Yale University Press - ISBN 0300110561
The social changes caused by the networked communications global use has not been yet researched as deeply as we need it. Nevertheless we're already used to the social quick shift to a distributed personal upgrade and to some of the most radical yet invisible transformations as the email as the personal news medium, the blog as the symbol of freedom of expression and the personal network as The social changes caused by the networked communications global use has not been yet researched as deeply as we need it. Nevertheless we're already used to the social quick shift to a distributed personal upgrade and to some of the most radical yet invisible transformations as the email as the personal news medium, the blog as the symbol of freedom of expression and the personal network as the individual permanent free zone. This text is one of the few that investigated these areas with almost no pretentious speculations. Concise definition of changes flocks, clearly describing the "decentralized individual actions (cooperative and coordinated)" or the "basic, non marketed, non proprietary organization form", depicting the astonishing activity caused by the new individual freedom. Good insights from the history of radio and newspapers reinforces the current information environments ("from the highly passive tv to the personal productive net") that are taking over the feared 'babel effect' (information overload caused by the unstoppable net mare magnum of data). The fear of the latter was effectively avoided by the 'filter' concept, or the spontaneous sharing of specific singular or collective selection of contents, and the respective mutual trust. The virtuous so-called 'ripple effects', if purposefully led, seem finally to be at the core of many past, present and future small revolutions of our social expressions.