From Link to Link. The New Geometry of the Social

This title, calling to mind the lines “From cliffs to cliffs, and from century to century” from Ivan Vazov’s well-known poem, was made up by Julia Rone when we were working on the “New Youth and New Media” research project. We suddenly realized that today’s twenty-something-year-olds no longer read electronic magazines and news websites, nor do they normally watch TV– they forward Internet links to each other. It does not by all means follow that they are less informed than the adults, it follows rather that instead of the media institution, the internaut is faced to the network of his or her friends. If you project this onto the social contacts, the civic mobilizations, the aesthetic tastes, you find that the Net confronts us with an entirely new geometry of the social in which there is no center, no coercion, no canon. This new geometry was referred to as “network society” by Castells, “liquid modernity” by Bauman.

Taking as points of departure social networks such as YouTube or Facebook, phenomena such as emotions or nationalism, and cultural practices such as protests or interactivity, the articles featured here reflect upon the issue of how new this virtual sociality is, and to what extent it comes down to the intensification of the old interpersonal relationships.

Ivaylo Ditchev, Editor of Seminar_BG #1