What do you understand by the network society How has the network Essay

What do you understand by the network society How has the network society changed the ways in which we work and interact - Essay Example In essence globalization emerged with national boundaries becoming porous. Gradually, people began to view themselves as a ‘global village’ national and geographic boundaries began to disappear, and work began to have no distinction of time, space or organizational hierarchy in the information society (Malamud 1997). Through network society, Information, Communication Technology (ICTS) have come up with numerous social, political and economic phenomena, a term that emerged from various theorists to explain a society that is connected by mass and telecommunication networks. Additionally, the ICTs demonstrate a society as a transformation era from an industrial age to an information age, which is central to the working of the economy. This enables annihilation of space and facilitates globalization. Of importance to note is that, network society is a global network that has led to decentralization of organization from vertical hierarchies to horizontal corporations. Large corporations decentralize themselves as networks of semi-autonomous units (Barney 2004) In a network society there exist a network economy, which acts as a new, efficient form of organization of production, distribution and management that facilitates substantial increase in productivity growth rate especially in the United States and related countries that have adopted these new forms of economic organization. In fact, many businesses have increasingly adopted a virtual approach to work space. This situation has led to evolution of business into a large organization a network that contains workforce that is distributed over diverse locations and time zones. These working forms have continually created new cultures and forms of belonging, over and above, gaining identity (Nikravesh 2004). Social Networking In light of the network society, social network has enormously contributed to a global village as would be expected. Essentially, social networking incorporates informal, transien t forms of association such as gossip flow, mobilization of social movements and political movements with the inclusion of maintenance of patron -client relations, known or unknown to each other. Besides, social networking incorporates individuals or groups who are liked by a common bond, shared social status, similar or shared functions, as well as, geographic and cultural connection. Needless to mention, social networking as web based services that give individuals to generate a public or semi public profile that is within a bounded system. It further articulates a list of users with whom they share a connection over and above being able to see what has been generated by other users in the system (Dijk 2012). As part of the information age, social networking lays its focus building online communities of people who have share interests, or are interested in searching the interest of others. Such sites include facebook, my space, twitter among others. Communication in social net wor king includes instant messaging, email, blogging and many more. This makes it easier to maintain ties simultaneously with several people, a situation that would not be possible without the presence of ICTs. In workplaces, social networking has been rated as one among the technologies that have significantly led to business development in the twenty-first century. As a result of this, maintaining professional networking has become crucial to businesses in relation to project and teamwork. For instance, those organisations that have invested in social networking