The Metaphor Thing Representing social movements by network metaphors Marianne van den Boomen

Naomi Klein, The Vision Thing

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

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

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

More than coincidental Not only a tool, it is also ‘shaping the movement 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…

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

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

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

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 We are clients who pay a subscription fee We use clients (application programs)

Nested and layered protocols TCP/IP: structurally non-hierarchical Other protocols: hierarchical client-server architecture 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

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

Distributed network topologies HierarchicalCentralised DecentralisedHybrid

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

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…

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