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 601 Networks

 Script networks are usually linear, with few side branches, indicating the sequence of some practice. Other networks are often wide, with many intersecting branches and are more volatile than a script. Human networks serve for the exchange of capital of different sorts: Economic, social, cultural (including knowledge, information) and symbolic. Symbolic capital is prestige, reputation, fame, and the like.

 Networks vary in their density, i.e. number of direct ties between nodes, and the strength of those ties. Maximum density is n(n-1)/2 , where n is the number of nodes. With n=3, density is 3. High density yields much exchange of resources, but the corresponding communication may crowd out activities in a node. That is why hierarchy was invented, to limit communication  to the next level up or down the hierarchy. Strength of a tie is the number of activities involved in it, duration and frequency of the exchange, and the degree to which it carries ‘specific investments’, dedicated to the tie and useless elsewhere. Examples are machines or instruments or training dedicated to a relation. When the relation breaks, the investment becomes useless.

 For a node it matters how many direct ties it has, and where in the network it is located. If it has many direct ties, this is called ‘network centrality’. It yields the benefit of direct access to many resources, and being popular to have a tie with, but the drawback of getting locked in. ‘Network centrality’ is that many indirect ties between nodes run through it. The advantage is to have many contacts, direct  near and indirect afar, with varied resources and information, but it can lead to an overload that exceeds its absorptive capacity. An ideal structure is that of ‘small worlds’, with dense patches of strong ties, mutually connected by weak ties. The dense patches yield the advantage of a ‘buzz’ of intense exchange with reputation mechanisms, and weak external ties to widen access to resources and prevent stagnation of an ‘in-crowd’. A ‘peripheral position’ yields the benefit of dense local ties, with weak ties to other communities yielding wider variety of resources. This is the position of an ambassador or ‘boundary spanner’, but the risk of losing trust because of the ties with ‘outsiders’.

Networks arise spontaneously, to exchange capital. They carry the risk of exclusion: you are accepted as a member only if you have some worthwhile capital to contribute: economic, intellectual, cultural or symbolic. Those who are low on education, intellectual capital, and on prestige, symbolic capital, are excluded. They also lack acquaintances who can act as ‘wheelbarrows’ into networks, They feel neglected and ignored, and this is one of the causes of the present discontent of the poor and low educated. They feel left out, denigrated, scoffed at. But they are free to enter social media, and they do so, to excesses of rancour, grudges, expressed in invective that takes revenge on the well-connected ‘elite’, and retaliate with being ‘influencers’ who crack unfounded firecrackers.