Political ideas of the network society: why digitalization research needs critical conceptual analysis

In this article, I argue for an interpretive approach to digitalization research that analyzes the concepts, narratives, and belief systems in digitalization debates. I illustrate this methodological proposal by assessing the spread of network ideas. Many political actors and digitalization researchers follow network ideas, e.g. by claiming that the rise of a network society must lead to network governance. In contrast to this narrative, I argue that there are multiple visions of the digital society, each of which follows a specific pattern of epistemology, social imaginary, and political proposals. These competing self-interpretations must be investigated by digitalization research in order to map and evaluate different pathways into a digital society. For doing so, critical conceptual analysis draws on political theory, critical conceptual history, and the sociology of knowledge. It offers two major benefits for digitalization research. Firstly, it provides a systematic overview of competing governance rationalities in the digital society, enabling a critical evaluation of their potentials and proposals. Secondly, it enhances the methodological rigor of digitalization research by reviewing the narratives researchers themselves tell. I substantiate these claims by analyzing and historicizing the above network narrative. Tracing it back to cybernetics, I show that it has been used multiple times in efforts to reshape the way we think about society and politics, including our concepts of subjectivity, power, and governance.

Network marketing in network society: humanistic and psychological aspects of the problem

The article carries out both theoretical and empirical analysis of some humanistic and psychological aspects of the functioning of network marketing in modern network society. In fact, the humanistic vector of research is represented in the importance of formulating and understanding of the problem of human search for a harmonious individual identity and ways of effective self-realization in a globalized and informatized society, in a massive environment of consumption and services; psychological and socio-psychological vectors consist of the study of individual characteristics of the Ukrainian population’s attitude to their own material status and some potential opportunities for its improvement. In particular, the analysis touches the phenomenon of «social psychology of poverty» as a lifestyle, which is often justified by the relevant philosophy of life and morality. The ambivalent components of the image of network marketing in modern society, as well as social and personal factors of attitude formation and personal involvement in this type of employment are revealed. According to the results of a pilot empirical study, it was stated that the dominant majority of online Ukrainian respondents (it was used the methods of «convenient sampling» and «snowball») has been self-identified as «average in their material status». At the same time, almost half consider wealth as mainly the result of their own persistence and activity. The dominant majority of respondents are at least partially informed about the network business, and a little over a third – «tried themselves» in this type of business. The most frequently identified associations with «network marketing» were «sale / sales» and «Internet», fit into his general denotative interpretations. However, about one in five respondents has some distrust of this method of earning, associated with «pyramidal» connotations and fear of «being deceived». And the same number of people trust network marketing instills concrete success and results of relevant activities.

NETWORK DISCOURSE AND THE RUSSIAN MAYOR: SHAPING A DIGITAL SOCIO-POLITICAL AGENDA IN SOCIAL NETWORKS (NETWORK AND LINGUISTIC DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS)

В эпоху социальных сетей и сетевого общества социально-политические акторы, в том числе и главы муниципальных образований (мэры городов), являются основными субъектами (по сравнению с традиционными СМИ) формирования цифровой социально-политической повестки дня в онлайн-пространстве. Современная цифровая социально-политическая повестка дня формируется двумя одновременными процессами в социальных сетях: во-первых, глава города создает социально-политический контент в ведущих социальных сетях; во-вторых, граждане дают обратную связь в виде ветки комментариев на данный контент. Как результат - происходит формирование связки цифровой социально-политической повестки дня (как сегмента онлайн-дискурса) и офлайн-реакции на данный дискурс (определенной и позиционированной социально-политической части) в виде конкретных конструктивных либо деструктивных реакций жителей городов современной России (не / поддерживающих власть на локальном уровне). Эмпирической базой данного исследования стал контент официальных аккаунтов (метод сплошной выборки постов, хештегов, фотографий и видео, а также всех комментариев) мэров российских городов в Instagram, ВКонтакте, Facebook, Twitter и Одноклассники согласно рейтингу Медиалогии за период 1 октября 2020 - 31 декабря 2020 г.: Анатолий Локоть, мэр г. Новосибирск, 4 место; Наталья Котова, мэр г. Челябинск, 5-е место; Иса Хаджимурадов, мэр г. Грозный, 79-е место; Юлия Рокотянская, мэр г. Рязань, 96-е место. В результате авторы статьи делают основные выводы, полученные в ходе исследования сетевого и лингводискурсивного анализа сетевых тематик данных аккаунтов, визуальной составляющей, а также комментариев как реакции пользователей на цифровую социально-политическую повестку дня и официальный дискурс в онлайн- и офлайн-пространствах. In the era of social networks and network society, socio-political actors, including heads of municipalities, are the main subjects in shaping digital socio-political agenda in the online space. The modern digital socio-political agenda is formed by two simultaneous processes in social networks: firstly, the head of the city creates socio-political content in leading social networks; secondly, citizens give feedback in the form of a comment thread on this content. As a result, a digital agenda is formed and an offline reaction to this discourse in the form of specific constructive or destructive reactions of residents of cities in modern Russia. The empirical base of this study was the content of official accounts (a method of continuous sampling of posts, hashtags, photos and videos, as well as all comments) of the mayors of Russian cities on Instagram, VKontakte, Facebook, Twitter and Odnoklassniki, according to the Medialogia rating for the period October 1, 2020 - December 31, 2020. As a result, the authors draw the conclusions obtained during the study of network and linguistic discursive analysis of network topics of the analyzed accounts, the visual component as well as comments as user reactions to this agenda and official discourse in online and offline spaces.

Commemorations of cultural-historical reconstruction in the context of network society

The relevance of this article is substantiated by the need for scientific comprehension of the versatile experience of commemorative activity of the communities united within the framework of the All-Russian Public Movement “Clubs of Historical Reconstruction of Russia”. The object of this research is the collective commemorations that accumulate various forms of culture-making memorial initiatives of the indicated movement. The subject is the transformation processes of commemorative practices of the reenactment movement in the context of network society. The goal is to determine the key vectors of transformation of commemorations of the cultural-historical reconstruction, which reflects fundamental changes in the modern memorial space in the context of network society. The author advances the opinion that major changes in the commemorative practices of reenactors are substantiated by the transition towards the project-network form of interaction with a wide circle of social actors, the cooperation with which is based on the mutually beneficial exchange of deficit resources. The novelty of this work lies in explication and empirical testing of the concept of “memorial management” ( terminology of Aleida Assmann) for articulation of the specificity of the current stage of transformation of commemorations of cultural-historical reconstructions in the context of project-network society. The new material on the public memorial initiatives in the network projects of reenactors is introduces into the scientific discourse, which allows concluding that the transformation of commemorations of cultural-historical reconstruction is a complex multi-vector process that reveals a range of multidirectional trends characteristic to the Russian memorial space. The fundamental changes in commemorative practices of reconstruction manifest in the expansion of their scientific, educational, and inclusive components.

U.S. & China Approaches to Global Internet Governance: "New Bipolarity" in Terms of "the Network Society"

From the perspective of power transition theory, international relations system is gradually entering the phase of "power transition" where the United States, as a global hegemon, seeks to maintain the existing world order, and China establishes alternative international formats to reorganize the system of international relations and strengthen its structural power. Cyberspace and technological sphere are becoming the field of non-violent competition between states, which makes the study of global governance of cyberspace critical for the understanding of the outlines of the "new bipolarity". The analysis in the paper is focused on U.S. & China approaches to global governance of cyberspace through the prism of Manuel Castells' theory of "network society". The authors aimed to determine the directions of the U.S. and China policy in the course of four types of "power" in cyberspace: networking power, network power, networked power and network-making power. Present analysis concludes that the United States play crucial role in the course of all four types of "power" at the expense of decentralized model of Internet governance which is based on the idea of "multistakeholderism". NGO and other entities play a decisive role in such a model. Nonetheless, China has already developed necessary tools for reforming the present system of global governance of cyberspace based on centralized model with the leading role of United Nations as an international governance organization and state as a basic actor. The main beneficiaries of the centralized model are developing countries, which are unable to influence the global governance of cyberspace under the dominance of private companies from developed countries.

Castells’s “Network Society Theory” to Human Geography —Analysis and Comparison Based on Chinese and Foreign Quotations

Based on 898 English documents and 363 Chinese documents citing the Rising of Network Society, it studied that the knowledge contribution of citation content analysis and citation context analysis methods, and the knowledge contribution of Chinese and foreign quotations to human geography. The study found that “mobile space” is the most quoted theoretical view in domestic and foreign literature, and the proportion of domestic research is significantly higher than foreign research; the focus of domestic and foreign research focuses on the external spatial form and its transformation, while foreign research pays more attention on the internal spatial dynamics of network society and three types of knowledge contributions, reflecting the influence of “network social theory” on human geography. Among them, critical references reveal the shortcomings of “network social theory” point out the abstraction of “spatial duality” the importance of local space, and the limitations of research data, methods, and time background, which provides new enlightenment for the future application and innovation of “network social theory” in the field of human geography.