From Community to Collective: Institution and Agency in the Age of Social Networks

When we shift our focus from an individual to their network of relationships, we start asking different questions: how the communities an individual belongs are structured; what is their dynamics; how the influence spreads within them; who are the most active and/or valuable members.

The social scalability of an institutional technology depends on how that technology constrains or motivates participation in that institution. cultural and jurisdictional diversity of people who can beneficially participate in an institution is also often important, especially in the global Internet context. The more an institution depends on loca... See more