Political Network Topologies

How do we understand politics? In some recent discussions I’ve been in, I am finding two popular models. One is of the citizen as consumer. The campaign manufactures political material for the citizen to consume. The goal of the campaign is to get citizens to consume more of your ‘stuff’ than your opponents’. The cynical can find less polite words to use than ‘stuff’. This can lead to great discussions about marketing, advertising and branding. However, it doesn’t do much for democracy.

Another model that is popular these days is that of the family, the political leader as strong father or nurturing mother. This too is paternalistic, or maternalistic, and doesn’t do much for democracy either.

In response to the second model, I wrote a suggestion that perhaps we need to the sassy big brother model of family politics, “Enough! Just grow up already!”. To me, that is a way of understanding the line from Gov. Dean that I often quote, “The biggest lie people like me tell people like you is that if you vote for me, I’ll solve all your problems. The truth is, you have the power.”

So, what is this power that Gov. Dean has suggested that we have? Perhaps a better model of understanding political power is to look at networks. I am currently reading Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications” by Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarfeld. It was published in 1955 and draws heavily on research done on how people formed their opinions in the 1940 presidential election.

The flow of information from the mass media and the importance of personal discussions that are outlined there are very similar to discussions about mass media and personal discussions today. Blogs are just a new way of doing what people have done for ages.

How do we understand the role of blogs, mailing lists, discussions at the beauty parlor, and so on? It seems as if a useful model isn’t consumers or children in some family, but nodes in a network. Yes, there are some people that are satisfied to simply receive information and act on it in the voting booth. These people are the consumers or the children. From a network perspective, they are the leaf nodes, receiving information and acting upon it, but having very limited power.

The more interesting nodes in complicated networks are the connectors, those nodes that receive information, process it, and pass information on to other nodes. These are the nodes that have grown up already, that have the power, and are truly promoting democracy. As they grow, they establish more connections and become more influential.

So, if we are interested in promoting Greater Democracy and moving past broadcast politics, perhaps we should spend less time talking about framing the message or the exact content of the message, and instead help build a stronger mesh of interconnected nodes in a political network topology.

Posted by Aldon Hynes at August 10, 2005 1:32 PM | TrackBack