Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Digital social networks and relation systems 251 this angle that technologies are better investigated, not as deter- minants of processes, but as a sector undergoing experimenta- tion in the face of what is, tentatively, defined as “urgency.” To articulate this communicational macro issue with an analysis of specific digital networks, it seems interesting to turn not to logics (specific or transversal) which explain the function - ing of networks and define their most relevant patterns (as if they were fully established codes), but rather to highlight the prob- lems and challenges that social experimentation is working with. VIII – Conclusion From a theoretical point of view, what can ensure an articulating work between the results of an analysis of diversity is the search for dimensions of variation that allow overcom- ing the simple dispersion. The variation dimensions found en- able us to relate the varied elements to the aspects according to which they vary. It is not a question, then, of aligning theoretical logics that decide the characterizing elements, but of observing what the social participants themselves are trying to achieve with their ongoing experiences. Some general questions may serve as horizon issues for the proposed analytics. What urgencies are evident in the sys- tem of relations in which they try to develop? How do these ur- gencies appear in syntony and/or displacement with more com - mon problems or of the same social environment? What main goals are present for the participants, and how do these goals harmonize or conflict with each other? How are the objectives and interests of the participants presented and distinguished, and what can be considered as an objective of the social process (established, changing, under construction, or imagined)? What do the participants (and the process), in the search for articulat- ing arrangements, put as expectations related to the technologi- cal resources used? How are these resources exercised, strained, what derivations and articulations are sought in the diversity of resources? What occurrences are manifested in the experimen- tation, as predictable, unpredictable, favoring objectives, redi -