What is the Network Society?
The
prologue defines what Castells means by “network society”, names Castells’ main
themes, and offers a brief historical survey of how the network society evolved
through the key events of the computer and information revolution. I offer one quote that serves as both a
manifesto and statement of purpose for the trilogy:
“I believe in rationality, and the possibility of calling upon reason, without worshipping its goddess. I believe in the chances of meaningful social action and transformative politics without necessarily drifting towards the deadly rapids of absolute utopias. I believe in the liberating power of identity, without accepting the necessity of either its individualization or its capture of fundamentalism. And I propose the hypothesis that all major trends of change constituting our new, confusing world are related, and that we can make sense of their interrelationship. And, yes, I believe, in spite of a long tradition of sometimes tragic intellectual errors, that observing, analyzing, and theorizing are a way of helping to build a different, better world. Not by providing the answers—that will be specific to each society and found by social actors themselves—but by raising some relevant questions” (p. 4).
One
of the most significant themes for Castells is how the network society reshapes
identity. In the network society where
social interactions may be distributed and associations unstable, identity
becomes more elusive, yet increasingly important for building meaning. As
Castells argues, “Identity is becoming the main, and sometimes the only, source
of meaning in an historical period characterized by the widespread
destructuring of organizations, delegitimation of institutions, fading away of
major social movements, and ephemeral cultural expressions. People increasingly
organize their meaning not around what they do but on the basis of what they are,
or believe they are (p. 3). The first
volume of this trilogy, The Rise of the
Network Society, appears to lay the foundation for investigation of
identity that Castells is also keenly interested in. Due to the daunting size of the books, I don’t
know if I will get around to reading the second volume, but I do think the
ideas that Castells raises are worth investigating.
Network Society made visible
Family reunion, Iowa, 2013
An ANT View of Chapter 1: The Information Technology Revolution
As I read chapter 1, the thoroughness with which Castells traced the connections reminded me of Actor Network Theory. Latour (2005) emphasizes the importance of noticing where things are made. For example, he proposes that “whenever anyone speaks of a ‘system,’ a ‘global feature’, a ‘structure’, a ‘society’, an ‘empire’, a ‘world economy’, an ‘organization’, the first ANT reflex should be to ask: ‘In which building? In which bureau? Through which corridor is it accessible?” (p. 183) Castells also seems aware of the importance of delineating where things happened. He talks about where were things made (i.e. laboratories, garages, etc.). Details of place were not the only details that Castells includes that reminded me of the sorts of things that ANT notices. He also discusses some meetings that mattered. He describes the influence of key individuals. He traces inventions and ideas and connects them to their effects. This includes the invention of the transistor, integrated circuit, and silicon chips, development of computers, creation and development of internet, development of networks, fiber optics, and biotechnology breakthroughs.
He
talks about what human interactions came together to make things happen. He notes where humans and objects/ideas came
together to make things happen. For example,
telling the standardization story is important for understanding how details
can matter. That is, Castells talks
about the development of HTML, TCP/IP protocols, and URLs, all of which were
influential in allowing computers to find each other and communicate. This standardization was essential for generating
the distributed and cooperative development of the internet as we know it.
In
broad terms, some of these factors that came together to bring about the
information technology revolution, include “key sources of talent” from France
and Germany, “scientific discoveries” that “originated in England, France,
Germany, and Italy,” particularly related to electronics and biology, “the
ingenuity of Japanese companies” which has been “critical in the improvement of
manufacturing processes,” and the key role of California as a hotbed of
electronics innovation in the 1970s, driven by a juxtaposition of several
factors—individual pioneers who settled there, the development of companies,
relationships with universities such as Stanford and Berkeley, San Francisco
visual creativity, and the momentum synergized by all of these, attracting
talent from many countries (p. 61-66).
Interestingly,
in most countries electronics industries have developed in the same locations
where heavy industries had flourished in earlier periods. The USA is distinctive in that Silicon Valley
was not previously a manufacturing center.
In other places the role of the state is important, such as in
Japan. A point that Castells makes is
that social development can’t be assumed to operate in the same ways
everywhere. However, it is important for
several ingredients to come together to create synergy. That is, Castells notes that “the metropolitan
character of most sites of information technology revolution around the world
seems to indicate that the critical ingredient in its development is not the
newness of the institutional and cultural setting, but its ability to generate
synergy on the basis of knowledge and information, directly related to
industrial production and commercial applications” (p. 67).
Synergy illustrated
Display from Hillsboro, Oregon exhibit
Photographed in 2005
To
conclude my summary of the chapter, the foundations of the network society are:
- First, “that information is raw material” which acts on information itself. Information was important in the Industrial Revolution—but it acted on technology.
- Second, it is pervasive because information “is an integral part of all human activity” (p. 70).
- Third, “networking logic” is acts to “structure the unstructured while preserving flexibility” (p. 71).
- Fourth, flexibility is a core value: “what is distinctive to the configuration of the new technological paradigm is its ability to refigure, a decisive feature in a society characterized by constant change and organizational fluidity” (p. 71).
- Fifth, things are become increasingly integrated into one system that subsumes everything. “Thus, micro-electronics, telecommunications, opto-electronics, and computers are now integrated into information systems” (p. 72). I think of my cell phone. When I traveled, I used to carry a cell phone, a camera, a laptop, books, pens, notebook, a map, a Sudoku book… Now I could, and increasingly do, just take my smart phone.
- Next step, nanotechnology. Biological and micro-electronic integration (p. 72).
Who is Manuel Castells?
Looking
for more information about Manuel Castells, I found an interesting trivia item
about him on Wikipedia. Apparently,
the “the 2000–2014 research survey of
the Social Sciences Citation Index ranks him as the world’s fifth most-cited
social science scholar, and the foremost-cited communication scholar.” (This is
an interesting claim, but I couldn’t help wondering if the list of
communication scholars included McLuhan and Ong. Also, I would like to know who the top four
most cited social science scholars are.
I would put money on Foucault, at least.) An interesting biographical about Castells
that came up in several sources was that Castells earned his degrees in France
after being driven from Spain as a university student because his anti-fascist
beliefs would have gotten him arrested. After
receiving his doctorate in sociology from the University of Paris, he taught in
France and at two institutions in the United States, namely UC Berkeley, in
sociology, and USC, in communications.
It
is easy to find interviews of Castells online.
In fact, the introduction to one interview (Rantanen, 2005) notes that
each month Castells averages one media interview and one keynote speech
somewhere in the world. Incidentally,
this author also noted that Castells had given more than 300 papers in 43
countries. In an interview at Berkeley
(Kreisler, 2001), Castells talked about how the idea of social change drew him
to sociology as a discipline, partly motivated by his politicization in Spain
as a teenager. He says, “I was driven to
the necessity for social change, first in Spain and then later in France.” In this interview he also talked about how a
desire to do more grounded, empirical research led him to Berkeley. “In 1979, after I had been professor in Paris
for twelve years, I accepted a professorship in Berkeley. One of the main
reasons that I moved to Berkeley is that what I really was interested in was
combining empirical research with theorizing.”
French scholars are more interested in theory whereas Castells found America
almost too empirical. Castells wanted to
bring the two together. “What I think is
central in my intellectual activity is that I do what some people have called ‘grounded
theory.’ That is, I literally cannot think without observing and understanding
what's going on in the world.” In his
(2005) interview with Rantanen, Castells also brings up methodology. “I think that the now fading mania of
deconstructing and reconstructing, in fact playing with words, has seriously
damaged our understanding of the world at a critical time. Now that we seem to
have survived this fashion, it is time to get back to serious work, hoping that
one generation of students has not been lost.”
Castells interviewed at UC Berkeley in 2001
Another
theme that I found interesting from the interviews involved Castells’
theoretical orientation. He was
originally a Marxist but later moved in different directions. He told Rantanen (2005), “I ceased to be a
Marxist when I realized that most of the questions I was interested in could
not be understood by using Marxism. I could not understand, for example,
gender, urban social movements, the differences between nationalities and
languages by using class as my sole analytical tool.” He goes further. “For me class is the least fruitful
way to look at social change nowadays... But
I am still interested in social change, power relations and technology, which
are all Marxist concerns. In the early 1960s we were anarchists. If I had to
choose now which to oppose, capital or the state, I would still say the state.” In an interview when he received Norway’s
Holberg Prize, Castells emphasizes his persistent interest in power
relations. Asked what themes were most
important over the course of his career, Castells answered, “My analysis of
power. This has been the overarching theme I have studied in my works, in many
contexts and in different domains of society. Power in the city. Power in and
by information technology. Power in globalization. Communication power, that is
the power and counterpower built in the media and in the Internet networks.”
I
found the biographical information on Castells and information about his
intellectual influences helpful in understanding the ideas in his book. There were a few things that were interesting
to me because of my own research interests that did not relate to the network
society—like Castells ideas on disciplinarity.
It is perhaps not surprising that a scholar who has moved from one field
to another after becoming well-known as a scholar would not place too much
emphasis on discipline, but in fact, Castells finds disciplines
problematic. As he told Rantanen (2005),
“The disciplinary boundaries are extremely damaging. That’s why I always found
myself more comfortable in interdisciplinary departments. And in the end you
really need to invent new analytical tools for yourself.” I am not sure that I necessarily agree that
disciplinary divisions are damaging, but I do find myself fascinated by
scholars who move across disciplinary boundaries. It seems to me that scholars from the French
tradition, as Castells is, do move more fluidly across disciplinary boundaries,
and this is something I find fascinating.
It also seems to align with the sorts of big picture problems that
scholars such as Foucault, Guattari, and yes, Castells tackled.
Castells interview on Spanish television:
In case you want to improve your Spanish
or just want to know what he sounds like in his native language
References
Castells, M. (2000). The
rise of the network society. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers.
Castells interview on Spanish television:
In case you want to improve your Spanish
or just want to know what he sounds like in his native language
No comments:
Post a Comment