From cities to networks: Power rules

Power relations are the source of social organization and institutions. This has been observed and theorized by the author in relation to various realms of social life, such as the formation of spatial structures and the networking of human activities around digital communication networks.

Research on the involvement of residents and tourists in protecting the local brand as a sustainable destination

Research background. Specialists show a decrease in awareness of the issues of sustainability of tourism activities among various stakeholders [1], followed by arguments [2], and irresponsible practices of visitors. Local key actors could be the main interdependent factors in solving [3] these issues that characterize sustainable tourism through the emergence of the phenomenon of digitalization and high popularization of social networks. Digital communication networks have left their mark on the impact that brand tourism - considered as local tourist destinations, has on the behavior of residents and tourists [5], [6]. In this research we aim to evaluate the various advantages that sustainable tourism can have due to digital media in the Pietroasele area, Buzau County, Romania. Purpose of the article. In this research we aim to evaluate the various advantages that sustainable tourism can have due to digital media in the Pietroasele area, Buzau County, Romania. Methods. Digital communication networks have left their mark on the impact that brand tourism - considered as local tourist destinations, has on the behavior of residents and tourists [7],[8], Findings & Value added. The aim of this study is to evaluate the perceptions about the local brand as a way to attract entrepreneurs, tourists and business development in the wine area Pietroasele, Buzau, Romania based on the following specific research objectives: 1. Knowledge of the role of the local brand in the management of local businesses and authorities. 2. Monitoring the application of mechanisms used by specialists to develop local branding, including collaboration with local partners. 3. Evaluation of the perspectives arising from the development of the analyse brand.

Analysis of Network Reliability of Network Synchronization

This article describes the challenges of modern communication networks reliability, analyses ITU-T recommendations and regulations governing the communication networks reliability in Russian Federation. The network clock network is an integral part of digital communication networks. Therefore, the issue of the synchronization network reliability should be given great attention. Research subject. In this article, we discussed the reliability of the clock synchronization network. Method. The main mathematical tools are graph theory and probability theory. To implement the proposed method for assessing the structural reliability of the synchronization network, the direct search method is used. Core results. The results allow us to conclude that the proposed method can be applied to assess the structural reliability of the clock synchronization network. Practical relevance. The solution proposed in this article can be used for a reasonable assessment of the network structural reliability indicators, which is necessary for making a decision on the choice of a route for transmitting a synchronization signal.

Time and Global Capitalism

This article cross-relates four epistemes of time (epochality, time reckoning, temporality, and coevalness) with four materializations of time (hegemony, conflict, crisis, and rupture). Understanding the terms within this framework allows us to depict global capitalism as epochally distinctive, riven by time conflicts, prone to recurring financial crises, and vulnerable to collective opposition. Time conflicts materialize across the areas of financialization and capital realization, worker exploitation and transnational supply chains, and the political economies of national and transnational state governance. Initially, these critical insights about the historicity and instability of global capitalism were obscured by the perpetual now-ness of corporate brand culture, 24/7 global television, and digital communication networks. Worldwide structural exclusions of the poor and their experiences of time were also obscured, a process the article defines as a “denial of coevalness.” With the 2008 financial crisis, the time conflicts of financialized capitalism became obviously unmanageable. National and transnational attempts to resolve the crisis simply reproduced the time conflicts of financialization. And structural exclusions of the global poor were further entrenched. However, these developments triggered a confluence of occupation movements, riots, protests, strike activity, and anti-austerity activism, raising the prospect of a sustained collective challenge to global capitalism.

Democracy, Planning, and Big Data

Starting in the late 1960s, the development of the productive forces of society entered a new stage: the Information Revolution, an era focused on the application of information theories such as cybernetics combined with advances in computer technology and digital communication networks, culminating in the Internet. Under capitalist conditions, this has already resulted in a knowledge economy, but the social, auto-regulatory possibilities it opens up are bound to be incompatible with the private appropriation characteristic of capitalism.

Whose data? Problematizing the ‘gift’ of social labour

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, and Jared Cohen, Founder and Director of Google Ideas, contend that ‘for governments and companies’, the user-generated content that constitutes big data is ‘a gift, enabling them to better respond to citizen and customer concerns, and, within the emergent field of predictive analysis, to predict what the future will hold’. In this article, I interrogate what it means for data from our social lives to be interpreted as a ‘gift’ by private enterprises such as Google. Who is giving what to whom? What is the nature of the transaction? Whose property is this data? By putting into conversation Schmidt and Cohen’s gift thesis with an analysis of the ‘value’ of participation in digital communication networks, this article seeks to uncover an intellectual property conundrum that legitimizes the rise of new kinds of labour vulnerabilities in the digital age; intensifying the extension of the logic of privatization into our digital social lives; and, in doing so, the importance of intellectual property as a language of critique and resistance.