THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE CONCEPT OF NETWORK SOCIETY

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 - Samujjal Ray


Source: Pixabay

 

Introduction

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 ushered in dramatic changes in our everyday life.  A key change was the increased use of digital space. This would not have been possible without the internet and its associated technology. This transformed nature of society was explored almost three decades earlier with Manuel Castell's and Jan Van Dijk ideas of the network society. This term was first used during the early 1990s.

This essay seeks here to highlight the way that both scholars highlighted the revolutionary role of the new information technologies but emphasized the multi-dimensional relationship of technology and society. They also drew attention to access to technology and questions of inequalities. Significantly the COVID-19 pandemic has brought back these questions of inequalities to the forefront. 

COVID -19 and the Online

 The extraordinary contagious nature of the disease warranted unprecedented measures to restrict its spread. Physical distancing became part of everyday lexicon and practice. Many countries introduced lock downs that brought the world of work and leisure as we had known to an abrupt halt. Schools and colleges, factories and restaurants, shops and transport systems closed down. This necessitated a shift to new practices such as working and studying from home. Online became the key buzzword. For work, education[i] and leisure. The use of language apps, interactive teaching, video lecture and online learning software increased.

During lock downs, social media use of Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp grew. By April end Netflix got 16 million sign-ups. "Netflix is and will continue to be the media company least impacted by COVID-19," said an e Marketer analyst". Their business is a near-perfect fit for a population that is suddenly housebound. Demand for streaming had been so high that Netflix said it would reduce the quality of its videos in Europe to ease the strain on internet service providers. The firm also hired an additional 2,000 customer support staff to handle the increased interest usage.[ii] Not surprisingly, experts predict that online business will flourish in these new times.[iii] 

The buzz about online and the economy, however, needs a careful look. Almost 90 per cent of workers in India work in the informal economy - that part of the economy which thrives on daily work, and daily cash, with little provisions of employment protection. Like demonetization, the lock down had exposed millions of workers and their families to starvation, hunger, death and very bleak prospects.[iv] 

Network Society

            It is important to revisit the concept of the 'network society' in the current context. The term network society was coined by Jan van Dijk in his 1991 Dutch book De Netwerkmaatschappij (The Network Society) and by Manuel Castells in The Rise of the Network Society (1996), the first part of his trilogy The Information Age. In 1978 James Martin used the related term 'The Wired Society' indicating a society that is connected by mass- and telecommunication networks.

According to Manual Castells (2004, p.3), 'a network society is a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics-based information and communication technologies'. The rise of the internet and internet generated social media platforms in contemporary times is a key example. The idea of a network society should not suggest either a technological determination or redundancy of social structure and its extant inequalities.

Castells sought to explain the structural transformation as a multi-dimensional process. Technology as Castell put it is a "necessary" but albeit not sufficient condition for the emergence of a new form of social organisation" based digital communication networks. He further elaborated by likening this to the" role of electricity and the electrical engine in diffusing the organisational forms of the industrial society". There too electricity was necessary but not sufficient condition. The role of the large manufacturing factory and its correlate the labour movement were crucial also for a new form of social organisation to take place. He, therefore, conceptualized the network society as a social structure resulting from the interaction between the new technological paradigm and social organisation at large. He was also alert to the fact that these technologies that took shape in the 1970s diffused unevenly around the world. [v]

Dijk, like Castell, has been cognizant to the matter of inequalities and unevenness.

At first sight, the claim that information and communication networks such as the internet contribute to more inequality of information and communication seems rather odd. Aren't networks particularly appropriate to diffuse and exchange information among all those connected? Isn't the internet a medium where you can retrieve most information for free and exchange e-mails, chats, twitters, SMS messages and others almost without cost? Hasn't the internet become much more accessible and user-friendly since the days the Wold-Wide Web started?  [vi]

Yet, he contends that "the actual use of information and communication networks such as the Internet, in contemporary society, most likely leads to more instead of less inequality of all kinds when no effective policies are invented to prevent this"(ibid).

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the surface inequalities that the facade had hidden. Many of us have faced major challenges despite the widespread use of digital media. People mostly from the marginalized sections were excluded due to network issues, lack of smartphones, internet access, etc. The digital divide has been one primary concern in recent years. Dijk (2006, p. 178) defines 'digital divide as the gap between those who do and do not have access to computers and the Internet'. The digital divide in an unequal society such as India is evident in all spheres – education, tele-medicine, banking, e-commerce, e-governance, all of which became accessible only via the internet during the lock down.[vii] One refers to only one such tragic story to highlight the danger that technology alone is a panacea for societies.

Aishwarya Reddy, 19, had asked for a laptop, even a second-hand one, to continue her college classes during the corona virus lock down. But her family struggled with the request. Last week, the student of Delhi's Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR) died by suicide at her home in Telangana, calling herself a "burden to her family" in a note -- a wrenching example of the tragedy of thousands of families and students left financially desperate by the virus shutdown.

Her shattered father, a motorcycle mechanic, said he would have somehow raised the money to support Aishwarya's education. She had scored 98.5 per cent in Class 12 and was the family's pride.[viii]

References:

Castells, M. (Ed.). (2004). The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Castells, M. (2010). The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 1: The Rise of the Network Society (2nd Ed). Oxford: Blackwell.

Van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2006). The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media (2nd Ed). London: Sage Publications.

       


[iii] According to IBEF, the market opportunities for online commerce in India are expected to touch $200 billion by 2026 from $30 billion in 2017. The report also states that the Indian e-commerce industry is expected to overtake its US counterpart to become the second-largest market for e-commerce in the world by 2034. https://razorpay.com/learn/impact-covid-19-e-commerce-india/, accessed on 14th November 2020.

[viii] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/lsr-student-suicide-in-telangana-unable-to-afford-laptop-lsr-student-dies-by-suicide-at-telangana-home-2322674, accessed on 15th November 2020.


Samujjal Ray has completed his M.Phil. from the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai in 2019.

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