Reference no: EM132863880

Summarize (400 words) Manuel Castells' analysis of network society and role of technology in the Information Age.

Network Society

In "A Network Theory of Power", Manuel Castells explains power and its different forms, in addition to counterpower, in the network society as follows:

Power in the network society is exercised through networks. There are four different forms of power under these social and technological conditions:

1. Networking Power: the power of the actors and organizations included in the networks that constitute the core of the global network society over human collectives and individuals who are not included in these global networks.

2. Network Power: the power resulting from the standards required to coordinate social interaction in the networks. In this case, power is exercised not by exclusion from the networks but by the imposition of the rules of inclusion.

3. Networked Power: the power of social actors over other social actors in the network. The forms and processes of networked power are specific to each network.

4. Network-making Power: the power to program specific networks according to the interests and values of the programmers, and the power to switch different networks following the strategic alliances between the dominant actors of various networks.

Counterpower is exercised in the network society by fighting to change the programs of specific networks and by the effort to disrupt the switches that reflect dominant interests and replace them with alternative switches between networks. Actors are humans, but humans are organized in networks. Human networks act on networks via the programming and switching of organizational networks. In the network society, power and counterpower aim fundamentally at influencing the neural networks in the human mind by using mass communication networks and mass self-communication networks.

1. As stated at the outset of this article, power is constructed around multidimensional networks programmed in each domain of human activity. But all networks of power exercise their power by influencing the human mind predominantly (but not solely) through multimedia networks of mass
communication. Thus, communication networks are the fundamental networks of power making in society.

2. Networks of power in various domains of human activity are networked among themselves; they do not merge. Instead, they engage in strategies of partnership and competition, practicing cooperation and competition simultaneously by forming ad hoc networks around specific projects and by changing partners, depending on their interests in each context and in each moment in time.

3. The network of power constructed around the state and the political system does play a fundamental role in the overall networking of power.

Attachment:- Network Society.rar