By charles kulwa n reg no 42688

Network society and communication technology

A network society is a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics based information and communication technologies. By social structures you know the organization arrangements of human in relations of production, consumption, reproduction experience, and power expressed in a meaningful communication coded by culture. Network is a set of interconnected nodes. 

A node is the point where the curve intersects itself. A network has no centre, just nodes. Nodes may be of varying relevance for the network. Nodes increase their importance for the networks by absorbing more relevant information, and processing it more effectively. The relative importance of a node does not stem from its specific features but from its ability to contribute to the networks goals. However, all nodes of a network are necessary for the networks performance. 

When nodes become redundant or useless, networks tend to recon figurate themselves, deleting some nodes, and adding new ones. Communication networks are the patterns of contact that created by flows of message among communications through time and space ( Monge and contactors 2003) so, network process flows. Flows are streams of information between nodes circulating through the channels of connection between nodes. A network is defined by the program that assigns the network its goals and its rule of performance. 

This program is made of codes that include valuation of performance and criteria for success or failure. to alter the outcomes of the network a new program (a set of compatible codes) will have to be installed in the network from outside the network. Network cooperates or compete with each other. Cooperation is based on the ability to communicate between networks. 

This ability depends on the existence of codes of translation and inter operability between the networks (protocol of communication), and on access to connection points (switches). Competition depends on the ability to outperform other networks by superior efficiency in performance or in cooperation capacity. Competition may also take a destructive form by disrupting the switchers of competing networks and or interfering with their communication protocols. 

Networks work on a binary logic: inclusive /exclusive within the networks, distance between nodes tends to zero, as networks follow the logic of small worlds, properties, they are able to connect to the entire network and communicated  networks from any node in the networks, on the condition of sharing protocols of communication. Between nodes in the network and outside the network, distance is infinite, since there is no access unless the program of the network is changed. Thus, networks are self reconfigurable, complex structures of communication that ensure the unity of the purpose and the flexibility of its execution, by the capacity to adapt to the operating environment.

Networks however are not specific to 21^st century societies or for that matter, to human organization. Networks constitute the fundamental pattern of life, of all kinds of life. As fritjof capra writs ‘’ the networks is pattern that is common to all life., wherever we see life, we see networks ( 2002)