The new economy may or may not materialise, but there is no doubt that the next society will be with us shortly. In the developed world, and probably in the emerging countries as well, this new society will be a good deal more important than the new economy (if any). It will be quite different from the society of the late 20th century, and also different from what most people expect. Much of it will be unprecedented. And most of it is already here, or is rapidly emerging."

The next society | The Economist, November 1

Paul Virilio, author of the excellent and interesting book, _The Information Bomb_, talks about the war in Kosovo. From the introduction:

"Paul Virilio is a renowned urbanist, political theorist and critic of the art of technology. Born in Paris in 1932, Virilio is best known for his 'war model' of the growth of the modern city and the evolution of human society. He is also the inventor of the term 'dromology' or the logic of speed. Identified with the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, the futurism of Marinetti and technoscientific writings of Einstein, Virilio's intellectual outlook can usefully be compared to contemporary architects, philosophers and cultural critics such as Bernard Tschumi, Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard."

Paul Virilio on the War in Kosovo | Ctheory Interview

"When a computer network connects people or organizations, it is a social network. Yet the study of such computer-supported social networks has not received as much attention as studies of human-computer interaction, online person-to-person interaction, and computer-supported communication within small groups. We argue the usefulness of a social network approach for the study of computer-mediated communication. We review some basic concepts of social network analysis, describe how to collect and analyze social network data, and demonstrate where social network data can be, and have been, used to study computer-mediated communication. Throughout, we show the utility of the social network approach for studying computer-mediated communication, be it in computer-supported cooperative work, in virtual community, or in more diffuse interactions over less bounded systems such as the Internet."

Studying Online Social Networks | Journal of Computer Mediated Communication

The Electronic Small World Project seeks to map the social connections among people using email. Using the tools of social network analysis, we hope to construct the first images of the social topography (as opposed to the technical or physical topography) of the Internet. This social map will help us understand how information moves through society, how different types of people are connected, and how small the social world in which we live really is.

The Electronic Small World Project

The Pew Trust has just released a new report on the development of online communities and their social impact on life in America. Of note: 90 million Americans have participated in online groups; 84% of 'net users have used an online group. A quote from the director: "For vast numbers of Americans, use of the Internet simultaneously expands their social worlds and connects them more deeply to the place where they live."

Here's the outline of the report. Full text is available online.

Summary of Findings
Table of Contents
Part 1: Background
Part 2: The Internet, Communities, and the Virtual "Third Place"
Part 3: New community participants
Part 4: The differences among online group members
Part 5: The Internet and local scene
Methodology

Online Communities: Networks that nurture long-distance relationships and local ties

In the Northeast, the E-ZPass system, which has six million tags in circulation, is being tested at the drive-through windows at two McDonald's locations on Long Island, and the agency that oversees the system is studying whether to expand elsewhere, including gas stations and parking garages."

It's the Cars, Not the Tires, That Squeal

Amazon doesn't have any details on this book, so I've collected below a number of comments from elsewhere on the web.

In this book an international team of authors explore themes of depth and surface, of real and conceptual space and of human/ machine interaction. The collection is organized around the concept of 'technospace' -- the temporal realm where technology meets human practice. In exploring this intersection, the contributors initiate debate on a number of important conceptual questions:

* Is there a clear distinction between the 'real' spaces of the body or the city and the conceptual space of 'virtual' reality?
* How are the real and metaphorical spaces of electronic cultures quantified and regulated?
* Is there an ethic of technospace?

Historically the reception of new technologies has been invested with romantic idealism on the one hand and panic on the other. The authors argue that in order for utopian dreams to be tempered by ethical, humanistic needs, we have an urgent need to reveal, reflect upon and evaluate technospace and our relationship to it.

Science and technology have had a profound affect on the way humans perceive space and time -think, for example of the way information technologies such as the telephone have reduced our former perception of the world as inaccessible, unknowable and exotic to a sensibility of nearness, friendliness, fellowship and instantaneity (the so-called "global village"). The scientific knowledge which produces technology remains a system of beliefs, the perspectives of science are thought-structures, that is ideologies, which organise the world into sets of believable fictions. Although science has tried to define "the thing in itself", it ends up exploring "the thing for me", through the practical postulate - the praxis - of space/time paradigms. This had had a practical effect upon our invention, and our use, of new technologies.

People meet technology in technospaces, places outside the body and the city and reality -- or are they? Contributors reflect on Luddite concerns and the possibilities of a tech-driven Utopia.

Technospaces : Inside the New Media

Is western culture better than any other? Umberto Eco argues that what is important is not superiority but pluralism and toleration.

Published in The (UK) Guardian of Saturday October 13, 2001.

Unmberto Eco on the roots of conflict

* Explores how privacy and security issues are revolutionizing how we do business both in the United States and globally."

Global Summit on Privacy and Security in the Digital Age

At first glance, American patriotism seems a simple matter. But it is simple only until one actually starts to think about it, inquire after its sources, and investigate its manifestations. [...]"

This article appears in the Fall 2001 issue of _The Public Interest_, a journal about which Francis Fukuyama has said:

"When the intellectual history of the late twentieth century America is written, scholars will point to the large impact that a small journal, The Public Interest, has had in shaping the course of American public policy, on issues from crime to welfare to education. No other magazine has had a comparable effect in keeping the social sciences honest."

America: Idea or Nation?