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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.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The crisis of governance is related to a crisis of political legitimacy, characterized by increasing distance between citizens and their representatives, threatening with political paralysis and opening the way both for authoritarian policies and for demagogic revolts.
Abstract: The world is undergoing a process of structural transformation in multiple dimensions: technological, economic, cultural, and institutional. This creates as many opportunities as it induces perils. Perhaps the most fundamental problem we now face is the crisis of political institutions in charge of managing the transition. We know the problems, we understand the issues, and in many countries there is enough political will to tackle the questions to be addressed. However, the organizational and institutional tools of governance are either insufficient or inadequate. Furthermore, the crisis of governance is related to a crisis of political legitimacy, characterized by increasing distance between citizens and their representatives. Both crises feed into each other, threatening with political paralysis and opening the way both for authoritarian policies and for demagogic revolts.

87 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a hypothesis on the nature of power in the network society, the social structure of the Information Age, and test this hypothesis through a case study of Rupert Murdoch, CEO of NewsCorp.
Abstract: This article proposes a hypothesis on the nature of power in the network society, the social structure of the Information Age. It argues that the ability to control connection points between different networks (e.g. business, media and economic networks) is a critical source of power in contemporary society. It then tests this hypothesis through a case study of Rupert Murdoch, CEO of NewsCorp. The operational dynamics of Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp are examined in order to illustrate how corporate media actors negotiate the power dynamics of the network society to serve their overarching business goals. It identifies key strategies used by these actors to penetrate new markets and expand audience share including: political brokering, leveraging public opinion, instituting sensationalist news formulas, customizing media content and diversifying and adapting media holdings in the face of technological and regulatory changes.

85 citations

Book
01 Jan 1980

85 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed the establishment of a multilateral forum to discuss trade, money, finance and macroeconomic policies, and the inter-relationships between them, based on the Second Amendment of the United Nations Treaty.
Abstract: strengthened, IMF conditionality reformed, and World Bank, IDA and other official development assistance expanded. These are all well-known remedies, but it is important that they have been endorsed by a representative North-South group. The group also favours the establishment of a multilateral forum to discuss trade, money, finance and macroeconomic policies, and the inter-relationships between them. 'The IMF, World Bank, GATT and UNCTAD should jointly service a body functioning somewhat like the IMF's advisory Interim Committee, eventually evolving into the analogue of the decision-making Council authorised in the IMF's Second Amendment' (paragraph 7.36). This, says the report with somewhat less realism than usual, 'must not be or be seen to be an extension of the jurisdiction of the IMF into trade policy issues' (ibid). The report leaves it to be understood that the Bretton Woods system of weighted voting would apply, and it is this that would determine the character of the new mechanism, regardless of whether or not IMF jurisdiction were expanded. While there is a case for saying that any international institution possessing such extensive powers would have to be subject to weighted voting, the Bretton Woods weighting is so one-sided as to limit the incentive for the major powers to take the views of the Third World fully into account. Thus, a concentration of authority of the magnitude envisaged in the report could conceivably represent a step backwards for world trade and development. On the other hand, the group is to be commended for raising this problem, and there is probably no solution to it that would satisfy everybody.

84 citations


Cited by
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Book
16 May 2003
TL;DR: Good computer and video games like System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Pikmin, Rise of Nations, Neverwinter Nights, and Xenosaga: Episode 1 are learning machines as mentioned in this paper.
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.

7,211 citations

Book
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, Sherry Turkle 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, virtual reality, and the on-line way of life.
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.

4,965 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a discussion of current theories that clarify basic assumptions and hypotheses of the various models of international migration, including macro theories of neoclassical economics, micro theories of macro-economic economics, new economics with examples for crop insurance markets futures markets unemployment insurance and capital markets, dual labor market theory and structural inflation motivational problems economic dualism and the demography of labor supply; and world systems theory and the impacts of land raw materials labor material links ideological links and global cities.
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.

3,417 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is proposed that IS researchers begin to theorize specifically about IT artifacts, and then incorporate these theories explicitly into their studies, and 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.
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.

2,849 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2002-Antipode
TL;DR: In this article, a critical geographical perspective on neoliberalism is presented, emphasizing the path-dependent character of neoliberal reform projects and the strategic role of cities in the contemporary remaking of political-economic space.
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.

2,818 citations