The Poverty of Networks

Abstract

The use of networks as an explanatory framework is widespread in the literature that surrounds technology and information society. The three books reviewed here — The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler, Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software by Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter, and The Exploit: A Theory of Networks by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker — all make a claim to the novelty that networks provide to their subject matter. By looking closely at the way in which the network is utilized in each of the texts, this review attempts to question the extent to which a network analysis can ground a claim about a discontinuity in technology, society or economics.