Having been made my way through parts of Deleuze and Guattari A Thousand Plateaus, I've been wanting to put some thoughts down on the connection between swarming forms of media and their concept of the rhizome. The reason the concept seems such a natural comparison to the new type of user-media interaction is that the rhizome is based on principles of connectivity and heterogeneity. This type of formation stands in contrast to the hierarchical tree, "any point...can be connected to anything other, and must be." So instead of chains of meaning and power leading from one point to the next we have any node with a potential for connection to any other node within the system. This is the idealized vision of new media network interactivity: universal connection in opposition to uni-directional paths. In this sense, D&G have provided a strong grounding for analysis of such networks.

Is it a problem, however, that this concept is being applied to a network/network-system as proof of its difference from other forms? It seems that D&G are attempting to adapt the way we conceive of almost everything: the creation of meaning, power structures, cities, etc. They are not setting it up in opposition to a non-rhizome, but explaining, rather, that these non-rhizomes indeed operate rhizomatically on some level. So rather than thinking that the concept of the rhizome reifies swarming media, it might be more appropriate to say that swarming media could reify the rhizome.

In many ways this connects with the current and past debates over the relevance of the term "cyberspace." Two posts on The End of Cyberspace describe Dan Hunter and Cory Doctorow's "nominations" for new words to replace this fading term. The essential problem is that "cyberspace" does not seem to reflect the emergent, interactive, and rhizomatic qualities of what we see developing. Is this optimism, or are we witnessing the development of an explicit actualization of D&G's concept; a system that openly aims to thrive in a distributed fashion?

At the same time as this perceived shift from tree to rhizome occurs, it's hard to avoid the occasional story of corporate interests chopping up this root system, blocking access, interaction for the sake of profit and power. This fear represents the idea that corporate entities represent hierarchical systems in their purest and that these systems are a threat to the rhizome. Yet I would think that D&G might argue that the power of these entities comes from their manipulation of the rhizomatic power structure and creation of meaning rather than their internal organization. Perhaps then these horror stories cannot be painted with such broad strokes.