User:Loredana Bontempi/plan/bibliography

Armin Medosch. Society in Ad-Hoc Mode
Predominant organizing principle: self-organising in ad-hoc mode.
Techno utopias: new communication technologies always lead to an explosion of theories about their potential ability to rebuild society.
The risk in this theory is that human factor is somehow ignored, but is actually very important since it is the connection step between technologies and social change.
Self-organization as a way to self-institute society, taking part in politics matters and being aware of how they belong to every one and they can therefore be discussed and transformed. It is still not clear enough that everyone has to work for democracy and in order to have that power needs to be constantly challenged(thing that maybe is now present just in smaller groups fighting for particular interests). Social progress is then much connected with personal progress, and an indication of it can be seen in the way problems are solved within society(civilized manners and debate vs factories occupation).
Technology progress in running much faster than social progress.
Technology is developing under capitalism, it is not neutral at all since its main purpose in to serve economic growth.
In particular situation we can clearly see the ad-hoc mood of protest movements and as a consequence of governments themselves (protests gaining different groups with even different ideals, and government reaction with violence).
He then emphasizes that one of the most important property of the internet, the capacity to promote the formation of groups and social communities, "training ground for ah-hoc society".
We also assist to the formation of a new public that is of course new because it didn't exist before the Internet, but in addition they can be active part of the media they are following. In this sense mass media and politics can't manage to compete with new information methods typical of the Internet and new technologies networks.
The "flash mobs" practice, of arranging by mobile phone to appear at a certain time at a certain place, can't really help building an autonomous society(it doesn't mean they have the kind of awareness and 'global' projects to act together in a productive way), but it opens up a whole new way of dealing with wireless networks.
Network commons is the word that is now use to debate about free networks, this dealing with the fact it is not just a technical network but it can also facilitate and multiply people's opportunity to express themselves and therefore act.


Geoff Cox. "Antisocial Applications: Notes in support of antisocial not-working"
connects and disconnects > antisocial
voluntary submission, can be accessed by agencies, marketing
service agreements
proprietary paltforms, restrictive forms of social relations
dialectics (friend-nonfriend, bare life, qualified life) > deeper than just revers of something
indentification of antagonism > politics
no social > uneven, unequal how power is organized

Alexander Galloway. Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization
The text explores the concept of control through different models of networks technology, associating its internal structure with the society's one.
From centralized and decentralized organizations, to distributed ones, control behaves in different ways, as it does in the different societies models.
From Foucault's analysis of sovereign societies, where the master was the very center of power, and of disciplinary societies, where the power is exert in a more latent way, is possible to draw connections with the first two network models, where in order to communicate every node has to pass by a central node.
Is clear in this patterns how control can operate through the central position, allowing or not the contact between the rest of the net.
The distributed networks can show correspondence with Deleuze's idea of "societies of control". In this system every node is connected with all the other nodes, and power of control is exert through protocols. This protocols allow communication by making all the different hubs understanding each others, but at the same time it becomes a kind of restriction since it can be again controlled. The "priviledged physical media of bodies" (Foucault) is protocological too, biopower and biopolitics have the power to define what a living human is, therefore they hold the power to define life itself.

Michael Hardt. Hail the Multitudes
Hardt defines the new wave of political movements, based on horizontal communication and decentralized networks, as "multitude". This multitude is composed by different groups that can act in common without necessarily unifying their beliefs. They maintain their differences but have a shared aim for which they fight together. Political structures come from society relational models (see Armin Medosch about technologies). Right now people are used to hierarchy as an outcome from working organizations, mainly coming from the industry models. But we can already see that something is changing. With the production of different goods, less tangible ones, the society is facing new collaborative and horizontal based methods, and politics will probably follow soon(or later) this model as well.

Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter. Ten Theses on Non-Democratic Electronics: Organized Networks Updated
There's a relevant competition between the growing structurlessness of societ and the necessity on organization in people's life. The paradox exists, but in reality they don't necessarily overlap.
"Think Global, Act Local" tries to find a solution for this problem that looks so dualistic. Society needs to arrange temporary coalitions within the differences in culture and interests. This coalitions could be widely connected with the networks structure, linking one again new social dynamics, related to networks, and politics.
Society needs to be aware of the changes going on in the Internet methods of giving news and information, also corporate news agents are going to develop new ways to communicate with a such an active public. This will maybe lead to a kind of revolution that could start directly from this new partecipatory methods.
Networks are not by default open, they have borders that needs to be understood and used for renewal and transformation.
The text tries to find the relation between politics and networks, users needs to find their own rights as they have them as citizens.
The governance of networks is more and more questioned going closer to the borders of the networks, where identities overlap and connections are weaker.
There's a strong need to find a way to turn this situation into a strength for the future collaborations, through non-aligned initiatives that allow concepts to "migrate from one context to the next".