what kind of network is culture?
What kind of network is culture? It’s a question we have to answer if we’re going to use network theory at all. The scale-free network (think airline as the metaphor…smaller airports, more heavily connected hubs) is good. It is not, however, enough…because each of the points of the scale-free culture network is itself a network. Gotta remember that cultures, groups all interlock. There are multiple levels, and how something spreads within my group of friends (and among like-minded, whether friends or not) is different than how a sci-fi text suddenly becomes mainstream (hits the threshold and has a cascade reaction). We exist in multiple social dimensions simultaneously, and this has major effects on how culture operates. Explaining the interactions of these multiple social dimensions, then, is of drastic importance.
