12 - Network Society Approach (Castells)

Summary

Network society theory stipulates that the concrete content for judicial concepts and legal norms is derived through the network. This means that the network-given meaning may and may not coincide with the original meaning at the time of its genesis – attributed to these concepts and norms when they were coined. The main objection against applying the network approach to digital human rights is the loss of the claim to legitimacy in the course of regulation. This appears in different versions, which at first sight are polarised and irreconcilable. The first version claims that the legitimacy argument is lost in networks, and the second claims to the contrary that networks are capable of providing human rights legitimacy. Fukuyama has suggested trust as a characterising feature of networks. The transposition of the element of trust from offline to online networks deprives trust of its original semantic meaning, since trust then would not be something which has to be earned but something which is given. Non-coherence theory explains that this is what happens when concepts are automatically taken from the offline realm and planted in the online.