Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Digital social networks and relation systems 247 ciety for which the systems of relation in digital networks are constituted (or experimented). Some of these urgencies arise directly, from previous objectives and challenges, when faced with the possibility (or need, for interaction with the environment) of their confronta- tion by activating new resources. The previous problem itself changes its profile: due to the new objectives of reach, circula- tion, participants’ profile, how they “enter the network” or can be urged to enter. Not infrequently, we directly have new prob- lems, already deriving from this pseudo imposition of expanded circulation, or need for access, the possibility of inventing other interactions, scopes, and actions made viably, but previously unthought. What happens then is a slide in what is already fore- seen – as a source of opportunities, but also as the absence of de- fined paths. Technologies appear, of course, with their offerings. These offerings, that are differently experienced for the exercise or constitution of systems of relations, produce stimulating, ad- verse or paradoxical challenges: • Access to individual initiative actions is expanded in not previously imagined variety and proportions. • Diversified connections appear between the spaces of private life and the public space, given the expan- sion of possible circuits in the network. • These traditionally distinguished areas, conse- quently, see their design, scope, articulations (in- ternal and between the two spaces) modified. • Confounding factors derived from interceptions between the public sphere and private worlds, from individual and institutional actions, from spe- cialized and amateur sectors, from the porosity of borders between social fields, open the possibility for socially rich experiences, but also give rise to misunderstandings and uncontrollable risks. • The spread of possible actions and the origins of initiative, which produces an expansion of free- doms, is accompanied, on the other hand, by forms