Well, you see, back in the.1970s there were these people-we called them information freaks, which I can only say now like I say "hippie.'' They ran around from group to group, appearing at meetings, conferences and gatherings, . pollinating social change through exchanging rare information. You could recognize them easily by their ritualistic behavior of exchanging n,ames and addresses, fugitive xerox copies of "new and interesting information." "New and Interesting" was about.as concrete a definition as was needed then. -One hardly had to know what a document said about, say, solar or wind energy. Jl,lSt that there was anything about it all made it newsworthy, and the bearer of the information an automatic member of one's network (or as Kurt Vonnegut called it, one's Karass). We tried often to set up the Net. It was assumed you could do it then. RAIN itself, in fact, grew out of a prop~sal to HEW for development of "an· environmental communications network in the Northwe·st." There was.an assumption that the "net" could be established because commonness was ~asy to identify, as it was in the sixties:_ standing on an interstate, with·heart leaping as a VW bus came along, I mean you just knew your'karass was about to pick you up. The scarcity of information, say about appropriate technology, facilitated network building. When an underground activity becomes a part of.the public marketplace, as a.t. has, the network becomes many networks; the very succes·s of communicating the ideas and information produces a social fracture. Page 20 RAIN November 1979 tw Mary Darnovsky, in an' article entitled: "Is Networking Not Working in the Anti-Nuclear Movement?" (Journal of Community Communication) makes the point that often a ,network is actually just a "pre-organization : structure;" that eventually a network is formalized into what resembles one of many models of organizations, i.e., federation, coalition, alliance, etc. Formation of, or just recognition of networks can, in this context, be a simple way of reaching for further collaboration without encountering problems·of responsibilities and rights of either individuals or organizations that arise in more formal situations. Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz, in an unpublished manuscript entitled Speculations on Facilitating Network Structures: Balancing Social Coherence and Individual Liberty, have done an admirable job of discussing the use of the term as applied to so~ial change organizations, social network analysis, and telecommunications. · At one point they describe network facilitation on the individual level .as a response to "the need to provide people with access to information about alternative ways ofliving as well as access to people with whom they can link up_to learn, share, work, solve problems; and support each other. The point is not necessarily to increase the sheer number ofconnections between people, but rather to make available a much wider range ofpotential associations to ensure a higher likelihood of developing the few actual associations which are • vital a-nd which meet perceived needs. " ited by Steve Johnson Speculations on Facilitating Network Structures: Balancing Social Coherence and Individual Liberty, Aug. 1979, $3.00 Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz 695 Fifth Street Lake Oswego, OR 97034 This paper explores the values of groups interested in alternative social structures and shows how m~thods and concepts from social network analysis and cybernetics can be used to describe and facilitate the development of desirable network structures. "Networking," The Journal of Community Communications, Village Design P.O. Box 996 Berkeley, CA 94701 The journal is in general a good source of information, and this special issue (Vol. III, No. 3, September 1979) has several good articles on networking, referred to elsewhere in this article. Social Network Analysis Social network analysis is an emerging branch of sociology which deals w_ith_ the patterns of relations between individuals and collections of individuals. With mathematical precision (and in fact theories ofpatterns and clusters developed by mathen:zat'icians) these • sociologists stu.dy the ways we relate, how we form links (or linkages) that constitute the ways we are infarmed, and our values. An important aspect to locating linkages is finding what linkages do not exist, e.g. between classes, specialties, branches ofgovernment, etc. ~, Network analysts catalog the exist- • ing and possible ways we can relate to one another, studying, for example: kinships, cliques, influence netw01:ks, farms of organizations, inter-locking, • directorships and other power structures, speech and language patterns that distinguish networks of people. Connections, from: The International Network for ·social Network Analysis c/o Centre for Urban and Community Community Studies University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario MSS, lAl CANADA The first issue of this newsletter was devoted to a direqory of social network analysts.
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