I've written about self- and social-classification on this blog before. Recently, however, I've been revisiting the concept and the social formations that are produced as a result. For reference, here is are a couple quotes from previous entries that illustrate these ideas:

"One way to describe our current mode of web-based interaction is to call it self- and social-classification. The root of interaction among these new media has been to classify ourselves and others. Our interactions leave marks on the participants, and these marks are stored and become the basis for future interaction and perception. Web-based media has literalized this to the point where these marks—and their archivization—are the oft-unspoken goal of interaction. As a result, we continually develop our grand and subtle, yet all-encompassing and controlling, cultural archive of identity."

...and

"Thus the control that Palmer talks about still does occur, but it occurs not solely from some capitalist ubergeist, but from ourselves, our multiple tendrils of identity, and the emergent effects of the resulting network."

In both these instances I was writing about the subjective and control effects of web-based interaction from the perspective of the individual. Yet I pulled back to look at the produced social formations I fell back on ideas like the panopticon.

I now think that a more descriptive and theoretically useful term would be assemblage, in the Deleuzian sense. This concept fits neatly with the idea that self- and social-classification constitute the relations that form a larger entity. Web-based interaction produces assemblages ranging from MySpace groups, to social networks, to P2P networks. All involving numerous territorializing and deterritorializing elements.

More on this when I find a quiet evening...