Manuel Castells

Bio: Manuel Castells is an academic researcher from University of Southern California. The author has contributed to research in topics: Network society & The Internet. The author has an hindex of 83, co-authored 288 publications receiving 66071 citations. Previous affiliations of Manuel Castells include University of California, Berkeley & Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

High Technology, Space, and Society

Abstract: PART ONE: OVERVIEWS High Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process in the United States - Manuel Castells High Technology, Space, and Society in Contemporary Britain - Peter Hall PART TWO: THE NEW INDUSTRIAL SPACE The Location of High Technology Industries - Amy Glasmeier Silicon Valley and Route 128 - Annalee Saxenian Regional Prototypes of Historic Exceptions? Defensive Cities - Ann Roell Markusen and Robin Bloch Military Spending, High Technology, and Human Settlements PART THREE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF SERVICES The Changing Fortunes of Metropolitan Economies - Thomas M Stanback Jr Office Automation and Women's Work - Barbara Baran The Technological Transformation of the Insurance Industry Information Technology and the New Services Game - Larry Hirschhorn PART FOUR: THE COMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTION Communications Technology - Lionel Nicol Economic and Spatial Impacts The New Media - Francoise Sabbah PART FIVE: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES Technological Determination and Determinism - Richard A Walker Industrial Growth and Location Technology and Spatial Production Relations - Michael Storper Disequilibrium, Interindustry Relationships, and Industrial Evolution Studying Technology and Social Life - Claude S Fischer PART SIX: ALTERNATIVES Which 'Good Technology'? - Doreen Massey

The Structure and Dynamics of Global Multi-Media Business Networks

Abstract: Today, the media empires of Time Warner, Disney, News Corp., Bertelsmann, CBS, NBC, and Viacom span large portions of the globe and exert considerable economic, political, and cultural power. This article presents a macro-level portrait of the networked forms of organization, production, and distribution in which the world's largest multi-national media organizations operate. First, it provides a detailed accounting of the internal structures of and the partnerships between these transnational media conglomerates. Second, it examines the production and distribution arrangements and the financial partnerships between conglomerates and regional and local media organizations. Third, it examines the role of open-ended network connections (i.e., links to parallel business, political and creative networks) in shaping this global network of media organizations.

The Future of Journalism: Networked Journalism

Abstract: In a technology-driven process of accelerated change, journalism is being transformed in the ways that it is produced, distributed, and used. We are witnessing the emergence of new tools and practices, phenomena that are yielding both a flurry of new ways to produce information and a redefinition of the place of professional journalism in this new information system. While there is widespread fear about the damaging consequences of these trends for the quality of journalism and the professional survival of journalists, we believe that current developments may, in fact, be paving the path toward better journalism and more independent journalists. The what and why of this statement are the subjects of this article.

Redes de indignación y esperanza: los movimientos sociales en la era de Internet

Abstract: Ocurrio cuando nadie lo esperaba. En un mundo presa de la crisis economica, el cinismo politico, la vaciedad cultural y la desesperanza, simplemente ocurrio. Conectadas a traves de las redes sociales de Internet, las personas empezaron a agruparse en esos espacios de autonomia y, desde la seguridad del ciberespacio, pasaron a ocupar las calles y a elaborar proyectos ligados a sus verdaderas preocupaciones, por encima de las ideologias y de los intereses dominantes, reclamando su derecho a hacer historia. En todos los casos ignoraron a los partidos politicos, desconfiaron de los medios de comunicacion, no reconocieron ningun liderazgo y rechazaron toda organizacion formal, debatiendo colectivamente y tomando sus decisiones en asambleas locales y a traves de Internet. Desde Tunez e Islandia hasta la revolucion egipcia y el movimiento Ocupar Wall Street, pasando por los indignados en Espana, Manuel Castells arroja luz sobre esos movimientos su formacion, su dinamica, sus valores y sus perspectivas de transformacion social, que han llegado a alcanzar a 82 paises. Al hilo de su esclarecedor y apasionante analisis, identifica las nuevas vias del cambio social que han surgido en este siglo y plantea hipotesis sobre sus implicaciones practicas. Un libro, en definitiva, imprescindible para comprender y cambiar nuestro mundo.

Aftermath: The Cultures of the Economic Crisis

Abstract: The crisis of global capitalism that has unfolded since 2008 is more than an economic crisis. It is structural and multidimensional. The sequence of events that have taken place in its aftermath show that we are entering a world that is very different from the social and economic conditions that characterized the rise of global, informational capitalism in the preceding three decades. The policies and strategies that were intended to manage the crisis--with mixed results depending on the country--may usher in a distinctly different economic and institutional system, as the New Deal, the construction of the European Welfare State, and the Bretton Woods global financial architecture all gave rise to a new form of capitalism in the aftermath of the 1930s Depression, and World War II.This volume examines the cultures and institutions at the root of the crisis, as well as the conflicts and debates that may lead to a new social landscape, including the rise of alternative economic cultures in the social movements that have sprung up around the world. This collection of essays presents the results of a shared project of reflection by a group of international sociologists and social scientists, led by Manuel Castells. They conclude that to address life beyond the crisis, we need nothing less than a complete transformation of the mind-set that led to bankruptcy and despair, and to economies and societies based on an unsustainable model of speculative finance and political irresponsibility.

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

Abstract: Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines. They get themselves learned and learned well, so that they get played long and hard by a great many people. This is how they and their designers survive and perpetuate themselves. If a game cannot be learned and even mastered at a certain level, it won't get played by enough people, and the company that makes it will go broke. Good learning in games is a capitalist-driven Darwinian process of selection of the fittest. Of course, game designers could have solved their learning problems by making games shorter and easier, by dumbing them down, so to speak. But most gamers don't want short and easy games. Thus, designers face and largely solve an intriguing educational dilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces: how to get people, often young people, to learn and master something that is long and challenging--and enjoy it, to boot.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

Abstract: From the Publisher: A Question of Identity Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

Theories of international migration: a review and appraisal.

Abstract: The configuration of developed countries has become today diverse and multiethnic due to international migration. A single coherent theoretical explanation for international migration is lacking. The aim of this discussion was the generation and integration of current theories that clarify basic assumptions and hypotheses of the various models. Theories were differentiated as explaining the initiation of migration and the perpetuation of international movement. Initiation theories discussed were 1) macro theories of neoclassical economics; 2) micro theories of neoclassical economics; 3) the new economics with examples for crop insurance markets futures markets unemployment insurance and capital markets; 4) dual labor market theory and structural inflation motivational problems economic dualism and the demography of labor supply; and 5) world systems theory and the impacts of land raw materials labor material links ideological links and global cities. Perpetuation theories were indicated as network theories of declining risks and costs; institutional theory cumulative causation through distribution of income and land organization of agrarian production culture of migration regional distribution of human capital and social labeling factors; and migration systems theory. The assumptions and propositions of these theories although divergent were not inherently contradictory but had very different implications for policy formulation. The policy decisions over the next decades will be very important and carry with them the potential for misunderstanding and conflict. Policy options based on the explicated models range from regulation by changing wages and employment conditions in destination countries or promoting development in countries of origin to changing structural market economic relations.

Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the IT in IT Research--A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact

Abstract: The field of information systems is premised on the centrality of information technology in everyday socio-economic life. Yet, drawing on a review of the full set of articles published inInformation Systems Research ( ISR) over the past ten years, we argue that the field has not deeply engaged its core subject matter--the information technology (IT) artifact. Instead, we find that IS researchers tend to give central theoretical significance to the context (within which some usually unspecified technology is seen to operate), the discrete processing capabilities of the artifact (as separable from its context or use), or the dependent variable (that which is posited to be affected or changed as technology is developed, implemented, and used). The IT artifact itself tends to disappear from view, be taken for granted, or is presumed to be unproblematic once it is built and installed. After discussing the implications of our findings, we propose a research direction for the IS field that begins to take technology as seriously as its effects, context, and capabilities. In particular, we propose that IS researchers begin to theorize specifically about IT artifacts, and then incorporate these theories explicitly into their studies. We believe that such a research direction is critical if IS research is to make a significant contribution to the understanding of a world increasingly suffused with ubiquitous, interdependent, and emergent information technologies.

Cities and the Geographies of “Actually Existing Neoliberalism”

Abstract: This essay elaborates a critical geographical perspective on neoliberalism that emphasizes (a) the path–dependent character of neoliberal reform projects and (b) the strategic role of cities in the contemporary remaking of political–economic space. We begin by presenting the methodological foundations for an approach to the geographies of what we term “actually existing neoliberalism.” In contrast to neoliberal ideology, in which market forces are assumed to operate according to immutable laws no matter where they are “unleashed,” we emphasize the contextual embeddedness of neoliberal restructuring projects insofar as they have been produced within national, regional, and local contexts defined by the legacies of inherited institutional frameworks, policy regimes, regulatory practices, and political struggles. An adequate understanding of actually existing neoliberalism must therefore explore the path–dependent, contextually specific interactions between inherited regulatory landscapes and emergent neoliberal, market–oriented restructuring projects at a broad range of geographical scales. These considerations lead to a conceptualization of contemporary neoliberalization processes as catalysts and expressions of an ongoing creative destruction of political–economic space at multiple geographical scales. While the neoliberal restructuring projects of the last two decades have not established a coherent basis for sustainable capitalist growth, it can be argued that they have nonetheless profoundly reworked the institutional infrastructures upon which Fordist–Keynesian capitalism was grounded. The concept of creative destruction is presented as a useful means for describing the geographically uneven, socially regressive, and politically volatile trajectories of institutional/spatial change that have been crystallizing under these conditions. The essay concludes by discussing the role of urban spaces within the contradictory and chronically unstable geographies of actually existing neoliberalism. Throughout the advanced capitalist world, we suggest, cities have become strategically crucial geographical arenas in which a variety of neoliberal initiatives—along with closely intertwined strategies of crisis displacement and crisis management—have been articulated.