Publishers with Networked Identities

Alex Bavelas studied social networks as a young member of the MIT economics faculty in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. His early research garnered enough attention that, by the time he was in his late twenties, he was among the leaders in the university’s Group Networks Laboratory. Having studied under social psychology pioneer Kurt Lewin, who died in 1947 when he was fifty-six years old, Bavelas helped carry on his teacher’s ideas, applying them to the study of how social ties operate within networks of individuals. Though Bavelas and many of the rest of the core of the initial group of researchers moved on to different projects after only a short time with the laboratory, they were among the first to specifically examine social networks. ¹ They found, for example, that centrality, an individual’s place within a network, generally plays a substantial role in the efficiency of communication, perception of leadership, and personal satisfaction within social networks. ² Of course, Bavelas and his colleagues were pioneers in studying physical, rather than virtual, social networks. Individuals have formed social networks out of necessity for thousands of years. ³ We naturally form these historically in-person, interconnected relationships with a variety of other social actors, which are characterized by different types of associations, from strongly bonded friendships, to individuals we communicate with at work or in school, to those acquaintances with whom we share loosely constructed ties. As sociologist Barry Wellman explained, “We find community in networks, not groups.” ⁴ In emphasizing that our personal connections, and not our memberships in specific groups, are decisive in our identities and interactions, he noted that, “complex social networks have always existed, but recent technological developments in communication have afforded their emergence as a dominant form of social organization.” ⁵ Wellman’s choice of words, identifying that virtual networks are changing our “social organization,” were crucial. The widespread adoption of networked communication technologies as a dominant form of communication has done more than make everyone a publisher. Access to such tools has also made each person their own personal reporter and editor regarding the world around them. Citizens are customizing their sources of information, the ideas they encounter, 45and the people with whom they communicate. They are also using networked tools to carefully curate their own online identities, intentionally selecting images and words they present to others, often with the goal of receiving as many “likes” or “shares” as possible. Certainly, individuals have always been aware of concerns such as these, but online tools empower people to construct new identities that are substantially different than those they project in physical spaces. For these and other reasons discussed within this chapter, the formation of such identities are substantially intertwined with questions about the rights of publishers in the twenty-first century.