User:ThomasW/Notes Off the Network

Meijas Ali, Ulises, (2013) Off the Network, London, Minnesota Press

Nodocentrism does not provide an incorrect picture of the world, just an incomplete one. It rationalizes a model of progress and development in which those elements that are outside the network can only acquire currency by becoming part of the network. “Bridging the digital divide”is normalized as an end across societies that wish to partake of the benefts of modernity. The assumption behind the discourse of the digital divide is that one side, technologically advanced and accomplished, must help the other side, technologically underdeveloped or retarded, to catch up. page 11-12

Search engine results are examples of nodocentrism in the sense that they point to documents, sites, or objects that have been indexed by the network. What has not been indexed is not listed as a result, and it might as well not even exist in the universe of knowable things as far as the search engine is concerned.page 12

Nodocentrism can help us talk about the politics of knowledge construction in an age when we seem to increasingly depend on the digital network as a historical archive page 12

While using networks to disrupt networks might make strategic sense at times (what Hardt and Negri call fghting networks with networks16), the goal of this work is to theorize models that ultimately move beyond network logic altogether. Disrupting the digital network cannot rely only on marginal strategies such as hacking, open-source/open- content paradigms, peer- to- peer sharing, and so on because these strategies rely on the same logic the network does, page 12

It is, in fact, the very appeal of the digital network as a cultural metaphor for imagining community that makes it particularly restrictive as a social determinant. The digital network is a ready- made image into which we can pour our hopes for social unity and connectivity. We can point to a location in the network map and say “that’s me!,” while admiring the wealth of our social capital. page 14

But it also represents an arena of restricted or diminished opportunities for meaningful political and social action. Walter Benjamin had already described similar dynamics in relation to Fascism. According to him, the emerging Fascist rulers recognized and feared the potential of the masses to change property relations; in order to preserve the traditional property system, Fascism found its salvation “in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves”22, thus introducing aesthetics into political life. page 15

The more we participate in digital communication networks, the more this ideology is reinforced. To paraphrase Deleuze, communicative capitalism does not stop people from expressing themselves but forces them to express themselves continuously. page 21