The fantasy of abundance both expresses and conceals the shift from message to contribution. It expresses the shift through its emphases on expansions in communication-faster, better, cheaperj more inclusive, more accessible; high-speed, broadband, and so on. Yet even as it emphasizes these multiple expansions and intensifications, this abundance, the fantasy occludes the resulting devaluation of any particular contribution. It presumes that all contributions, all sites, are equal, equally likely to be heard or to make a diference. Enthusiastically reiterating the idea that anyone and everyone can participate, contribute, express themselves, and create, the fantasy of abundance also prevents us from recognizing the underlying inequalities inextricable from complex networks.
Recent developments in network science demonstrate structure in seemingly random networks. On the Web, for example, sites are not equally likely to have the same number of links. Nor are links randomly distributed among sites in a predictable, bell-curv� fashion. Instead, there are clusters and hubs wherein some sites are nodes to which many sites link. These hubs serve as connectors for other nodes. In his path-breaking work on structure in complex networks, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi finds hubs on the Web, in Hollywood, in citation networks, phone networks, food webs in ecosystems, and even cellular networks where some molecules, like water, do much more work than others.16
Barabasi explains that degree distribution in networks with hubs� most real networks, follows a power-law. He writes, "Power laws mathematically formulate the fact that in most real networks the majority of nodes �ave only a Jew links and that these numerous tiny nodes coexist with a few big hubs, nodes with an anomalously high number of links. The few links connecting the smaller nodes to each other are not suficient to ensure that the network is fully connected. This function is secured by the relatively rare hubs that keep real networks from falling apart" ( 70) . In most real networks, nodes don't have an average number of links. Rather, a few have exponentially more links than others. Barabasi describes the diference between random networks and networks that follow a power-law degree distribution with the term scale. In random networks, there is a limit to the number of links a node can have as well as an average number of links. Random networks thus have a characteristic "scale:' In most real networks, however, "there is no such thing as a characteristic node. ·we see a continuous hierarchy of nodes, spanning from the rare hubs to the numerous tiny nodes" ( 70). These networks don't scale. They are "scale free:
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