The celebration of network cultures as open, decentralized and horizontal all too easily overshadows their political dimensions. In Organized Networks, Ned Rossiter, the author of Politics of a Digital Present and Refashioning Pop Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan Flows, Political Tempos and Aesthetic Industries, sets out to upend these myths by tracking the antagonisms lurking within Internet governance debates, the exploitation of labor in creative industries, and the aesthetics of global capital. Rossiter cuts across the fields of media theory, political philosophy and cultural critique to diagnose some of the key issues facing network cultures, questions central to their survival in a post-dot-com era. His work grows from his experience participating in and facilitating network cultures. His explanation of their current transformation into semi-autonomous political and cultural "networks of networks" is virtuosic. And his proposals are radical. A book of the future-present.
