represent a special type of network tightly-bound and densely bound much smaller than networks; members know each other multi-stranded (people have multiple roles vis a vis each other) example: a workplace team; a student team working on a project for class
(ii) networks
are thinly dispersed allow far greater autonomy for members than groups suit the extensive, wide-ranging nature of wireless connectivity example: music peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Limewire; online
auctions like Ebay
Rheingold outlines four “laws” that have shaped the development of both broadcast and
digital media technologies that, taken together, provide the basis for the social networks that
interest him. (i) Sarnoff’s Law
The value of a broadcast (or any product or extension of a network) is proportionate to the
number in the audience.
(ii) Moore’s Law
Computer power develops exponentially, doubling every 18 months.
(iii) Metcalfe’s Law
The number of potential connections between points in a system grows more quickly than
the number of points.
(iv) Reed’s Law (this law is Rheingold’s focus)
Reed’s law, building on Sarnoff and Metcalfe, argues that the growth and speed of networks
is fostered when networks allow the “points in the system”—such as individuals—not only to
connect with each other, but to form groups within the networks. Rheingold (p. 60)
summarizes Reed’s law here:
“When a network i英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】s aimed at broadcasting something of value to individuals, like a TV
network, the values of services is linear. When the network enables transactions between
the individual nodes, the value is squared. When the same network includes ways for the
individuals to form groups, then value is exponential.”
Again, the crucial question for Rheingold here is: will networks and the technologies that
extend their powers be allowed to thrive in the wireless world, or will they be thwarted by a
user-pay and corporate wireless future? Rheingold concludes: “If the innovation commons is
open to many in the future, as it has been in the past, a ‘cornucopia of the commons’ could
make it possible for many to benefit.” (p. 61) 3. AC640 reading: Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, “The Birth of Counterculture”
a. the trouble with counterculture
Joseph Heath, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, and Andrew Potter, an
Ottawa-based journalist, offer a critique of one of the most beloved ideas in politics and
popular culture: that culture, often as it is expressed within social movements, can be a
vehicle for positive social change. Countercultures—be they the Situationists and the beats
in the 1950s, the hippie and student movements in the 1960s, punk in the 1970s, New Age
Travellers in the 1980s, grunge in the 1990s, and rap and hip hop today—have long been
celebrated as creative sources of social criticism and political activism. We listen to th
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