La question de la démocratie des réseaux socio-numériques

• Main Authors: Roger Bautier, Gabriella Giudici
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Presses Universitaires du Mirail 2014-12-01
• Series: Sciences de la Société
• Subjects: digital social networks; democracy; public space; network science; web science
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/sds/931

Many studies have highlighted the potential of participation in political life offered by the rise of digital social networks. Yet Network Science (from physics) that has developed since the very end of the twentieth century has shown that the networks linked to the web are far from democratic and that they manifest a radical inequality. Conversely, proponents of Web Science (also from physics) consider that the web is democratic because it has no central coordination for the creation of hyperlinks, while being well aware of failings caused by this absence. This dual perspective offered by approaches from the “hard” sciences enables to review, from the perspective of the social sciences, the actual modalities of intervention in a public space transformed by digital social networks.