Showing papers by "Manuel Castells published in 2006"

Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective

Abstract: It would not be hard to construct a compelling argument that the spread of mobile communications has been the most disruptive technological force of the past decade. The most successful consumer electronic device of all time (now more pervasive than television or even wristwatches), this untethered version of the familiar telephone handset has launched democratic revolutions, economic transformations, and social upheavals in developed and developing nations alike. A decade after the first of Manuel Castells's trilogy on the network society was released, this book is in many ways an empirical validation of some of the theses advanced in that gargantuan tome. In a sense, what Castells and his colleagues are saying in this book is that the network society is everything he said it was in 1996, but more so because mobile communications allow networks to embed themselves not just in social and 119 political organizations, but in our very bodies and interpersonal relationships. Mobile communications have been around for some time-it is the personal nature of today's technology and services that really makes the difference. The book is comprehensive in its coverage of the disparate body of research on the social dimensions of mobile communications that has emerged in the past decade from a wide range of social science communities-sociology, communications, geography, and others. In many ways, it should be seen as an annotated bibliography of the research to date. Chapters 1 and 2 cover the geodemographics of diffusion, highlighting both the ubiquity and various new divides in access to mobile communications. Chapter 3 looks at "everyday life" and how mobile communications are used by various social groups, such as families and workers. Chapter 4 gives special treatment to youths' use of these communications. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 delve into various topics of the "impacts" of mobile communications-on spatial relationships, language, civil society, and economic development. For economic geographers, Chapter 1 is the most relevant and provides a comprehensive treatment of the global spread of mobile telephony and related technologies since the early 1990s. Unfortunately, there is not much in the way of a detailed analysis at the subnational level. However, this is no fault of the authors-the research simply does not exist. I have looked for years for good city-level data on telecommunications, but it is rare to find such data for a variety of reasons based on regulatory processes and industry practices. This lack of data is particularly glaring when one looks at emerging economies, where the urban-rural divide is the biggest demographic reality yet is never seen in national averages. For instance, while only about 25 percent of Chinese have mobile phones, at least 80 percent of Shanghainese do. In most of the developing world, the mobile phone is the definitive personal statement of urbanity. The thinness of the geographic treatment of this global phenomenon again appears in Chapter 5, where Castells starts to link the literature to his theories of the "space of flows and timeless time." It is one of the shortest chapters in the book and leaves many ideas underdeveloped. This is disappointing because Castells is one of those rare scholars who can effortlessly span the discourse of social theory and urban economic development in a way that captures the richness of how urban life is choreographed. In the end, this book raises many more questions than it answers. Social research has only just begun to scratch the surface of change in our untethered global society. Compared

The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy

Abstract: This book explores the patterns and dynamics of the network society through its policies. Topics range from the knowledge economy, based on technology and innovation, to organizational reform and modernization in the public sector. The contributors also examine media and communication policies. Contributors include Jorge Sampaio (president of the Portugese Republic), Manuel Castells (UCLA), Gustavo Cardoso (CIES/ISCTE, Portugal), Dale W. Jorgenson (Harvard University), Khuong M.Vu (Suffolk University), Luc Soete (UNU-INTECH and MERIT), Jane Fountain (University of Massachusetts-Amherst), James Katz (Rutgers University), Betty Collis (University of Twente, The Netherlands), Geoff Mulgan (Institute of Community Studies, London), Marcelo Branco (Brazilian Information Society), Jonathan Taplin (Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California), Imma Tubella (Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona), Fran?ois Bar (Annenberg School for Communication, USC), Hernan Galperin (Annenberg School for Communication, USC), Jeff Cole (Annenberg School for Communication, USC), William Mitchell (MIT), Erkki Liikanen (Bank of Finland), Pekka Himanen (Helsinki Institute for Information Society and University of California, Berkeley), Carlos Alvarez (secretary of state for the economy, Chile), and Maria Joao Rodrigues (ISCTE, University of Lisbon).

Conquering the minds, conquering Iraq: The social production of misinformation in the United States – a case study

Abstract: In the lead-up to the Iraq War, the Bush administration rallied the American public for war via claims that they held unassailable evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and through the insinuation that links existed between Iraq and al Qaeda, and Iraq and the 11 September 2001 attacks. Despite the introduction of compelling evidence that these claims were false, more than 18 months after the official end of the war half of the American population continued to believe that either weapons of mass destruction had been found or that Iraq possessed a developed program for creating them. The prevalence of these misperceptions suggests important questions: How and why could such a significant percentage of the population remain so misinformed? What was the social process leading to the widespread adoption of misinformation? And what were the political effects of these misperceptions? This article proposes an analytical model that outlines both the production of these misperceptions and their p...

Internet y la sociedad red

Abstract: Internet es el tejido de nuestras vidas en este momento. No es futuro. Es presente. Internet es un medio para todo, que interactua con el conjunto de la sociedad y, de hecho, a pesar de ser tan reciente, en su forma societal (aunque como sabemos, Internet se construye, mas o menos, en los ultimos treinta y un anos, a partir de 1969; aunque realmente, tal y como la gente lo entiende ahora, se constituye en 1994, a partir de la existencia de un browser, del world wide web) no hace falta explicarlo, porque ya sabemos que es Internet. Simplemente les recuerdo, para la coherencia de la exposicion, que se trata de una red de redes de ordenadores capaces de comunicarse entre ellos. No es otra cosa. Sin embargo, esa tecnologia es mucho mas que una tecnologia. Es un medio de comunicacion, de interaccion y de organizacion social. Hace poco tiempo, cuando todavia Internet era una novedad, la gente consideraba que, aunque interesante, en el fondo era minoritario, algo para una elite de internautas, de digerati, como se dice internacionalmente. Esto ha cambiado radicalmente en estos momentos. Para recordarles brevemente la progresion, les dire que la primera encuesta seria sobre usuarios de Internet que yo conozco, de finales del noventa y cinco senalaba que habia unos nueve millones de usuarios de Internet. En este momento estamos en torno a los trescientos cincuenta millones de usuarios en el mundo. Las previsiones conservadoras preven que, para mediados del ano 2001, llegaremos a setecientos millones, y en torno a 2005-2007, a dos mil millones como minimo. Es verdad que constituye solo una tercera parte de la poblacion del planeta, pero esto quiere decir, ponderando en terminos de las sociedades mas desarrolladas, que en las sociedades de nuestro contexto las tasas de penetracion estaran en torno al 75% u 80%.