20
THEORY ON DEMAND
network environments, the term ‘network’ has once again become more associated with social networks. At the same time, the term ‘network’ is still applied to other technical and social infrastructures as well. We should be aware that society is made up of various types of networks – technical, social and cultural, as well as hybrid combinations of those. Therefore, it should be important to make a distinction between these types of networks, accordingly using different terminology when referring to them. For example, as Dutch media theorist Eric Kluitenberg suggests, the term ‘digital network’ can be used in specific cases, namely, in relation to the computerbased networks, while more general term ‘network’ could be used in relation to social phenomena and social practice (Kluitenberg 2008, 306). Regarding the term ‘creative networks’ used in the title of this book, I have introduced it in order to separate the early (collaboration) networks from today’s social network communities. I have used creative networks in order to indicate those socio-technical formations6 that emerged at the beginnings of the Internet (during the mid-1990s) in a process of self-organization and whose founders and members were mostly creative people (artists7, media theorists, electronic activists8, programmers and hackers9). In turn, although the term ‘social networks’ is universal and may be related to any time period or any human network, I use it in this work to refer to those social network communities developed within the online social media platforms of the so-called Web 2.0 (e.g. Facebook, draugiem.lv, Twitter and others). Although it is not easy to appropriate these divisions precisely and consistently in all cases and the simple term ‘network’ is still sometimes used as a synonym for both the Internet (sometimes also in this work) and social networks just as for other types of networks, I do however agree with Kluitenberg that it is important to refer to the technical networks as ‘digital networks’ (in the case of the Internet) and networks based on human relations or hybrid networks (human + technology) as social networks or simply ‘networks’. In short, looking back on the citations quoted at the beginning of the chapter, I agree with the metaphor put forward by The Thing that ‘network’ is primarily people and not computers. Or, in the words of community sociologist Barry Wellman: ‘after all, a computer network is a community network when it connects friends, relatives, neighbors and workmates’ (Wellman 2002, 153).
6. Socio-technical formations – complex relations that are formed by transforming social action into digital networks, as a result creating networked connections with specific qualities possible only in such combination. Examples of such types of formations are network communities, electronic activism and others. This term is often used by contemporary network researchers and sociologists, for instance, Saskia Sassen (together with Robert Latham she also calls them ‘digital formations’). For the explanation of the term I refer to Karl Marx, namely, to his concept of ‘social formations’ which on a large part is used as a synonym of ‘society’ in an institutionalized production context, and associated with Louis Althusser who used „social formations’ to identify the complex relations between economy, politics and ideology (Marshall). 7. Here I mean the so-called new media artists who in their creative work use new technologies as the primary means of expression in creating new specific medial art forms (virtual realities, internet / net.art, CD-ROM, programming art, responsive environments, and so on). 8. Saskia Sassen refers to electronic activists as those social activists that mainly use the platforms of electronic media in their work for organizing the social struggle (for example, blog sites). 9. During the early stages of the Internet the socially more active programmers and computer experts called themselves hackers who orientated their work towards developing benefits of Internet and computer-based environments, for instance, free platforms (Linux), free programme developing and distributing, creating social media platforms, and the like.