1 Life in the Networked Societies
Our society increasingly relies on interconnected, information networks, which are, more than ever before, shaping the global economic, political, and cultural landscape. In fact, it is argued that we are currently living in an era of networked, information-based societies1 where âwords, human relationships, data, wealth, and power are manifested by people using computer-mediated communications technology.â2 The Internet is today an overarching living network that spans the globe and encompasses a milieu of other networks all interacting together and impacting on our lives. Its expansion and transition from a communications medium to a social space where people interact has also given this network of networks the name cyberspace, a term first coined by William Gibson in the 1980s in his Neuromancer sci-fi novel.
The Internet, initially a US military project for facilitating the decentralisation of communications in case of a nuclear attack, was introduced to the wider public in the mid-1990s. At the beginning, use was limited to research networks and discussion forums, before being adopted by commercial and governmental actors. Gradually, educational research, communication, and, later, commercial activities started to evolve online, taking advantage of the openness and innovation potential of the technologies by which the Internet was created. More particularly, Internet communications were based on technologies and protocols, such as the transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), which broke information into data packets and transmitted them over the network indiscriminately. This preserved the neutrality of the network towards the transmitted information irrespective of its content or originating source and could thus be seen as decentralising and democratising information exchanges further. This core infrastructural element of non-discrimination and openness regarding the various types of information allowed new hardware and software to develop and gave rise to new types of communication and services.
The technological evolution of the Internet began with its popularisation through the World Wide Web technology and the deregulatory decision to entrust important parts of its governance to non-state actors.3 These initial developments allowed for openness and self-management and reinforced its public uptake. Cyberspace was further transformed into a more interactive, richer social space by a significant twist at around the turn of the century. This was the introduction of a new category of online platforms and software applications (MySpace , Facebook , Twitter ), which signified a transition to a second Internet era: the Web 2.0. These new developments empowered users by enabling them to produce their own content in a personalised format, which further decentralised the production and distribution of information and created more dynamic interaction between users. This interaction and potential for collaboration simultaneously empowered civil society and provided it with additional tools for organising and also for influencing the shaping of sociopolitical decisions. The influence of these platforms, both in terms of user interaction and information production, but also in terms of their social and commercial influence can be imagined if one considers the sheer number of users Facebook has attracted to date (2 billion) or the amount of YouTube videos (400+ hours uploaded every minute). Web 2.0 coincided with the gradual popularisation of bandwidth Internet services and mobile smartphones, which greatly increased the speed and proliferation of fast network connections, allowing a quantitative and qualitative increase in the information that could be produced and exchanged.
As we are now entering an era of Web 3.0, where new opportunities for processing large swathes of data are becoming a reality, the importance of information and the knowledge and consequent power this mass information processing can entail is yet to be fully revealed. However, it appears that this new era will signal a more extensive empowerment for those with the power, capacity, and knowledge to store, process, combine, and interpret the âbig dataâ available. As âsmartâ devices have started proliferating in our everyday lives, from connected TVs and fridges to cars and boilers, they enrich the already existing computer networks and the information produced and circulated within them. This expanding âInternet of Thingsâ is becoming another evolutionary step in the development of networked societies, also creating new ways that data and devices will interact and impact on our everyday lives as well as our sociopolitical realities.
2 Information: The New Currency of Power
The aforementioned advent of networks, information, and new digital technologies has inevitably also challenged traditional conceptions of linear, top-down power and governance relations, thus offering new challenges to how power is generated and exercised in our globalised world. From the early years of the Internetâs proliferation, the cross-jurisdictional nature of these information networks challenged the established hierarchical, law-based models of control. Early thinkers of cyberspace regulation highlighted the weaknesses of legal systems and law enforcement in regulating cyberspace efficiently and legitimately, instead suggesting more decentralised , self-regulatory approaches as more fitting.4 Even proponents of law as a predominant tool in the service of controlling online behaviours introduce caveats, accepting that whenever laws are challenged by the global and technologically novel nature of the Internet, new actors and tools, such as online intermediaries and new software, could feature in the process of regulating behaviour online.5 Other theorists, such as Reidenberg and Lessig , argue more explicitly for the need to engage actively with new regulatory actors and tools, mainly through the use of technology as an architectural control mechanism in the networks.6 These discussions serve to highlight the interplay between law, new norms, and technological developments and demonstrate how power structures are gradually becoming more diversified and decentralised in our expanding social space.
The realisation of the Internetâs potential for decentralising power through the empowerment of multiple stakeholders and the gradual popularisation of its use render the Internet politically relevant in modern societies, not just as a communication and commerce tool, but also as a space where political power is generated and shaped and gets dispersed and challenged. As Foucault explains, power is not only decentralised to many people, but also relational and ubiquitous, as it exists within all deliberate, multiple human interactions, instead of just being focused on one agent as a quantum of force to be exercised hierarchically.7 The Internet by its very nature and structure is an expression of Foucaultâs realisation, constantly generating and influencing power relations and introducing major challenges to hierarchical operation and control mechanisms.
Within the networked societies, the constitutive element of power also shifts, with information becoming the predominant source and resource of power. Information, despite it being considered central in contemporary societies, has been crucial for economic and sociopolitical development even since the formation of the nation state.8 However, the Internet and digital technologies have dramatically reinforced and emphasised the role of information in modern societies due to the scale of information being produced and processed. Apart from being the lifeblood of communications networks, information is essential also because it generates knowledge, which inevitably leads to empowerment. As Foucault says, âit is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power.â9 The hacktivist group Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) also highlights the transition of power and counterpower to a different arena: â[D]isconnected from spatial notions of state and traditional space-related attachments, power has now migrated to the immaterial, information networks, with resistance inevitably following.â10
This realisation is also in accord with the Foucauldian view that wherever there is power, there will be a form of counterpower opposing it.11 Power is, thus, related to information generation and management even more directly than in previous eras, and moderating or liberating information flows and making use of them becomes central for all actors taking part in contemporary sociopolitical struggles.
The importance of information is also reflected in the discussions that focus on the regulatory potential of information technologies, hardware, and software, which Lessig has characterised as âcode,â the building blocks of what constitutes our Internet experience.12 Technology plays a crucial role for regulation online and strongly interacts with legal restrictions and mandates. In the malleable virtual environment of cyberspace, hardware and software can be very effective in shaping our experience and capabilities based on what the technology enables or prevents us from doing, simultaneously sharing a regulatory and deregulatory potential.13
Despite the initial openness and focus on privacy and free information exchange the Internet was built on, as already discussed, these principles have gradually become increasingly challenged, and attempts to now harness the empowering potential of information technologies are becoming increasingly common. This is particularly so due to the mediumâs extreme popularity and increasing commercialisation, as many corporations, governmental authorities, and even international organisations can see profit-making and/or power-engendering opportunities in influencing information generation, flows, and processing. Governments have become much more active in managing information either through extensive legislation or indirectly through influencing online companies that could exert control over information, such as Internet service providers (ISPs) or content providers and software developers.
However, t...