#manuel castells

[jeremiasdorap]

Manuel Castells and Pierre Lévy about Internet

Zygmunt Bauman and Byung-chul Han about Internet

[noosphe-re]

I have argued in the preceding chapters that our society is constructed around flows: flows of capital, flows of information, flows of technology, flows of organizational interaction, flows of images, sounds, and symbols. Flows are not just one element of the social organization: they are the expression of processes dominating our economic, political, and symbolic life. If such is the case, the material support of the dominant processes in our societies will be the ensemble of elements supporting such flows, and making materially possible their articulation in simultaneous time. Thus, I propose the idea that there is a new spatial form characteristic of social practices that dominate and shape the network society: the space of flows. The space of flows is the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through flows. By flows I understand purposeful, repetitive, programmable sequences of exchange and interaction between physically disjointed positions held by social actors in the economic, political, and symbolic structures of society. Dominant social practices are those which are embedded in dominant social structures. By dominant structures I understand those arrangements of organizations and institutions whose internal logic plays a strategic role in shaping social practices and social consciousness for society at large.

Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society

[ferranhumor]

Fachas

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Bolsonaro’s Brazil is Entering Into a “Subtle Dictatorship”, Says Renowned Sociologist

From the viewpoint of prizewinning Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells, Brazil is entering into a “subtle dictatorship” through the government of Jair Bolsonaro, who seeks to disfigure education and change the population’s mindset to positions altogether at odds with human rights.

Castells is the world’s fifth most-cited social science scholar, and the foremost-cited communication scholar, especially associated with research on the information society, communication, and globalization.

He said on Tuesday, during a seminar organized by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Rio de Janeiro, that the first element evidencing this “subtle dictatorship,” managed through social media, is the downgrading of education, since “a poorly educated, ill-informed and uncultured population is much more malleable.”

“You are currently entering what I call a computer-era dictatorship, a subtle dictatorship in which the mindset of a large part of the Brazilian population is being changed in directions utterly contrary to human rights, respect, and freedom,” explained the sociologist.

Continue reading.

[noosphe-re]

The global city is not London, New York, Tokyo or Jo’berg — it is the part of each which is connected to an analogous part in each of the others. The global city is a distributed phenomenon. There is only one global city, and it floats on top of the others like lace.

Manuel Castells

[noosphe-re]

If you do not care about networks, the networks will care about you, anyway. For as long as you want to live in society, at this time and in this place, you will have to deal with the network society. Because we live in the Internet Galaxy.

Manuel Castells

[noosphe-re]

The spatial articulation of dominant functions does take place in our societies in the network of interactions made possible by information technology devices. In this network, no place exists by itself, since the positions are defined by the exchanges of flows in the network. Thus, the network of communication is the fundamental spatial configuration: places do not disappear, but their logic and their meaning become absorbed in the network. The technological infrastructure that builds up the network defines the new space, very much like railways defined "economic regions" and "national markets" in the industrial economy; or the boundary-specific, institutional rules of citizenry (and their technologically advanced armies) defined "cities" in the merchant origins of capitalism and democracy. This technological infrastructure is itself the expression of the network of flows whose architecture and content is determined by the powers that be in our world.

Manuel Castells