The network as a form of spatial organization on the internet and social structure

Arkhangelsky Ivan Andreevich

The article considers the problem of the development of a special subspace of social space, which is the Internet. Evidence of this is the presence in it: 1) social factors (individual and collective); 2) the designated actors occupy certain unequal social positions; 3) in the course of their interaction there is cooperation and struggle for influence, information, statuses, various kinds of capital; 4) in the Internet space there is social inequality and mobility, institutional structures, social phenomena, for example, public opinion; 5) social institutions penetrate into the Internet and function there, influencing the functioning of institutions offline; 6) for a social actor, the conditions of the Internet, even with all freedom of action, have signs of elements of social reality, which affect the further positions and interaction of actors, what external conditions relative to them. The involvement of the Internet in social transformations is confirmed by the fact that the attitude to the Internet becomes an indicator of attribution to a particular social class, the formation of structures of inequality in society. The author proves that the mechanisms of social selection have already been developed on the Internet as a medium of social interaction, ensuring the mobility and orientation of actors when choosing subjects of interaction that can be trusted. The inequality of the resources of objects and actors is determined by search engines.

Keywords:network, Internet space, network interaction, social reality, inequality, center and periphery.