

Currently, there is much talk of Web 2.0 and Social Software. A common understanding of these notions is not yet in existence. The question of what makes Social Software social has thus far also remained unacknowledged. In this paper we provide a theoretical understanding of these notions by outlining a model of the Web as a technosocial system that enhances human cognition towards communication and co-operation. According to this understanding, we identify three qualities of the Web, namely Web 1.0 as a Web of cognition, Web 2.0 as a Web of human communication, and Web 3.0 as a Web of co-operation. We use the terms Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 not in a technical sense, but for describing and characterizing the social dynamics and information processes that are part of the Internet. ] have argued already in 2007 that a sociology of and in Web 2.0 is needed. So far there is no theoretical clarification of these notions available. Most definitions of these terms are marketing based or rather unreflected. The paper at hand seeks to establish a sociology of Web 2.0 and Social Software by clarifying their theoretical foundations from a sociological view. One of the authors has recently argued that what is primarily needed is not a phenomenology or empirical social research of the Web, but a critical theory of the Internet and society because changing societal circumstances create situations, in which new concepts need to be clarified and social problems emerge, which need to be solved .

Журнал Белорусского государственного университета. Философия. Психология / Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology, 2021

The paper argues for the necessity of building up a philosophy of the Internet and proposes a version of it, an «Aristotelian» philosophy of the Internet. First, an overview of the recent trends in the Internet research is presented. This train of thoughts leads to a proposal of understanding the nature of the Internet in the spirit of the Aristotelian philosophy i. e., to conceive the Internet as the Internet, as a totality of its all aspects, as a whole entity. For this purpose, the Internet is explained in four (easily distinguishable, but obviously connected) contexts: we regard it as a system of technology, as an element of communication, as a cultural medium and as an independent organism. Based on these investigations we conclude that the Internet is the medium of a new mode of human existence created by late modern man; a mode that is built on earlier (i. e., natural, and social) spheres of existence and yet it is markedly different from them. We call this newly formed existence web-life. Finally using two enlightening cultural-historical analogies (the reformation of knowledge and the formation of web-life) several fundamental characteristics of the web-life is presented

Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web, 2014

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

By situating the Internet within the general history of media, the paper aims at a characterization of the general properties of the Internet. First, a general model of the five most significant matrices of media in the history of mankind is presented and discussed. Second, the paper addresses some of the issues arising from the interrelationships between media in a given matrix as well as the transition from one matrix into another. Third, the paper presents various definitions and approaches to the analysis of the Internet; and finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of properties constituting the Internet as a narrative and discursive space.