La reticolarità del potere e lo “sfarinamento da consenso” nel mondo contemporaneo

Power networking and “grain pulverizing of consensus” in the contemporary world. The evolution of information and communication technologies has contributed to the emergence of new scenarios for human-human and human-technologies interactions. New words and phrases like “virtual communities” and “smart mobs” have been introduced to denote unprecedented patterns of social and political actions. This article deals with the concomitant transformation of power relations and asymmetries, with particular reference to consensus dynamics. The analysis leads to identification of complex phenomena, whose main characteristics can be summarized by using the metaphor of “grain pulverizing”: when such a metaphor is appropriate, it is because it conveys the phenomenology and outcome of power management practices, which are oriented to new types of aggregates that lose compactness as fast as they assumed it.