The Network Society

Extract

The Network Society, Darin Barney, London: Polity, 2004, pp. 198

In The Network Society, Darin Barney investigates the claim that “the spirit of our age is the spirit of the network” (2). This claim, the so-called “network society thesis,” announces the birth of a new social order in which “identity, politics, and economy are structured, and operate, as networks” (2). The argument that networks form the organizational principle of social, political, and economic configurations is a direct consequence, we are told, of the communication and management technologies that mediate virtually all contemporary societal practices. This being said, Barney sets out to assess the status of the network society thesis as a truth claim: Does the thesis in fact describe the arrival of a new societal order or does it merely provide a script for its possible realization? Although he concludes the rhetoric of the network society serves both functions, Barney's ultimate concern is that its prescriptive capacity is sufficiently powerful that the political will to offset the further advance of the network society is fast disappearing.