Tiziana Terranovas Network Culture

Chapter Two
Network Dynamics
In this chapter, Terranova describes the way in which networks actively shape the whole
of the system that they connect by informing the topography between all connected points. In the
same way that national broadcast radio and television lead to the development of the nation, the
Internet has facilitated a new sense of global citizenship (albeit, one that is exclusive to those
with Internet access). As it continues to expand its reach, the Internet is developing into what
Terranova calls a hypernetwork: a meshwork potentially connecting every point to every other
point (41). Increasingly, the term network is less a descriptor for generic interconnected
systems, but rather an indicator of the system: the dynamic, multidimensional informational
agora, which in our advanced capitalist climate, inherently privileges those with the capital to
control it.
Terranova turns to the work of geographer Manuel Castells, who opines that the Internet
is very explicitly the mechanism through which a globally connected elite is coming to
dominate and control the lives of those who remain bound to the world of locality (43). The
Internet functions as a kind of privileged and instantaneously navigable space which is
increasingly becoming the primary location of the globalized economy. The Internet is organized
on a hierarchical grid known as the Domain Name System (DNS), which, when the Internet was
opened to commercial organizations, turned into a new form of real estate, as individuals and
corporations rushed to claim valuable DNS addresses. As Terranova explains, Within the

gridded space of the DNS, the brand re-emerges as a staran identifiable name that guides the
netsurfer through the anonymous space of the IP number world (45). Computer scientist Tim
Berners-Lee identifies this phenomenon as a point of friction between the local and electronic
space, as the corporate entities of traditional geography attempt to superimpose themselves onto
this non-bordered frontier. Despite the distortion of traditional geography, Terranova points out
that (at least in principle) the Internet is still largely organized through the figure of the grid. This
is significant, as the grid has strong metaphorical ties to Cartesian rationalism. The Internet, in
this sense, serves as a kind of utopian expression of human rationalism: a perfectly symmetrical
warehouse of information, instantaneously and uniformly accessible.
Terranova goes on to demonstrate that this grided view of the Internet does not fully
account for the informational cartography produced by major websites like Facebook, Google
and CNN, which function as central hubs or continents for large fractions of Internet users. In
this way, the Internet can be reimagined as a space in which information itself forms the
constantly shifting topography. The project for Terranova, then, is a geographical model that
accounts for both the nodal grid that structures the Internet, as well as the dynamic informational
geography inhabited and experienced by its users.
In an effort toward reconciliation, she suggests that the conception of the Internet as a
grid might have inadvertently ensnared us in a classic metaphysical trap: that is, of confusing
time with space (50). She turns to philosopher Henri Bergsons interpretation of Zenos
paradoxes of infinitesimals, in which he suggests (i.e., Bergson does) that the specificity of
duration is unaccountable on the basis of the notion of an infinitely divisible space (50). That is

to say, movement cannot be understood simply as a passage between two points, but, crucially,
must also involve the duration. In this sense, duration is an inherent property of motion, one that
is problematically misunderstood in Western metaphysics. Bergson points out that traditional
understandings of motion characterize it as the movement of an object through space. In this
way, motion is split into two abstract formations: on the one side a homogeneous time (the time
that is, that says that a plane leaves at 17:00 and arrives at 21:00); on the other side a
homogeneous space (the space in which the plane can always be located at a definite longitude
and latitude (51). In the case of the Internet, motion appears to happen instantaneously, such that
there appears to be no time at all, only a single, infinitely dense unitary space. Bergson explains
that this conception of motion is the product of a necessary cognitive reduction 1. For Bergson,
this reduction problematically ignores the virtuality of duration, or the qualitative change that
every movement brings not only to that which moves, but also to the space that it moves in and
to the whole into which that space necessarily opens up (51). The motion itself brings a
qualitative change to both the object in motion and the system through which it it moving. In the
same way, information does not simply jump between points, but rather, propagates, and in doing
so, affects the overall topography of the system as a whole.
Terranova goes on to point out that despite a tendency to overlook duration, modern science is
deeply interested in network dynamics, as mathematicians and physicist have developed models
of the dynamic landscape of Internet traffic, concluding that the Internet is the epiphenomenal

1 in the example of the plane, my brain reduces the whole flight into the abstract notion of a whole and
unchanging object starting at one point and ending at another. I kind of know this isnt exactly the whole
of the experience of the flight, but its the most computationally efficient way of dealing with it.

manifestation of hidden physical laws that make [it] part of a more general class of biophysical
systems (63). In this way, Terranova displays the vast disparity of conceptions of the Internet:
On one hand, it is a technology that seems to have collapsed the concept of time and space into a
singular infinitely dense and instantaneously navigable point, on the other, physicists point to a
dynamic system governed by laws that must be discerned and formalized. In the space between
these two visions is the actual lived experience of Internet culture. Terranova suggests that this
transversal line of culture (64) provides another way of framing our understanding of the
Internet.
One of the defining features of the Internet as a culture is its many-to-many mode of
distribution (as opposed to the few-to-many model of television or radio). This decentralizing
of content distribution is demonstrated even in the technological style through which information
is moved from point A to point B. Unlike previous networks that relied on channels, the Internet
uses a method called packet switching, in which information is broken down into smaller units
that disperse and reassemble at their destination. This feature characterizes the movement of
information as something diffuse and chaotic, and lead Internet activist John Gilmore to suggest
that the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it (64). A little-discussed
byproduct of the packet switching mode is a phenomenon called fringe intelligence: Because
packets travel through various nodes relative to overall system bandwidth traffic, the network is
less defined as a relationship between aerials and transmitters, but rather an assemblage of semiautonomous nodes that are programmed with a kind of basic intelligence (66), such that they
can negotiate which route is the fastest for each packet, based on destination and bandwidth

congestion. In this sense, the distributed nodal network of the Internet is not only a medium
through which information travels, but is itself an active and dynamic informational machine.
For this reason, each individual packet moves through the system with an awareness of the
topography of the system as a whole, and plans its route accordingly. Thus, the Internet is a
system in which motion must be conceived of as nonlinear, characterizing the Internet, as whole,
not so much as a unified electronic grid as a chaotic informational milieu (68).

Chapter Three
Free Labour
Terranova then turns to a discussion on the role of labour in the Internet age. To do this,
she examines the similarities between contemporary Internet culture and a phenomenon
identified by Italian autonomists as the social-factory, a process through which work processes
have shifted from the factory to society, thereby setting in motion a truly complex machine
(74).
She looks at the work of Richard Barbrook, who developed a working definition of the
digital economy as a hybridization of new technologies (like the computer networks discussed
above) and new types of worker (so-called digital artisans: Youtube video creators, freelance
bloggers, app designers, etc.). This new economy includes a public element (i.e., the states
funding of ARPANET (i,e., a sort of proto-Internet, technologically speaking)), a traditional
market-driven element (i.e., old school capitalism), and a gift economy. For Barbrook, the gift
economy is the true expression of the cutting edge of capitalist production which prepares its

eventual

overcoming

into a future

anarchy-communism(76). The predominance

of

international collaborative relationships without the exchange of capital suggested a new and
viable economic model for the Internet age. Rather than money, social cohesion was achieved
through mutual obligations created through the sharing of time and ideas. The new gift economy,
then, functioned as a process of overcoming capitalism from the inside (77).
Terranova points out that this ideological view of the Internet as a platform for the
emergence of a kind of digital communism greatly overestimates the autonomy of the gift
economy from capitalism. She points out that the value created by the gift economy is an
important force for advanced capitalism: in a digital economy, the emphasis is on knowledge as
the main source of added value. Therefore, a kind of labourer who is willing to produce
knowledge purely out of a sense of obligation to her peers effectively functions as free labour
for capitalist forces that provide the venue for their exchange2.
Management theory has also become increasingly interested in harnessing the value of human
knowledge. Management theorist Don Tapscott, for example, points out that while human
knowledge can provide a base for a new kind of digital economy, it cannot be managed like
traditional styles of labour. The role of management for this new class of labourer is to provide
the creative and open communications environment where such workers can effectively apply
and enhance their knowledge (78). Crucially, unlike the industrial economy, in which the
labourer was alienated from the means of production and forced to seek fulfilment through

2 A website like Yahoo Answers is a pretty textbook example of this: people voluntarily create the actual
content for each other based on mutual interest, and then Yahoo capitalizes by selling the IPs of those
interested parties to targeted advertisers.

leisure, the labourer of the digital economy is actively involved in the means of production and
can therefore achieve fulfillment through her own work.
With this model in mind, Terranova points out that the notion that traditional capitalism
is preying upon the authentic culture that is produced outside of capitalism, within smaller niche
scenes, is a fiction: Rather than capital incorporating from the outside the authentic fruits of the
collective imagination, it seems more reasonable to think of cultural flows as originating within a
field which is always and already capitalism (80). The monetization of genuine cultural artifacts
is not the delayed capitalist reaction to cultural trends, but rather, the final step of a process that
is, as a whole, the new face of capitalist production.
Terranova then turns to the work of Pierre Levy, who opined that, with the emergence of
the Internet, human cognition was moving away from the Cartesian model of cogito to a
collective or pluralistic cogitamus, writing, the more we are able to form intelligent
communities, as open-minded, cognitive subjects capable of initiative, imagination, and rapid
response, the more we will be able to ensure our success in a highly competitive environment
(85). Terranova observes that this conception of cognition is willfully oblivious of the very real
dynamics of power that are inherently embedded within the notion of a collective sense of
cognition. She points out that Levys notion of a collective mind does not fully account for the
operations of capital overall, which is problematic largely because capital is the unnatural
environment within which the collective intelligence materializes (86). She turns to the Italian
autonomists, who were the first to realize that collective intelligence (or what they, following
Marx, called the general intellect) was directly related to fixed capital, and therefore cannot

exist independently of the structure that facilitates it. In this sense, the Internet is simply the
latest and most efficient iteration of a capitalist machinery that functions primarily to facilitate
the production and exploitation of a general intellect.
With this in mind, the free labour which drives the digital economy must be understood
not simply as the commodification of content created outside of capitalist modes of production,
but rather, a function of a new kind of culture that is inherently embedded within capitalism. In
this sense, simply interacting with the Internet is creating value for capitalism to commodify.
New trends like open-source programming, far from being an expression of some kind of
communal digital utopian future, are a necessary step for capitalists who wish to gain access to
the benefits of an open-source development community: the near-instantaneous bug-fixes, the
distributed intellectual resources of the Net, [and] the increasingly large open-source code base
(92). In this way, capitalists are able to exploit the ideological rhetoric of a gift economy while
also achieving their ultimate goal of increased traffic and higher bandwidth consumption.
Terranova gives the example of Internet browser company Netscape, who, after posting losses in
the last quarter of 1997, turned to the open-source model. As John Horvath explains: what better
way to shed staff by having your product taken further by the freeware people, having codedabbling hobbyists fix and further develop your product? (93). In this way, advanced capitalism
is effectively warping the ideological notion of the Internet as a digital commune into a new
highly efficient and fulfilled labour force, populated by labourers who freely and voluntarily
participate without interest in compensation.

Chapter Four

Soft Control

In this chapter, Terranova examines the ways in which technological progress is modelled
from biological processes, noting that just as biological study of the human ear and throat lead to
the invention of the phonograph, the field of biological computing examines our new
hyperconnected lifestyles in order to produce higher functioning computers. As Terranova
explains, the project of this chapter is an exploration of the entanglement of organic and
inorganic, the physical and the biological, and the natural and the technological, in order to catch
a glimpse of the emergence of a kind of abstract machine of soft control (100).
To do this, she first examines the impact of the shift toward biological models of
computing within the context of a larger techno-scientific reconceptualization of life (101),
during which artificial life theorists such as Charles Taylor argued that all life can be understood
as the result of the interactions of simple elemental units. In this sense, living organisms could no
longer be understood as singular complex machine, but rather, the aggregate result of a complex
network of interacting machines, each of which is relatively simple. In this way, life is not
understood as a property of a single entity, but rather as the organization of a population of
machines such that their dynamic interactivity is "alive.
This same model can be used to explain massive economic systems such as the tech
boom in Silicon Valley, which can be understood as an ecosystem whose growth and success
can be attributed to the incessant formation of a multitude of specialized, diverse entities that
feed off, support and interact with one another (103). Terranova points out that the secret to
reproducing such a spontaneous hotbed of economic production lies not in examination of the

specific start-ups that contributed to the rapid expansion of the ecosystem, but rather, an
accounting of the necessary initial conditions that allowed for such an ecosystem to emerge in
the first place. Because these open systems are by definition acentred and without definite
leadership, there is no single control mechanism that can be reliably manipulated. Similarly,
because the life of the ecosystem is a property of their dynamic interactions, it is impossible to
examine any specific entity in isolation from the whole. In the case of Silicon Valley, the
complex fluidity of the system, which is the necessary condition for the vast creative and
experimental expansion, is a force that is both extremely valuable and dangerously
unpredictable. For this reason, a goal of management theory is to develop a reliable mechanism
to contain the productive forces of fluidity, while stopping it from expanding outside managerial
control. What is needed, Terranova explains, is a phase space, or a specific level of fluidity
perched between the unproductive extremes of solidity and gaseous chaos (107-08). This
mechanism is defined by Terranova as a soft control: a kind of planning, before the system
actually emerges, in which growth is anticipated through the initial conditions. Because of the
acentrality of the potentially emergent system, it is impossible to fully govern or control growth
or computation when the potentiality of the system is actualized, but rather, it must be
modulated with a minimum amount of force (108).
Terranova goes on to describe the mechanisms that can be used to influence these fluid
computational networks, such that the global aims and objects of computation (114) can be
managed. She points to the genetic algorithm model, which functions by searching the whole
of the computational system and measuring the success rates of different nodes within the

system. The most efficient nodes within the system are identified and placed in close competition
with each other, such that they swap traits and become even more efficient. In this way, genetic
algorithms essentially function as a kind of arbitrary evolutionary sieve, eliminating nodes
viewed as unfit for the particular global task or objective (standardized testing of school children
functions on this same principle). As Terranova notes, this approach has been criticized as being
unable to produce true emergence, that is phenomena of self-organization and computation that
are not explicitly programmed by a human agent [outside of the system] (115). The criteria for
determining fitness, if applied too strictly, limit the systems ability to produce true novelty, or
events not inscribed within the threshold of the algorithm. In this sense, the genetic algorithm
model is both a mode of control and the limits of a system. For management theory, the goal is to
locate the sweet spot of fluidity in a network, such that individual nodes are all working toward
a similar broad goal, but are only minimally constrained by operational rules such that they can
produce novel ways of achieving that goal. It is in this spirit that Wired Magazine editor Kevin
Kelly defines a network as the least structured organization that can be said to have any
structure at all (118).
This biological model of fluidity can be applied to the Internet as a whole, such that it is
understood not as unstructured or formless, butminimally structured or semi-ordered (121).
In this way, the Internet can be understood as a kind of anthropogenic iteration of a naturally
occurring phenomenon. This notion is complicated by an entanglement with issues of power and
control, as capitalists endeavour to inscribe this new medium into a new style of productive
labour (as described in Chapter Three). In this sense, advanced capitalism can be said to interact

not with the individual node, who is simply too coarse and rigid to be more than a by-product of
emergence (123), but rather the dynamic activity of the network as whole.
Terranova concludes by pointing out that this capitalist model for understanding
populations is built upon Richard Dawkins notion of the selfish gene. Dawkins posits that all
human behaviour is essentially a survival strategy of an iteration of an impersonal genetic code,
whose primary objective is to sustain its own existence in an environment of limited resources.
In this sense, the individual subject is essentially a vessel for a genetic code that exists,
competitively, in a network of other genetic codes. Crucially, these codes are not alive in the
thermodynamic sense (i.e., they dont decay over time, they simply stop existing when they fail
to replicate), such that their existence is dependant upon their interactivity within the network as
a whole. While this notion of selfishness might be useful for justifying the posthuman capitalist
model of population management, it problematically juxtaposes two very different planes of
existence: namely, the informational network of genetic codes and a Protestant-capitalist
apparatus of subjectification (126). As Terranova points out, [t]he unit of code that we know as
the gene has been returned to individuality so that it might assume the attributes of selfishness
and altruism, competition and collaboration (126). That is to say, the metaphor of selfishness is
fundamentally incompatible with the informational network of genetic code, because genes have
no sense of self, and therefore no sense of selfishness. To posit that selfishness is a hard-coded
genetic impulse is largely a fiction perpetuated to justify irrationally self-interested capitalist
ideology. Reality television shows in which real people are pitted against each other to win an

exclusive reward reenforce this notion, and in doing so, function primarily as mechanisms of soft
control, influencing networks toward economically beneficial goals.