While the study of resistance movements as networks continues and will continue to be useful, a framework for opposing the nodocentric ordering of these movements into privatised templates for participation is necessary. As activists continue to demonstrate to liberation technologists, the struggle must go on after the internet and other digital networks are shut off — if the fight can’t continue without Facebook and Twitter, then it is doomed. This means that the struggle is in part against those who own and control the privatised networks of participation (and can thus switch them off). Consequently, we have to turn to the paranodal for the emergence of corresponding models of activism. Since the peripheries represent the only sites from which to unthink the network, it is in the paranodal where new strategies will emerge: strategies of obstruction, interference, and disassembly of privatised networks; strategies of leaking information or circulating misinformation in networks; and strategies of intensification: transforming action that begins in one kind of network into resistance and engagement with alternative forms of networks.</p>
<p>—35—<br>
As we realise that many-to-many communication is becoming impossible without a for-profit many-to-one infrastructure, we must abandon the utopian fantasy that liberation technology, as currently envisioned, can increase democratic participation. Participation managed by monopsony can only increase inequality. In response, paranodality must provide an atopian way to challenge the network by serving as a method for thinking and acting outside the monopsony. As networks have become not just metaphors for describing sociality, but templates that organise and shape social realities, we must question our investment in corporate technologies as the agents of liberation.</p>
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<h2>Biographical Note</h2>
<p>—36—<br>
Ulises A. Mejias is assistant professor in the Communication Studies Department at SUNY Oswego. His research interests include network studies, critical theory, philosophy and social studies of technology, and political economy of new media. His book on critical network theory is scheduled for publication in 2012 by University of Minnesota Press. For more information, see <ahref="http://ulisesmejias.com"target="_blank">http://ulisesmejias.com</a></p>
<p>Ulises A. Mejias is assistant professor in the Communication Studies Department at SUNY Oswego. His research interests include network studies, critical theory, philosophy and social studies of technology, and political economy of new media. His book on critical network theory is scheduled for publication in 2012 by University of Minnesota Press. For more information, see <ahref="http://ulisesmejias.com"target="_blank">http://ulisesmejias.com</a></p>
Simon Browne
6 years ago