The nature of informal networks in various societies, and particularly whether they recede or tend to persist over time, has long been a subject of discussion in international business studies. ...However, empirical research on trust in network-oriented societies, where individuals typically maintain somewhat different relationships with their in-group, out-group, and non-specified others, remains limited. Drawing on insights from informal network research and intergroup contact theory to model trust relationships in network societies, 882 respondents from three network societies -- China, Russia, and South Korea -- were surveyed, and confirmatory factor and path analyses applied. The results suggest that as network importance increases, both in-group trust and out-group trust also increase. Individuals who more commonly draw upon out-group trust ties attach less importance to in-group trust ties. Increases in non-specific trust, however, are associated with increases in both in-group and out-group trust, pointing towards the boundary spanning function of non-specific trust. Consequently, rather than finding a clear indication of whether informal networks persist or recede, ambivalent trust relationships were observed. This calls for a reexamination of the conventional ‘either/or’ perspective on the nature of informal networks. This network heterogeneity can be attributed to individuals, especially in developing network societies, utilizing a ‘both/and’ approach to trust and networking, and yielding more economic opportunities.
•Trust multiplicity and network heterogeneity characterize emerging markets.•In emerging markets individuals rely on ambivalent trust ties.•Nonspecific trust emerges once opportunities to collaborate with remote others are given.•The boundary spanning function of non-specific trust leads to increases in overall trust levels.
In this article, we set out to explain different types of social uses of the Internet of Things (IoT) using forms of capital and Internet skills. We argue that the IoT platform entices different ...manners of social communication that are easily overlooked when focusing on the novelty of smart “things.” How people use the IoT socially is crucial in trying to understand how people create, maintain, or absolve social relations in a networked society. We find inversed effects for social capital, income and education on private use, and on sharing IoT data with a partner. Sharing with acquaintances and strangers is predicted by cultural activities. Sharing IoT data with acquaintances can especially be attributed to social relations that escape the immediate household. We conclude that varying figurations of capital and Internet skills predict how the IoT is used socially.
The Network Society Revisited Castells, Manuel
The American behavioral scientist (Beverly Hills),
06/2023, Letnik:
67, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The theory of the network society, in my own version, was originally elaborated in the book that, under the title The Rise of the Network Society, I published in 1996. It was revised and updated in ...the 2000 and 2010 editions. However, the significant social change that has taken place on a global scale in the last decade provides an opportunity to reassess its heuristic value. Therefore, in this text, I will attempt to consider the currency of the theory of the network society when confronted with these changes.
Introduction. The image of a woman helps to construct one’s understanding of the world, relations in society, ideas about the Other. This article is devoted to a critical analysis of the ...transformation of the image of a woman in a network society. Theoretical analysis. Today, the position of rejecting gender differences, which serve as one of the sources of human culture, is increasing in society. A crisis situation arises, accompanied by the loss of gender self-identification, the violation of internalization and existential frustration. In the network image of society, women are polyvariant and solve it by interpreting the actor who uses it, but a person acquires and manifests his or her generic essence only in the intuitions of the social essence, with the help of transcending. Conclusion. We come to the conclusion that the image of a woman in a network society is constructed by means of a pseudo-democratic mythologeme, which implements the illusion of freedom and leads to the full autonomy of individuals, which is the cause of alienating a person from society and thereby from himself/herself. The proposed way out of the existing gender identity crisis is by means of transcending communication, which includes signification.
Introduction. The issue of the article is devoted to the study of the institution of education in the network society from the standpoint of socio-philosophical analysis. Theoretical analysis. Using ...various methodological approaches, it was found out that the modern institute of education undergoes serious transformations on institutional, spatial and functional levels. In the conditions of network reality education institution includes not only educational and upbringing practices but also represents one of the central socio-economic actors which sets positive dynamics of the state development in the most important strategic directions. The author of the article asserts the central place of education as an institution that generates and transmits knowledge, which is capable of becoming an epistemic base for further development of the network society. Conclusion. The author concludes on the hybrid nature of the institution of education in the network society. On the one hand, mass digitalization has set a new moral-ethical and technological system of coordinates, but on the other hand, education is still connected to the classical classroom learning, live human communication, the value foundations of each subject of education. Such a complex dual nature of the institution of education in a network society testifies to contradictory social processes, by examining which social philosophical science can critically assess modern social existence.
This article offers a critical examination of the role played by migrants’ online communities. With much of scholarly analysis focusing on the new ways in which online groups enable migrants to ...connect, interact or socialise together in digital space, little attention has been paid to how these groups are actually formed, by whom and with what motivations. Drawing on qualitative interviews with moderators of online groups created by EU migrants living in Wales, UK, our findings reveal the diverse and sometimes ambivalent roles played by these groups, acting not only as networks of support for migrants (‘communities of interest’) but also driven by commercial motives. To capture the impact of this commercialisation and the complexity in the field, we introduce the notion of ‘communities for interest’. The article thus offers new empirical and conceptual contributions that advance our understanding of migrants’ online communities beyond the much-discussed online/offline and virtual/real dichotomies.
Persistent and Pervasive Community Hampton, Keith N.
The American behavioral scientist (Beverly Hills),
01/2016, Letnik:
60, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Two affordances of digital communication technologies, persistent contact and pervasive awareness, are ushering in fundamental change to the structure of community. These affordances break from the ...mobility narrative that has described community since the rise of urban industrialism, including accounts of networked individualism and a postindustrial or a network society. In contrast to images of late modernity, which suggest that mobility will be maximized to the point where people are nearly free from the constraints of time, space, and social bonds, persistent–pervasive community renews the constraints and opportunities of premodern community structure. As a result of persistence—a counterforce to mobility—relationships and the social contexts where they are formed are less transitory than at any time in modern history. Through the ambient, lean, asynchronous nature of social media, awareness supplements surveillance with the informal watchfulness typified in preindustrial community. It provides for closeness and information exchange unlike what can be communicated through other channels. Social media and the algorithms behind them generate not only context collapse but an audience problem that, when managed through a dynamic balance between broadcasting and monitoring content, enhances indicators of awareness and availability of social ties. Persistent–pervasive community represents a period of metamodernity. It is a hybrid of preindustrial and urban-industrial community structures that will affect the availability of social capital, the success of collective action, the cost of caring, deliberation around important issues, and how lives are linked over the life course and across generations.
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