On Galloway : Protocol

The diagram: the distributed network (structural form without center that resembles a web or meshwork)

The technology: the digital computer (an abstract machine able to perform the work of any other machine) 

The management style: protocol (the principle of organisation native to computers in distributed networks)

         from Galloway p 3

In considering the periodizations of modern and post modern society, Galloway recognises (citing Foucault) the sovereign societies of the classical era, during which time power was centralized with the sovereign (and stepping down through the hierarchy) and underpinned with violence and coercion in order to command and control. Modern disciplinary societies were underpinned by bureaucratic command and control. This has now shifted to the decentralized societies of control rather than of discipline. 

In the computerized postmodern age, command and control are found in computerized information management and networked computer at the core of which is protocol (p 6). These commands and controls are not just snippets that make hardware function so we can do our jobs or talk to Great Aunt Gertie back in England, but are measures control that are insidiously present in day to day living by mere function of the extent to which our world is computerized and networked. Regardless of what we use our computers or our devices for, or when, or how, we are all constrained by the protocols by which these machines operate. As users we do not control these protocols - much of the time we are unaware of their presence let alone their function. Our web pages for example comply with Hypertext Transfer Protocol yet  few of us know what that is or how it functions - and yet we submit to its control. These protocols permit us to perform  - possibly even function in many case - secure in the belief we as a computer operator are in control, unaware that we are being controlled.  Galloway gives the extreme but pertinent example that the simple removal of a '.'  from a piece of code can remove an entire nation from a screen, a network, and to all intents and purposes existence.  Extreme? Not when we consider how many times a day we double check a URL or an email to be sure we have a correct spelling. Perfect spelling is not the end goal but compliance. 

Protocols are, according to Galloway, techniques for achieving voluntary regulation within a contingent environment (p7) Because of their universality - HTML and CSS comply with the same protocols regardless of where the user lives, what language they speak, what they use the technology for  - they allow local devices to communicate with foreign ones. Protocols enforce - albeit in a non violent manner - compliance. Information sent from one machine is fluid and non hierarchical but is then processed by a machine that redefines it in a rigid hierarchical manner before then becoming the fluid component ahead of the next step. 

The result is a communicating, non hierarchical, peer to peer relationship between machines and within networks on which we depend for the ongoing functioning of post modern society.