Mapping the Great Beyond: Identifying Meaningful Networks in

INTRODUCTION
Accompanying [the] access and ability to move
information via the Internet, cell phone, fax, and
emerging digital technologies is a shift from hierarchies
to network forms of organization. These two factors are
ushering in an era of asymmetric threats, where non-state
actors can extend their influence and challenge states and
their institutions to gain social, political, or economic
influence. 1
John Sullivan
Networks matter—and the ability of organizations to identify
and visualize significant networks matters too. Understanding
how networks work is not easy, but quality analysis of networked
communication, produced by commentators like Brian Hocking
and R.S. Zaharna, are already available to Public Diplomacy
organizations. The nature of networked or relational approaches to
communication has been highlighted, for example, as an alternative
to assertive, message orientated communication, or as Brian Hocking
described it, a movement from “competition to collaboration.”
Whether comparing traditional diplomacy to “netwar” or hierarchical
to networked approaches, “Governments have at their disposal two
fundamental diplomatic strategies: bilateral and multilateral modes
of action and influence.” 2