Interpreting networks

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After postmodern critique has deconstructed and displaced order and identity, we confront the challenge of reassembling these elements. This work integrates the often-unrelated fields of hermeneutics, actor-network theory, and new media to develop a theory of a global network society. Hermeneutics revisits the notion of unity amidst fragmentation, while actor-network theory reconceptualizes meaning-making as a process of networking. New media studies illustrate the mechanisms of this networking. Networks are formed, sustained, and altered through communicative actions governed by norms that constitute a social operating system. This system presents an alternative to the prevailing algorithmic logic and systemic closure that currently address the complexities of modern life. The meaning constructed within this social operating system creates a mixed reality, where filters and layers supersede traditional constraints of space and time in shaping knowledge and action. Society and nature, along with humans and non-humans, converge in a socio-sphere of hybrid, heterogeneous actor-networks. The book advocates for a reinterpretation of hermeneutics as networking, guided by a social operating system rooted in new media, leading to a theory of a global network society articulated through concepts distinct from those of Western modernity.