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The Metaphor Thing

The Metaphor Thing. Representing social movements by network metaphors Marianne van den Boomen (Marianne.vandenBoomen@let.uu.nl). Naomi Klein, The Vision Thing. A nalogy with the Internet. intricately and tightly linked as “hotlinks” connect their websites

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The Metaphor Thing

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  1. The Metaphor Thing Representing social movements by network metaphors Marianne van den Boomen (Marianne.vandenBoomen@let.uu.nl)

  2. Naomi Klein, The Vision Thing

  3. Analogy with the Internet • intricately and tightly linked • as “hotlinks” connect their websites • facilitates & shapes the movement in its own image • sparse bureaucracy and hierarchy • organic, decentralised, interlinked pathways of the Internet • the Internet come to life

  4. TARGET DOMAIN • political organising • no clear leadership and followers • disparate campaigns, scattered, non-lineair • convergence, shared belief, emerging consensus • hybrid pattern of dispersal and convergence • intricately and tightly linked to one another

  5. SOURCE DOMAIN • The Internet • ‘hotlinks’, ‘websites’ and ‘connections’ • hybrid pattern of dispersal and convergence • ‘intricately and tightly linked to one another… • …as “hotlinks” connect their websites to the Internet’ • hotlinks: subject/object displacement & condensation

  6. More than coincidental Not only a tool,it is also‘shaping themovement in its own image’: ‘sparse bureaucracy, minimal hierarchy, loose information swapping’ • The image of the Internet shapes the movement… • Internet is shaping the image the movement has of itself…

  7. From tool to mirror • ‘mirrors the organic, decentralised, interlinked pathways of the Internet -- the Internet come to life’ • from a tool it has become a mirror, and the mirror subsequently becomes a shaping machine

  8. The Metaphor Thing Metaphors are actors • Bruno Latour: actor-network theory • Lakoff and Johnson: source and the target domain Moving targets, moving sources

  9. Depresented unused parts 1 • Protocols: agreements carved in software which regulates how data streams flow along the channels • The Internet is a set of nested and layered protocols • TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) • small data packets • direct to destination • reassemble on arrival • non-hierarchical, horizontal • unique IP-number • different routes

  10. Depresented unused parts 2 • Other protocols on top of TCP/IP • HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) to browse websites • SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to send mail • DNS-protocol (Domain Name System) to translate domain names to IP-numbers • FTP, et cetera • Servers and clients! • Web servers, web clients; mail servers, mail clients etc • Weare clients who pay a subscription fee • Weuse clients (application programs)

  11. Nested and layered protocols • TCP/IP: structurally non-hierarchical • Other protocols: hierarchical client-serverarchitecture • Client-server split is a material division of labour • = an asymmetrical division of power and control • Bureaucracy is translated into protocological infrastructure • Hierarchy is translated into the client-server architecture

  12. Distributed network topologies • A distributed computer system is an application that consists of components running on different computers concurrently (web page: client-server, bricolage, DNS, TCP/IP etc) • Distributedness does not by itself imply anything about hierarchy, centralisation or decentralisation

  13. Distributed network topologies Hierarchical Centralised Decentralised Hybrid

  14. P2P file sharing systems • files not stored on a central server • downloading directly from other clients/peers • good old P2P, purely decentralised?

  15. P2P file sharing systems • no direct channel of transmission between peers • routing of the files must always pass along providers servers • P2P = parasitical layer • You are what you use…

  16. Conclusions • In what regards can the new political organising be conceptualised as analogies of the Internet? • protocols and topologies? • depresented local centralities, hierarchies? • clients and servers? • P2P-networking? parasitic peers? • Mark Poster: Tool -> social space -> subjects • Tool -> mirror -> shaping thing -> subject/objects

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