Manuel Castells - Theory

Theory

The sociological work of Manuel Castells Oliván synthesises empirical research literature with combinations of urban sociology, organization studies, internet studies, social movements, sociology of culture, and political economy. About the origins of the network society, he posits that changes to the network form of enterprise predate the electronic internet technologies (usually) associated with network organization forms (cf. Castells and Organization Theory). Moreover, he coined the (academic) term “The Fourth World”, denoting the sub-population(s) socially excluded from the global society; usual usage denotes the nomadic, pastoral, and hunter-gatherer ways of life beyond the contemporary industrial society norm.

"Manuel Castells believes the present Information Age has the potential to unleash the power of the mind, " : the effects of such phenomenon would be a dramatic yet positive increase in the productivity of individuals. By obtaining a greater level of productivity, Castells believes that this will lead to greater leisure: allowing individuals to achieve “greater spiritual depth and more environmental consciousness(ibid)”. The effects of this change in social order are extremely optimistic; by acting in such a productive way, the world would limit it’s resource consumptions. This approach brought on by Manuel Castells is ground breaking. The Information Age, the Age of Consumption, The Network Society are all perspectives attempting to describing modern life as known in the present and to depict furthermore the future of society itself. As Castells presents, modern society would be described as “replacing the antiquated metaphor of the machine with that of the network”

In the 1970s, following the path of Alain Touraine (his intellectual father), Castells was a key developer of the variety of Marxist urban sociology that emphasises the role of social movements in the conflictive transformation of the city, (cf. post-industrial society). He introduced the concept of "collective consumption" (public transport, public housing, etc) comprehending a wide range of social struggles — displaced from the economic stratum to the political stratum via state intervention. Transcending Marxist strictures in the early 1980s, he concentrated upon the role of new technologies in the restructuring of an economy. In 1989, he introduced the concept of the "space of flows", the material and immaterial components of global information networks used for the real-time, long-distance co-ordination of the economy. In the 1990s, he combined his two research strands in The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, published as a trilogy, The Rise of the Network Society (1996), The Power of Identity (1997), and End of Millennium (1998); two years later, its worldwide, favourable critical acceptance in university seminars, prompted publication of a second (2000) edition that is 40 per cent different from the first (1996) edition.

The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture comprehends three sociological dimensions — production, power, and experience — stressing that the organisation of the economy, of the state and its institutions, and the ways that people create meaning in their lives through collective action, are irreducible sources of social dynamics — that must be understood as both discrete and inter-related entities. Moreover, he became an established cybernetic culture theoretician with his Internet development analysis stressing the roles of the state (military and academic), social movements (computer hackers and social activists), and business, in shaping the economic infrastructure according to their (conflicting) interests. The Information Age trilogy is his précis: "Our societies are increasingly structured around the bipolar opposition of the Net and the Self"; the “Net” denotes the network organisations replacing vertically integrated hierarchies as the dominant form of social organization, the Self denotes the practices a person uses in reaffirming social identity and meaning in a continually changing cultural landscape.