Networks Without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media

Citation

Parry, F. (2012), "Networks Without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media", The Electronic Library, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 559-560. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471211252265

This is a challenging book to read and often appears to ask more questions than it can answer. It is a probing critique of networks and social media and how we are not using the technology for our own purposes but instead letting it and the people who own it shape our lives.

Several chapters concentrate on critical theory as it applies to network culture with one treatise on comment culture, disquisition on internet criticism and another on media studies. As with most of the other chapters, Lovink is exceptionally well read and critically engages theorists from many fields, as his extensive notes and bibliography attest.

Lovink contends that the internet can be a battleground and source of friction rather than a place of genuine debate and organisation. He takes a detailed look at the ways in which various social networks operate and how we interact with them. In each of the areas he studies – Facebook, blogs, radio, video – he finds that networks are not organised for the participants but rather for gathering people together on platforms which they cannot control – hence the “without a cause” of the title. Social media tools too often mean that discussion exists in “echo chambers” of largely like‐minded people not engaging in the public sphere. Participation is often limited to liking postings or friending people or companies. Web 2.0 creates space for content which is then exploited by offering data to advertisers and marketing companies. Lovink thinks that there is room for new forms of organised networks which bring genuine participation and purpose to the internet.

Lovink also discusses the problem information overload and in several chapters critiques the “society of the query” where he believes we have allowed Google too much prominence and power to “organize the world's information”. He thinks that we should rely more on our own self‐filtering methods rather than solely on the unknowable processes of Google's filtering software. Lovink argues that “we need to invent new ways to interact with information” but frustratingly does not seem to offer much by way of an alternative other than to “stop searching, start questioning”. And that, in a nutshell, is the key to this work. It is enough to question.

The final chapter looks at WikiLeaks, a network with a definite cause. WikiLeaks grew out of the hacker culture and the techno‐libertarian movement and Lovink's analysis of what he calls this single person organisation is masterful and insightful.

There is much to admire about this book and much to frustrate too. There are no easy answers, but those who like to question and argue will find much to engage with here.