Social Network Theory
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Conditions for the Viral Transmission of Revolutionary Ideas
Excerpted from Greg Satell:
- "Receptivity: Every viral chain starts of with a core group of interconnected people and the key attribute is not influence, but receptivity.
It often seems that viral memes just appear out of nowhere, but in fact they thrive in a subculture first. The infamous meme of LOLcats, for example, had been percolating through 4chan long before it broke out into the general population.
- Network Structure: Paul Revere rode through the towns of New England, not in the rural south and that’s no accident. Memes will travel faster and wider in the interconnected network of Nascar than it will through disparate orchestra fans. As I’ve written before, the value of a network lies not so much in its size but its structure.
- Transmission Vectors: Whatever the contagion, it must be transmitted somehow in order to spread. In the American Revolution, through pamphlets like Common Sense, in the Civil Rights movement, churches, fax machines in the fall of the Soviet Bloc, SMS messages and Internet boards in the color revolutions and social media in the Arab spring.
Whatever vectors are chosen, successful revolutionaries learn how to use them effectively and pursue them intensely.
- Instantaneousness Phase Transition: Probably the most curious thing about revolutions is they seem to burst on the scene all at once. The precursors are often around for years, even decades, then all of the sudden the network syncs and revolution breaks out."
(http://www.digitaltonto.com/2012/social-networks-viral-memes-and-revolution-in-the-real-world/)
More Information
- intro to contemorary social network theory: http://www.digitaltonto.com/2010/the-story-of-networks/