[Assignment 2] The Information Age

                         The Information Age

                                                        Media Production
                                                                         Moye Chen

This information age has never been a technological matter. It has always been a matter of social transformation, a process of social change in which technology is an element that is inseparable from social, economic, cultural and political trends.

Socialist revolution must be combined with the technological revolution, and learn nutrition and motivation. Modern world history occur twice technological revolution, which promote the concentration of production and capital, so that the capitalism developed from the free competition to the monopoly stage. The new technology revolution based on modern information technology, capitalism will lead to a series of profound changes in society. This includes changes in the mode of production, innovation of enterprise system, the change of economic growth pattern, and the change of relationships and ideas of people. Social revolution and the technological revolution in close connection with the present world, if divorced from the technological revolution, social revolution would be difficult to make a difference. Technology revolution is the power to promote modern western science and the social progress.

The Internet is a catalyst to accelerate the process of globalization. High-tech in particular the information technology was developed rapidly, which is direct promotion of international trade, international investment and the international finance sharply. In the process of information, countries around the world to break the monopoly, deregulation, open markets and achieve zero tariffs of global information technology products. Information technology revolution has provided a new organizational condition on the links of global social, economic and political. It was contribute to the greater coordination of the development of the world. On the other hand, technological globalization is an important form of globalization. Human have exploration of the great works of nature, such as the human genome, nuclear fusion, space stations, global climate change and so on. Meanwhile, human are doing the international cooperation in research and organizing as well. Accelerate the international flow of scientific technological and personnel, international patent applications and licensing the rapid development, and the world’s technology trade growing rapidly. Technological globalization use of global technology resources to strengthen or the corporate research and development work to make lower cost, higher efficiency, in order to get more powerful competitive.

The existence and development of the information age is not isolated, it is closely related to development of a certain stage of the political, economic, and cultural with the whole community. The development of socio-economic, political, and cultural makes the media’s position is prominent, more and more people started to pay attention to the media and information (The Rise of the Network Society (The Information Age)   Manuel Castells). As the development and changes of political and economic environment, people in the quantity demanded for increase rapidly for social information, so newspapers, radio, television, Internet, magazines and other media in information dissemination activities are highlighted. As the information transport, media is increasingly becoming indispensable in daily life.

Complete information media ecosystems, including two factors, media factors (newspapers, radio and television, film, publishing, music production, etc.) and environmental factors (political, economic, education, natural resources, technology, etc.). The basic elements of information media ecosystem are media systems, social systems and people, as well as the interrelationship between these three and interaction. Media is a living creature, living in the ecological environment which is appropriate for their survival, development and reproduction. Information media ecosystem is composed of multiple media environment, interaction between media and personal are constitute the living environment; the interaction between social systems and information media system are constitute the information system and policy environment for the media and so on. The power of the flow of capital and technological is progress globalization. It makes the isolation and unification of the information society changes to the global pluralism. This does not mean the cultural identity, but social relations in the world to strengthen their own independent culture, attitudes and perspectives.

Information media ecological balance, need to co-ordination among the political, economic, cultural and media audience. Melvin L. De Fleur and Sandra Ball-Rokeach (Theories of Mass Communication 1982) said, if lay aside the environment, the mere observation in isolation in specific media, you can not understand any longer no matter how carefully you observed. Today, the society of mass communication system as a whole is because the history of media is greater than all parts, the production and development of any media are deeply rooted in a series of unique social, economic and political environment. Why the media of newspaper have been developing slowly in nearly a century? Why the film falling into the bottom after rapid development? Why is television, computers can quickly sweeping the globe? All of these characteristics are related with the environment characteristics and situation. The mass media has become the central part today of the institutional structure. The mass media is not only become a part of the political system, economic system, but also become a part of the cultural system, educational system and family system. Survival and development of the media environment has been unable to resist its full penetration. Therefore, the ecological balance is essential to maintain the media.

Today, the information media is seen as neutral, it is the mediation to transmission and regulation of human relations. In cultural communication and information age, the media art works are easier to reconstruct our varying world. In addition, we can also be found some idea express about media politics in the art works. For example, there was a video work, made in-depth study social and cultural anthropology about Iran, India, Turkey, and analysis in the global views and interpretation “Other” culture development status in the local angle – accepted and rejected, colonization and mixing, tradition and modernity, religion and the conflict between secular. Many artists in their performance were express the idea about “global local” space and the political issues of cultural relativism.

Strictly speaking, the information age and new media itself contains ideology, even though the information and new media art have become the products of globalization and technology, but it can not explain the power of technology can make the national and state boundaries disappear. However, it still stressed on the important of thinking about the cultural difference and cultural identity. Because the “difference” just reflects the questions and criticism of the word which involve prescriptive and order in the general principle. Therefore, technological innovation which based information development and new media art should remain independent and critical.

With the development of Internet technology, it gave rise to a new revolution in information dissemination.  Media, people and society are faced with unprecedented large amount of information, high time-sensitive and highly interactive. Dissemination of knowledge need “medium”, from the primitive society to modern Internet technology, the changing of means of communication is the results of the human desire to understand and keep promotion of the universe. Since Venice, Italy appeared the print media such as newspapers in 14-15 century, to nowadays, 21st century, the information revolution which are based on computer technology and information technology. The information age has brought mankind into a new information era: radio, television, etc., the media had given humanity sound such as the sound effect which the newspaper can not give. And the “Internet” known as the “fourth media” has made great strides forwards in people’s daily lives. Four kinds of media mutual penetration and formation of a multi-level information network based on their in the play to its own characteristics and advantages. In the information age, the information and mass media have permeated every aspect of people’s lives: from political elections to the ordinary life like the fuel, rice, oil, salt. It can be said that the information and modern media has become an indispensable part of life, no matter accept actively or choices passively, people today can not set off from the tangible and intangible network and information media outside.

An information economy is where the productivity and competitiveness of units or agents in the economy (be they firms, regions or nations) depend mainly on their capacity to generate, process, and apply efficiently knowledge-based information. It is also described as an economy where information is both the currency and the product. While we have always relied on information exchange to do our jobs and run our lives, the information economy is different in that it can collect more relevant information at the appropriate time. Consequently, production in the information economy can be fine tuned in ways heretofore undreamed of. What makes information plentiful in this economy is the pervasive use of information and communications technology.

The information economy is global. A historically new reality, the global economy has the capacity to work as a unit in real time on a planetary scale. Corporations and firms now have a worldwide base for skilled labor to tap. Capital flows freely between countries, and countries can utilize this capital in real time.

Economic statistics do not adequately capture the movements of the new information economy, precisely because of the broad scope of transformation under the impact of information technology and related organizational change (The Power of Identity    Manuel Castells). There may be a diffusion from information technology, manufacturing, telecommunications, and financial services into manufacturing services at large, and then into business services.

Worldwide computer network will make more and more products in the field to replace the flow of data flow of the production evolved into a service, information will be turned into a work of industrial labor. New features include the information economy: Information products do not need to leave its original occupant can be traded and exchanged; the product through computer networks without the need for replication and distribution of additional costs; value added by knowledge rather than work achieved; knowledge into products, the main form of software.

Cite an instance; Hong Kong is the center of the garment outsourcing industry. Most of the companies located there own and run factories across Asia that weave, cut and sew garments. But there is an example: Li & Fung is a different kind of outsource. The 95-year-old trading house that once sold ceramics and fireworks overseas doesn’t own a stitch when it comes to making garments. No factories, no machines, no fabrics. Instead, Li & Fung deal only in information, relying on a far-flung network of more than 7,500 suppliers in 37 countries, from Madagascar to China to Guatemala. “There are no secrets in the actual manufacturing. A shirt is a shirt; we would rather build on something proprietary, like what information it takes to make that shirt faster or more efficiently.” Li & Fung uses personalized Web sites and e-mail to fine-tune specifications with the customer. It then takes those instructions and feeds them into its intranet to find the right supplier of raw materials and the right factory for assembling the clothes. (“Furiously Fast Fashions,” in The Software and Information Industry Association Trends Report    Joanne Lee-Young and Megan Barnett,)

With the continuous deepening of the process of information, industrial society, culture, the two basic pillars of labor – time and fixed posts – will be relegated to secondary status. The traditional success in life conditions, such as the importance of reducing the diplomas and degrees. Standardized and fixed modes of vocational training needs of the development has been behind the times. Work remains, but no longer has a stable “job.”

Revenue in the information economy and efficiency, as well as working hours is becoming increasingly loose. Increasingly it has nothing to do with the input of working hours, but first of all depends on skill, originality and the rapid discovery of new problems, using creative ways to solve its capacity. This will lead to increased gap in income distribution, social polarization increased.

Cyber Space is now available for “reconstruction” the mystery world that we have ever lost the romantic ideals and imagine. It not only changed the life of the space, but also changing our contemplation of history and imagination.

It as human curiosity for knowledge and information, contribute to provide continuous updates of the original Power for the modern means of communication. From the earliest newspapers to today’s burgeoning Internet, the capacity and rate of the modern knowledge and information dissemination are higher than ever before. With the increasingly of the diversification of media and information transmission means, the cognitive demand of audiences was unprecedented increase.

Update the media means not only greatly expands the living space and modern information space; it is also constantly creating new cognitive demands while to meet the traditional media can not meet the desire for knowledge. The expansion of the space about subject of imagine, is building a certain of relationship with frequency and types of external information to stimulate and proliferation of cognitive structure in the subject. This kind of relationship is to be positive relationship between the depth and breadth of outside world information and the quantity and quality are. Audience is often have a wide range of the demands of the media (political, economic, cultural, educational, aesthetic, shopping, entertainment, etc.), and this demand is often considerable space to develop.

Move to the relationship among the political, economic factors and the media. Marx have ever said, as the mission of the newspaper is to defend the community, who is tireless for those in power to expose who is the eyes and ears everywhere, is the mouthpiece to protect their freedom of the spirit of thousands of people with the passion. In the Political, digital democracy giving people directly use their democratic right. It is break stretch for hundreds of years of capitalist representative democracy, people’s democracy to replace the elite of democracy; in the economy, the high-tech gift economy is characterized by dedication and cooperation to replace the selfishness and profit of the capitalist market economic. The future information society is a new message communism (Culture and Politics in the Information Age Frank Webster).

For example, on Nov. 5, 2008 is U.S. presidential election. The eve of Election Day, people were with great interest about who eventually was elected, because the successful candidate will directly determine the mainland policy toward future. In the final release candidate, people continue to focus on elected policy trend. So even after the election in U.S., people-related issues still remain very high interest. At this time for the media, the audience is constantly mobilizing cognitive demand, should be mobilized to meet this need for cognition. It is expression of the political is extremely connected with information. It is the new expression in the information age.

Obviously, the development of information technology and modern historical process includes such four kinds of complex interactions relationship, the political, economic, social and cultural. The specific characteristics of these fields expression of the establishment of secular political power, the establishment of the modern nation-state, the formation of a free market economy, the decline of traditional social order and social differentiation and division of labor, the decline of religion and the rise of secular culture.

Information space today is constituted by the overlapping of two worlds: a state-centered world, the state is the main actor; one is a multi-centered world, act as multinational corporations, international organizations, and race and so on, which are expression of the expansion and mobility. The relationship between them is connect with each others as well as is an independent form. Therefore, in this relationship, we also found a phenomenon of the middle ground, this community cultural space were composed by immigrants, migrants, exiles, refugees and migration information. In these kinds of information pace, when interacting between people from different cultural backgrounds and language, it will generate the conceptualization of the results. For example, the concept of mixed race, language also generated fusion. Of course, an anthropologist Arjun Appadurai emphasized that the interaction in global cultural trends and summarizes the five levels: racial level, media level, technology level, financial level, the ideological level. The information age have the meaning of inspire and instructive of our knowledge and understanding of the world (Globalization Arjun Appadurai).  

Today, the post-modern culture reflects the complexity and diversity of social characteristics. TV, fashion, advertising, film and visual arts, introduction of the new technology and expansion of the media is not only changing the content and form of visual culture, but also to promote human cognitive style, the media is the message, the media is a hub to connect with modern society differences. Therefore, the media arts and information not only reproduce the reality of our world, but also produce or replacement of another real world.

Information age is the age of globalization as well. Broad global included technological, economic, political, cultural and many other fields. Globalization is a historical process and to be a leap in the late 20th century. Representative of the information into the new technological revolution and globalization are intrinsically linked profound. On the one hand, the new scientific revolution is based on global technology. Ancient times because of technical limitations, the world can not constitute the modern sense of the international trade system; it primarily is a relationship between political and cultural. Information technology revolution has set the techniques and materials stage of the realization of economic globalization.

List of reference:

The Rise of the Network Society (The Information Age)   Manuel Castells

Press: Wiley-Blackwell   2000-01-05 

Theories of Mass Communication   Melvin L. DeFleur and Sandra Ball-Rokeach 

Press: New York : Longman   1982.

The Power of Identity   The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture Volume II (Information Age Series)

Manuel Castells   

Press: Wiley-Blackwell   2004

Culture and Politics in the Information Age   A new politics?   Frank Webster     Press: Routledge   2001

Globalization   Arjun Appadurai 

Press: Duke University Pre   2001-10-01

“Furiously Fast Fashions,” in The Software and Information Industry Association Trends Report    Joanne Lee-Young and Megan Barnett

【Assignment 1】NETWORK SOCIETY: INFORMATION AND MEDIA

NETWORK SOCIETY: INFORMATION AND MEDIA

                                                                Media Production
                                                                         Moye Chen

Postmodern condition, arise various sources of information and ways of communication. It is no longer simply rely on the traditional media as newspapers, television and radio to communicate and spread information. The accelerated development and update technology, network society and the media, contribute to information networks and the media in a variety of ways to spread information faster and more accurate. In the digital cultural, who is the first to get accurate information, who is the first to take the initiative in fierce competition.

Social and media networks are shaping the prime mode of organization and most important structures of modern society. Modern society is in a process of becoming a network society. This means that on the internet interpersonal, organizational, and mass communication come together. People become linked to one another and have access to information and communication with one another constantly. Using the internet brings the “whole world” into homes and work places. Also, when media like the internet becomes even more advanced it will gradually appear as “normal media” in the first decade of the twentieth-first century as it becomes used by larger sections of the population and by vested interests in the economy, politics and culture. It asserts that paper means of communication will become out of date, with newspapers and letters becoming ancient forms for spreading information (The Network Society, Jan van Dijk, 1999).

“Network society” activities include two parts. One is the production and utilization of network resources. Another one is interpersonal relation in network society. In terms of production of network resources, “network society” is mainly as a “tool space”. It not only has universal, but also noticeable particularity. “Network society” includes the information media – television, radio, newspapers, posters, text messaging, etc.; means of communication – telephone, mobile, the walkie-talkie, letters, etc.; entertainment equipment – mix a variety of audio-visual, play. It is more coverage, more feature-full, cost effective, so that the traditional information media, means of communication and entertainment equipment occurred in varying degrees of decline or be forced to carry out all kinds of updates.

As a cross-cultural and cross-country information space, the network becomes the position that culture communication and dissemination. When media and the network build relationship, presentation of the mass media and methods of spread information have produced great changes. Like TV, radio, advertising, magazines, posters, etc. they can be used in the network, it make production and dissemination of information more extensive and timely manner. Furthermore, many forms of entertainment media have also occurred in the relationship with the network. People can download music, films, games, e-book and so on from the network. Peer-to-peer networks promote the transformation and recirculation of music by the consumer, effectively laying the groundwork for the elevation of consumption into creativity, ending the bifurcation of production and consumption.

The music industry and the film industry reacted to the rapid spread of peer-to-peer file sharing of music and film, and get a certain degree of commercial profit. By 2004 commercial alternatives to file sharing had emerged. The music industry’s efforts in this regard, however, were weak and relatively unsuccessful. The Apple Corporation’s iTunes provided the first viable downloading website for music, charging at first one dollar per song, then, as competition arose, less than eighty cents. Sites also appeared that allowed musicians to bypass the music industry completely, selling albums directly to consumers (Information Please, Mark Poster, 2006). These are examples of commercial applications of music downloading that have successfully adapted the network to ideas developed in peer-to-peer network. It remains to be seen to what extent they displace file sharing or become the new means of acquiring music.

Today, it is possible to share many forms of art through the global Internet — music, paintings, drawings, photographs, video, dance, poetry and books. Anyone with an inexpensive computer, microphone, scanner and camera can create beautiful, original products, put them on a website, and instantly offer them for sale to an audience of more than 150 million people worldwide.

Another great role of the network society is constructing a huge network of interpersonal relationships, and it also providing a platform for human interaction. The communication tools, such as MSN, Email, ICQ, GoogleTalk and so on. In addition, there are very popular online communities, such as Facebook, BBS, MySpace, Twitter, Blog, etc. Network of interpersonal communication is full of universality. In the traditional sense of interpersonal communication are limited by various factors, relatively speaking, communication range is limited. However, in the network society, No matter where people are, they can keep changing people to communicate, and the source of these people are more extensive. It can be said that the network society basically breaking down geographical limitations. The possibility of people of different cultural backgrounds to make interpersonal communication through the network is increased greatly. The network society, what has become of the generation in its interactions with information machines, the virtual realities proliferating on the Internet, and get a lot of information and knowledge in all aspects from the network society. The network society is plays a big role of interpersonal communication. In the first place, the positive interpersonal communication in the networks can extend the scope of interpersonal communication and strengthen ability. In addition, it can get more opportunities to communicate with different people who are from the different regions and have different cultural background. Secondly, use networks, such as E-mail or MSN, can improve the work efficiency effectively. Last but not least, network society communication, in a certain sense, can ease the pressure of people’s real life and regulate mood, sometimes even can play a role in psychological treatment.

Network society disseminates a great deal of information and has made great convenience in our lives and entertainment, but also bring some problems. There is lots of website that contained links to downloadable MP3 music files. But file swapping was rampant on Internet Relay Chat and Usenet. But it is true that Napster vastly expanded the frequency of file sharing by its peer-to-peer architecture and ease of use. File sharing continues to flourish and even to expand. It seems that publicity about each new attack by the culture industries only makes more people aware of the peer-to-peer network and increases the number of participants. As one says in the movie business, no publicity is bad publicity for peer-to-peer networks. In addition, as if downloading music files is the same thing as taking a music CD from a retail store without paying for it. Lot of company complained that downloading films and music on the Internet sharply cut the sales of DVDs and CDs.

Another big problem is related to copyright. Copyright was adapted to new technologies of reproduction as they were invented and distributed in the areas of sound and images digital reproduction does not fall within copyright at all because the kind of materiality of digital files is not characterized by the economics of scarcity. Unlike books, films, and broadcasts, with digital media, unless commodified, there is nothing to pay for. We must frame this resistance not in terms of copyright law but in terms of media of culture, to make network society more legalization.

Increasingly spread of machines and technologies throughout society that was capable of reproducing and dissemination text, images, and sounds. In the digital cultural, network society is more broadly still about the lone-term relation of media and human beings to information machines. It can be seen, Internet itself is a social network to transmission of information from people to people, it is an unique interaction between individual and individuals, individuals and groups, groups and groups. Therefore, we can believe that the interaction between Internet and human as a social network, it is a “special space” of human life and work.

List of References

Jan van Dijk (1999) The Network Society     Sage Publications

Mark Poster（2006）Information Please    London: Duke University Press

Manuel Castells（1996）The Rise of the Network Society     UK: Wiley-Blackwell Press

 

Website:

http://www.gw.utwente.nl/vandijk/research/network_society/network_society_plaatje/b_book_summary.doc/.  

 

http://vos.ucsb.edu/

 

http://www.manuelcastells.info/en/index.htm

Network Paradigm

 

The Network Paradigm: Social Formations in the Age of Information
by Felix Stalder

The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. I. M. Castells (1996). Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 556 pp., ISBN 1-55786-617-1

The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. II. M. Castells (1997). Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 461 pp., ISBN 1-55786-874-3

The End of the Millennium, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. III. M. Castells (1997). Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 418 pp., ISBN 1-55786-872-7

Manuel Castells’ The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (1996, 1997 and 1998) is unrivaled in ambition: to make sense of the global social dynamics as they arise out of a myriad of changes around the world. It is a cross-cultural analysis of the major social, economic and political transformations at the end of this century. It is presented through interrelated empirical case studies whose number and variety are truly enormous–the bibliography alone fills 120 pages–and threatens to overwhelm the reader at times. Nevertheless, the trilogy is prodigious and sets a new standard against which all future meta-accounts of the Information Society will be measured. It will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in a grand narrative of the present.

Castells’ main argument is that a new form of capitalism has emerged at the end of this century: global in its character, hardened in its goals and much more flexible than any of its predecessors. It is challenged around the globe by a multitude of social movements on behalf of cultural singularity and people’s control over their own lives and environment. This tension provides the central dynamic of the Information Age, as “our societies are increasingly structured around the bipolar opposition of the Net and the Self” (1996, p. 3). The Net stands for the new organizational formations based on the pervasive use of networked communication media. Network patterns are characteristic for the most advanced economic sectors, highly competitive corporations as well as for communities and social movements. The Self symbolizes the activities through which people try to reaffirm their identities under the conditions of structural change and instability that go along with the organization of core social and economic activities into dynamic networks. New social formations emerge around primary identities, which may be sexual, religious, ethnic, territorial or national in focus. These identities are often seen as biologically or socially unchangeable, contrasting with the fast-paced change of social landscapes. In the interplay of the Net and the Self the conditions of human life and experience around the world are deeply reconfigured.

The trilogy concludes more than a decade of research, spanning from new social movements and urban change (Castells, 1983; 1989) to development of the high-tech industries and their organization into technopoles, clusters of high-tech firms and institutions of higher education, such as the Silicon Valley (Castells and Hall, 1994), to comparative analysis of the fastest developing countries in the Asian Pacific Rim (Castells, 1992), to research conducted in Russia before and after the 1991 revolution and the demise of the Soviet Union.

It details the diversity of social change interlinked around the globe which created the Information Age and integrates the often seemingly contradictory trends into a comprehensive analytical framework. The theoretical abstractions are developed through a broad and detailed empirical analysis “as a method of disciplining my theoretical discourse, of making it difficult, if not impossible, to say something that observed collective action rejects in practice” (1997, p. 3). This makes his account highly accessible and richly textured.

Castells’ analysis is driven by the hypothesis of a new society: “A new society emerges when and if a structural transformation can be observed in the relationships of production, in the relationships of power, and in the relationships of experience” (1998, p. 340). The observation of those transformations informs the central structure of the trilogy. The first volume focusses primarily on the changing relationships of production: the global economy, the network enterprise and the changing patterns of labor. The second focusses on the relationships of power and experience, framed as a crisis of the nation-state vis-ˆ-vis global institutions and the related crisis of the political democracy vis-ˆ-vis newly articulated identities. The third volume ties together a number of “loose ends”. They are themselves important features of the Information Age, but more as effects of, rather than actors in the analyzed transformations: the demise of the Soviet Union, the growth of the fourth world of excluded regions and social groups and the emergence of a global criminal economy.

Castells’ Theoretical Assumptions

The central hypothesis of the dialectical opposition between the Net and the Self is based on an original and powerful combination of two theoretical assumptions. The first assumption structures Castells’ account of the rise of the Net: the dialectical interaction of social relations and technological innovation, or, in Castells’ terminology, modes of production and modes of development. The second assumption underlies the importance of the Self: the way social groups define their identity shapes the institutions of society. As Castells notes “each type of identity-building process leads to a different outcome in constituting society” (1997, p. 8). To appreciate the trilogy it is useful to look at these theoretical assumptions in some detail because their pervasiveness shapes the selection of phenomena covered and their specific analysis.

Social development is inseparable from the changes in the technological infrastructure through which many of the activities are carried out, “since technology is society and society cannot be understood or represented without its technological tools” (1996, p. 5). Social changes and technological changes are intimately related. Castells theorizes their interaction in the following way: A society produces its goods and services in specific social relationships–the modes of production. Since the industrial revolution, the prevalent mode of production in Western societies has been capitalism, embodied in a wide range of historically and geographically specific institutions to create and distribute profit. The modes of development, on the other hand, “are the technological arrangements through which labor acts upon matter to generate the product, ultimately determining the level and the quality of the surplus” (1996, p. 16).

The evolution of the capitalist modes of production is driven by private capital’s competitive pressures. Modes of development, however, evolve according to their own logic; they do not respond mechanically to economic necessities. Technological innovations emerge from the interaction between scientific and technological discovery and the organizational integration of such discoveries in the process of production and management. The evolutionary model of two separate modes bears some resemblance to Marxist theory formulated by Louis Althusser who introduced a similar distinction between the relations of production (classes) and the forces of production (technique) (Webster 1995, p. 196).

In the present volumes Marxist theory has been toned down to a point where the remnants can hardly be called Marxist anymore. However, they enable Castells to avoid the conceptual traps which fuel the debate over whether technology determines social development or whether social actors use technology merely as a tool (Smith and Marx, 1994). He argues that technological development does not completely mirror the economic process because the former is also influenced by other factors, for example, inventiveness and experiments with non-economic goals. The results of technological innovation open up new possibilities which may or may not be realized by social actors using them. There is a strong interaction between the two processes of invention and application, but they cannot be conflated into a linear dependence of one determining the other. The accusation of technological determinism (Webster, 1995, pp. 193-214) is therefore unjustified.

The second assumption which guides his research concerns the role of identity in societal development. Rather than seeing it as an effect, as a traditional Marxist would, he argues the opposite: identity-building itself is a dynamic motor in forming society. Identity is defined as “the process of construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural attribute, or related set of cultural attributes, that is/are given priority over other sources of meaning” (1997, p. 6). He formulates a hypothesis that “who[ever] constructs collective identity, and for what, largely determines the symbolic content of this identity, and its meaning for those identifying with it or placing themselves outside of it” (1997, p. 7). Influenced by the French sociologist of social movements, Alain Touraine, Castells identifies three types of identity which are related to different social associations:

1. Legitimizing identity: introduced by the dominant institutions of society to extend and rationalize their domination over social actors. Legitimizing identities generate civil societies and their institutions, which reproduce what Max Weber called “rationale Herrschaft” (rational power).

2. Resistance identity: produced by those actors who are in a position/condition of being excluded by the logic of domination. Identity for resistance leads to the formation of communes or communities as a way of coping with otherwise unbearable conditions of oppression.

3. Project identity: proactive movements which aim at transforming society as a whole, rather than merely establishing the conditions for their own survival in opposition to the dominant actors. Feminism and environmentalism fall under this category (1997, pp. 10-12).

Castells’ particular achievement is in combining two theoretical perspectives which in their more radical form are often mutually exclusive. While Castells’ theory is distinct and original, the Information Age is not about theory but about “communicating theory by analyzing practice” (1997, p. 3). This method enables him to cover coherently an impressive range: from the high-tech laboratories in Silicon Valley to the low-tech laboratories in the Colombian jungle, from the global capital markets to the psychology of a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway system, and beyond. His analysis is strongest when he can bring both perspectives to bear.

The Network Society

In the first volume, Castells covers the structural aspects of the Information Age which have created the Network Society: the new formations into which core economic activities have been organized and the new spatial and temporal conditions they have effected. At the base of this reorganization is the pervasive implementation of technological innovation since the 1970s, clustering around the convergence of computing and telecommunication. After analyzing the history of the technology since the late 1940s and comparing it to patterns of development in the Industrial Revolution, Castells concludes that information technology evolves in a distinctively different pattern than previous technologies, thus constituting the “informational mode of development”: a flexible, pervasive, integrated and reflexive, rather than additive evolution. The reflexivity of the technologies, the fact that any product is also raw material because both are information, has permitted the speeding up of the process of innovation.

This self-accelerating process has created in about twenty years a new economic condition, the informational and global economy. This new economy is informational because the competitiveness of its central actors (firms, regions, or nations) depends on their ability to generate and process electronic information. It is global because its most important aspects, from financing to production, are organized on a global scale, directly through multinational corporations and/or indirectly through networks of associations. This new global economy is more than just another layer of economic activity on top of the existing production process. Rather, it restructures all economic activities based on goals and values introduced by the aggressive exploitation of new productivity potentials of advanced information technology. Existing processes become either reorganized into new patterns, for example from national to transnational production, or repositioned vis-ˆ-vis the new highly productive sectors. What differentiates the new global economy from the world economy of previous ages is that “it is an economy with the capacity to work as a unit in real time on a planetary scale” (1996, p. 92). Castells’ analysis of the global economy is exceptional for the depth with which he describes how it is played out between and within various social and regional contexts, including Latin America, Africa and Russia. Rather than creating the same conditions everywhere, the global economy is characterized “by its interdependence, its asymmetry, its regionalization, the increased diversification within each region, its selective inclusiveness, its exclusionary segmentation, and, as a result of all those features, an extraordinarily variable geometry that tends to dissolve historical, economic geography” (1996, p. 106). The global economy has been created under the drive of restructuring the capitalist enterprise since the 1970s and, with increasing pace, in the 1980s.

The new network enterprise is a phenomenon comprising not only shifting internal hierarchies, but also changing patterns of competition and cooperation across institutions. The network enterprise is “that specific form of enterprise whose system of means is constituted by the intersection of autonomous systems of goals” (1996, p. 171). Castells examines in comparison different types of business networks in Japan, Korea and China whose networked organizations have been better suited than the conventional western corporations to adopt to some of the flexible features of the spirit of informationalism: “a culture of the ephemeral, a culture of each strategic decision, a patchwork of experiences and interests, rather than a charter of rights and obligations” (1996, p. 199).

The restructuring of western corporations into more networked businesses created new work and employment conditions: the networker and flextimer replaced the full-time employee. Here Castells argues against common oversimplifications of theories of “Post-Industrialism” which have been “biased by an American ethnocentrism that did not fully represent even the American experience” (1996, p. 221). It is the specific quality of Castells’ analysis that by acknowledging differences–between a “Service Economy Model” (USA, England, Canada) and an “Industrial Production Model” (Japan, Germany), for example–he is able to work out the pervasiveness of the common trends towards individualization of work and flexible and unstable patterns of employment. These new working conditions have been developed first in Western corporations to compete with the East-Asian business networks. In the environment of stepped up global competition, however, the latter will be increasingly incapable of maintaining their traditionally very stable, long-term employment structure in which the average worker has been bonded loyally to the firm for a life-time. This, as Castells argues for Japan, is likely to produce major social problems and difficulties of adjustment (1998, pp. 229-236). The current troubles of the East-Asian economies seem to underscore this analysis.

The common theme underlying the diversity of regional and sectorial patterns of economic change is the incorporation of similar information technology into historically very different businesses. Its most distinct result is the emergence of what Castells calls the space of flows: the integrated global network. It comprises several connected elements: private networks, company Intranets; semi-public, closed and proprietary networks such as the financial networks; and public, open networks, the Internet. Social organizations reconstitute themselves according to this space of flows.

In Castells conception, the space of flows is made up of three aspects:

Technology: the infrastructure of the network.
Places: the topology of the space formed by its nodes and hubs. Hubs are defined by the network but link it to specific places with specific social and cultural conditions. Nodes are the “location[s] of strategically important functions that build a series of locality-based activities and organizations around the key functions of the network” (1996, p. 413). The importance of hubs to produce the strategic functions of the network and of nodes to concentrate decision-making are at the core of the dynamic of global cities.

People: the (relatively) secluded space of the managerial elite commanding the networks, such as gated communities, exclusive social clubs, VIP lounges at airports and hotels that are almost identical around the world. Together these dispersed and interconnected spaces build the physical base for the social cohesion of the new elite.

The space of flows has introduced a culture of real virtuality which is characterized by timeless time and placeless space. “Timeless time…the dominant temporality in our society, occurs when the characteristics of a given context, namely, the informational paradigm and the network society, induce systemic perturbation in the sequential order of phenomena performed in that context” (1996, p. 464). Examples of such perturbations are the effects of global financial turmoil on local communities or reorganization of a global corporation on any of its local branches. “The space of flows…dissolves time by disordering the sequence of events and making them simultaneous, thus installing society in an eternal ephemerality” (1996, p. 467). In short, anything can happen at any time, it can happen very rapidly, and its sequence is independent from what goes on in the places where the effects are felt.

Castells remains somewhat vague in his theorization of the space of flows. Developing his argument further one might say that the distinguishing characteristic of the space of flows is binary time and binary space. Binary time expresses no sequence but knows only two states: either presence or absence, either now or never. Within the space of flows everything that is the case is now, and everything that is not must be introduced from the outside: that is, it springs suddenly into existence. Sequence is arbitrary in the space of flows and disorders events which in the physical context are connected by a chronological sequence. Binary space, then, is a space where the distance can only be measured as two states: zero distance (inside the network) or infinite distance (outside the network), here or nowhere. For example, when seeking information on the Internet, the crucial distinction is whether this information is on-line or not. The continent in which the information resides within the network is largely irrelevant. Everything that is on-line is (immediately) accessible: it is here, without distance. Everything that is outside the network is infinitely far away, completely inaccessible no matter where the network is entered; when someone puts it on-line, then it is suddenly here.

Castells’ focus is on the dynamic intersection between the space of flows and physical space. The global economy is concentrated in relatively few places, such as the Silicon Valley, Wall Street or the development zones in southern China, as its core activities become centered around the processing of immaterial, placeless information. Nevertheless, their logics are less and less determined by their history. In The Informational City (1989) he states this relationship most distinctly: “While organizations are located in places, and their components are place-dependent, the organizational logic is placeless, being fundamentally dependent on the space of flows that characterizes information networks. But such flows are structured, not undetermined. They possess directionality, conferred both by the hierarchical logic of the organization as reflected in instructions given, and by the material characteristics of the information systems infrastructure….The more organizations depend, ultimately, upon flows and networks, the less they are influenced by the social context associated with the places of their location. From this follows a growing independence of the organizational logic from the societal logic” (1989, pp. 169-170).

Increasingly, power is concentrated in the intricate space of flows, to the extent that “the power of flows takes precedence over the flows of power” (1996, p. 469). The space of flows expresses the dominant social logic in the Network Society. Financial markets, for example, have turned into the central event of the new economy to such an extent that “all other [economic] activities (except those of the dwindling public sector) are primarily the basis to generate the necessary surplus to invest in the global flows, or the result of investment originated in these financial flows” (1996, p. 472).

While the dominant social logic is shaped by the real virtuality of the space of flows, people live in the physical world, the space of places. This “condition of structural schizophrenia”, where two different spatial and temporal logics clash, introduces massive perturbation in cultures around the globe. People lose their sense of Self and attempt to reclaim their identity in new forms.

The Power of Identity

The tension between social institutions supported by traditional, waning, and new, rising identities is the topic of the second volume. The increasingly vigorous articulation of resistance against and projects alternative to the logic of the space of flows empties out the legitimacy of the institutions of the political democracy. Three examples of resistance identity are examined in detail, chosen for their radical differences in context and goals: Mexico’s Zapatistas, the American Militia groups, and Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo ( the group which released poison gas in Tokyo’s subway system on March 20, 1995). While each movement reflects the historical differences of its constituency and the threats it perceives in the transformation of its specific social landscape, “they all challenge current processes of globalization, on behalf of their constructed identities, in some instances claiming to represent the interest of their country [US Militia], or of humankind [Japan’s Aum], as well” (1997, p. 109).

Project identity is formulated by major pro-active movements: environmentalism, feminism, gay and lesbian movements. The latter three are jointly framed along the lines of the end of patriarchalism. They represent the conflictual and interrelated character of identity building. The possible end of patriarchalism not only opens up new possibilities of self-determination, but at the same time provokes very vehement reactions to preserve what is perceived as threatened. Castells stresses that “there is no predetermined directionality in history….A fundamentalist restoration, bringing patriarchalism back under the protection of divine law, may well reverse the process of undermining the patriarchal family, unwillingly induced by informational capitalism, and willingly pursued by cultural social movements” (1997, p. 242).

The classic embodiment of legitimizing identity, the nation state, is losing its power, “although, and this is essential, not its influence” (1997, p. 243). The loss of power stems from a loss of sovereignty, effected by the globalization of core economic activities, of media, of communication and, very importantly, the globalization of crime and law enforcement. The most obvious example of the loss of sovereignty can be found in the currency exchange markets, which have, since the late 1980s, outgrown the capacities of the central banks to control them. They now link up national currencies. This enforces financial coordination undermining the possibilities of national governments to formulate independent economic policy. As the former CEO of CitiBank, Walter Wriston, enthusiastically hails: “The global market has produced what amounts to a giant vote-counting machine that conducts a running tally of what the world thinks of a government’s diplomatic, fiscal, and monetary policy. That opinion is immediately reflected in the value a market places on a country’s currency” (Wriston, 1992, p. 9). Manuel Castells, more soberly, calls this “commodified democracy of profit making” (1996, p. 472).

Globalization has put the welfare state under double stress. Not only are national budgets tighter under the coercion of global financial markets, but also global firms can take advantage of cost differentials in social benefits and standards. As a result, “welfare states are being downsized to the lowest common denominator that keeps spiraling downwards” (1997, p. 254). Nevertheless, the nation state remains crucially important because it is still the only legitimized entity from which multilateralism can be built to address increasingly pressing global problems. However, this proves to be a dilemma. On the one hand, it increases the pressure on the nation state to effect decisions in the international arena and, on the other, it diminishes its credibility in the area of domestic policy by constraining it in an ever more restrictive network of global agreements.

The result is a crisis of political liberal democracy. The nation state loses its ability to integrate its own constituency, an integration which has been achieved through locally built instruments of the welfare state. At the same time, the policy process disappears into an increasingly abstract arena of international organizations. The traditional institutions of democracy are caught in a fundamental contradiction. “The more the states emphasize communalism, the less effective they become as co-agents in the global system of shared power. The more they triumph on a planetary scene, the less they represent their national constituencies” (1997, p. 308). The more the nation state withdraws from its citizens, the greater grows the need to find alternative sources of identity. Trapped between the increased articulation of diverse, often conflicting identities and the need to act on a global scene, the traditional democratic institutions–the civil society–are being voided of meaning and legitimacy: they lose their identity. The power of the political democracy, ironically at the moment when it reaches almost global acceptance, seems to be inevitably waning. Castells puts much hope in social movements to develop new forms of identity and democracy which could break the connection between the nation–the entity of identification–and the state–the entity of decision making–two concepts which have merged only in the modern age.

The End of the Millennium

The phenomena presented in the final book are less integrated than those in the previous volumes. They are a somewhat eclectic mix of major events or trends which do not fit easily under the two main headers presented at the outset of the trilogy: the Net and the Self.

The demise of the Soviet Union sits somewhat uncomfortably in an account which is focussed on the beginning of a new era, rather than the end of the old. The fall of the Soviet Union serves as a case study of an unsuccessful restructuring after the twin crises of capitalism and statism which became manifest in the early 1970s. “‘Something’ happened during the 1970s that induced technological retardation in the USSR. But this ‘something’ happened not in the Soviet Union, but in the advanced capitalist countries” (1998, p. 28). The West, particularly the US, due to its flexible social geometry, has been able to exploit the potential of new information technologies, thus moving rapidly from an industrial to an informational mode of production (Castells, 1996). The Soviet Union, on the other hand, with an institutional separation between research and production, a negative attitude towards innovation, and a tight control over communication media was unable to take advantage of the potential of its own research and technology, or of the imported technology on which it increasingly relied. Once communication was allowed to flow more freely under Gorbachev’s reforms, the extent of the silent withdrawal from the dominant identity-building institutions and their ideology became apparent. Suddenly, people found themselves in a vacuum looking for new orientation. Castells concludes, “while the inability of Soviet statism to adapt to the technological and economic conditions of an information society was the most powerful underlying cause of the crisis of the Soviet system, it was the resurgence of national identity, either historically rooted or politically reinvented, that first challenged and ultimately destroyed the Soviet state” (1998, p. 38). As a result of that process, large parts of what was once a military and industrial superpower entered the growing ranks of the fourth world.

“The rise of informationalism in this end of millennium is intertwined with rising inequality and social exclusion throughout the world” (1998, p. 70). Castells traces the phenomenon of exclusion across different social and geographic contexts and concludes “the evolution of intra-country inequality varies, what appears to be a global phenomenon is the growth of poverty, and particularly of extreme poverty” (1998, p. 81). Social exclusion is flexibly defined as the systematic inability of individuals or groups to access the means for meaningful survival. This enables him to connect the heritage of the colonial history of Africa with the exploitation of children around the world and the exclusion of minority groups and geographic areas in the United States. While the historic causes for their exclusion vary from case to case, they nevertheless form an entity, the fourth world, because they all entered the Information Age in positions in which their exclusion is reinforced by the structural dynamic of informationalism. In the United States, for example, “the emergence of the space of flows, using telecommunications and transportation to link valuable places in a non-contingent pattern, has allowed the reconfiguration of metropolitan areas around selective connection of strategically located activities, bypassing undesirable areas, left to themselves” (1998, p. 144). This development started long before the rise of the network society. However, it is the new ability to effectively switch off areas which are viewed as non-valuable from the perspective of the dominant social logic, embedded in the space of flows, which has created black holes of informational capitalism: regions from where there is, statistically speaking, no escape from suffering and depravation.

However, not all actors in the fourth world are simply switched off from the centers of prosperity. Some of them have established, with a vengeance, a perverse connection through the global criminal economy. Crime is as old as humanity, but its global character is a new phenomenon. Traditional, locally-rooted criminal organization, such as the Sicilian Mafia or the Chinese Triads have taken advantage of the technological and organizational opportunities provided by the new communication technologies. They have set up global networks. Joined by newcomers, such as the cartels of Colombia or the Russian Mafiyas, they now interconnect. Around the globe, they flexibly traffic illegal goods–drugs, weapons, nuclear material, illegal immigrants, women and children, and body parts–as well as providing illegal services such as contract killing, blackmailing, extortion, and kidnapping. It all comes together in the $ 750 billion which are laundered in the global financial markets (estimate for 1994, Castells, 1997, p. 260). It is not so much the existence of a shadow economy but rather the penetration of all aspects of legal economy and state institutions which is a new phenomenon. The global financial markets have been fueled by adventurous money seeking investment opportunities outside existing legal controls. Castells concludes “because of its volatility, and its willingness to take high risks, the criminal capital follows, and amplifies, speculative turbulences in financial markets. Thus, it has become an important source of destabilization of international finance and capital markets” (1998, p. 201). The societies of Japan, Russia, Italy and Colombia, among others, have been penetrated to their core by organized crime. The political processes are influenced through sheer violence, for example the killing of special investigators in Italy, or through more subtle forms, like corruption. The global criminal economy is the phenomenon which has most successfully combined the two central aspects of the Information Age: the Net and the Self. Based on strong local identities, violently established and maintained, they have created a flexible global network of fast changing strategic alliances to exploit whatever opportunity arises. Castells concludes that “criminal networks are probably in advance of multinational corporations in their decisive ability to combine cultural identity and global business” (1998, p. 204).

Another, albeit unrelated aspect of the shift away from global dominance by the centers of Western culture is the emergence of leading informational economies in the Pacific Rim. After a detailed examination of the differences among the fastest developing countries–Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong–Castells presents his concept of the “developmental state”: a state that “establishes as its principle of legitimacy its ability to promote and sustain development” (1998, p. 270). This follows the lines previously proposed (Castells, 1992) and seems only tangentially related to the overall theme of the dynamic between the Net and the Self. In the case of Japan, however, Castells works out this dynamic. The institutions of the state, and societies at large, face a crisis for the same reasons as those of the Western democracies. After World War II the Japanese state nurtured forms of industrial development that were globally competitive and supported the particularities of its traditional values: stability, homogeneity and cultural isolation, and strong patriarchalism. This system has come under double stress since the late 1980s. To the extent that the Japanese multinationals have become truly global corporations, they have been disassociated from the Japanese national economy and the values expressed in it. Increasingly, the long-term stability of employment is not guaranteed. From below, a cultural change is in the making, generally more critical of traditional authorities and in particular of the repressed position of women in Japanese society. Together, the pervasive logic of the network society and the more pronounced articulation of new identities puts the system at large under increased stress. While the manifestations of the transformation are decidedly Japanese, many of its characteristics are related, not so much to Japanese history, but to the general tensions of the Information Age.

I was disappointed by Castells’ analysis of the European integration. He accurately characterizes the unification process as a defensive project that is organized around a limited set of common interests, mainly economic, among the participating nation-states. Castells labels the novel institutional arrangements of the European Union as the network state. Unfortunately, he defines it as “a state characterized by the sharing of authority (that is, in the last resort, the capacity to impose legitimized violence) along a network” (1998, p. 332). This definition is circular and it also contradicts empirical observation. Throughout its history the European Union has never been able to mobilize legitimate violence. This fact was most dramatically evident in the recent failure to act effectively during the civil war in former Yugoslavia. That is why the Yugoslavian peace agreement was signed in Dayton, Ohio, not in Brussels.

Conclusion

Castells argues that “two macro-trends…characterize the Information Age: The globalization of economy, technology, and communication; and the parallel affirmation of identity as the source of meaning” (1998, p. 311). He scans the globe to follow these trends. The resulting analysis is exceptional for two reasons. First, he shows the pervasive influence of those trends across a staggeringly large variety of social, cultural and geographic contexts. Out of the detailed analysis of localized phenomena emerges the fabric of the truly planetary character of the present. It is precisely because a common theme emerges out of seemingly contradictory phenomena that his Information Age is more than just another label. It is a convincingly argued historical reality. The depth and cultural sensitivity with which Castells develops the facets of each trend is in itself a major accomplishment. Second, it is Castells’ particular achievement to focus on both trends at the same time. His analysis is most interesting and most original where he works out how their interaction frames a particular set of events. His analysis of the crisis of political democracy, of the global criminal economy, of Japan, and to a lesser extent, the demise of the Soviet Union, are instant classics and open up new avenues for theoretical and empirical research. These chapters also provide the best entry-points into the gargantuan trilogy because they exemplify the effects of the interplay of trends which are elaborated in great detail in other chapters.

His method of communicating theory by analyzing practice has some drawbacks. The treatment of phenomena which fit less easily into these macro-trends is not always convincing. His political analysis of the mass media is particularly uncritical. He sees only their structural influence, stating “outside the media sphere there is only political marginality. What happens in this media-dominated political space is not determined by the media: it is an open social and political process” (1997, p. 312). Castells argues that the business interests of the news media guarantee a certain distance from the political process. Given the homogeneity of political views expressed in the mass media and the almost exclusive framing of politics as partisan politics, his analysis is surprisingly wanting. The analysis would have benefited from some references to Noam Chomsky, whose work is totally ignored.

The Information Age trilogy belongs, at least in aspiration, to the class of sociological grand theory, in the line of Daniel Bell, Alain Touraine and Anthony Giddens, whom Castells cites repeatedly as his intellectual reference points. However, he does not really abstract his findings into stringent theory comparable to, for example, Giddens’ Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), which he uses as a springboard for his own development of the concept of identity. Castells develops several fragments of a grand theory such as informational capitalism, the constitutive role of social movements in the construction of meaning, or the developmental state. However, these elements are not easily compatible and the coherence of the theory is sometimes lost in favor of expanding its scope. The theoretical sections of the book are sometimes convoluted with a language sociologists are notorious for, in contrast to the lucidity of the empirical sections. Castells excels in tracing trends across apparent differences, analyzing the patterns in which they are manifest, and pointing at their conflictual interplay which defines the possibility and the need for political and social action. What the course of action should be, however, can not be deduced from the analysis. After close to 1500 pages, he concludes his journey with: “Each time an intellectual has tried to answer this question, and seriously implement the answer, catastrophe was ensured….In the twentieth century, philosophers have been trying to change the world. In the twenty-first century, it is time to interpret it differently. Hence my circumspection, which is not indifference, about a world troubled by its own promise” (1998, pp. 358-359).

References:

Castells, M. 1983. The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press
–––––. 1989 The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban Regional Process. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell

–––––. 1992. Four Asian Tigers With a Dragon Head: A Comparative Analysis of the State, Economy, and Society in the Asian Pacific Rim. pp. 33-70 in Appelbaum, Richard; Henderson, Jeffrey (eds.) States and Development in the Asian Pacific Rim. Newbury Park, London, New Delhi: Sage

–––––. & Hall, P. 1994. Technopoles of the World: The Makings of 21st Century Industrial Complexes. London: Routledge

Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press

Smith, M.R & Marx, L. 1994. Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. Cambridge, MA; London: MIT Press

Webster, F. 1995 Theories of the Information Society. London; New York: Routledge

Wriston, W. 1992. The Twilight of Sovereignty. How the Information Revolution is Transforming Our World. New York, Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan

 

 

 

Network society

I have find a interesting video which explain Social Networking in Plain English. What is social network? well, look at this…

Cyberwar and Netwar

Cyberwar and Netwar:
New Modes, Old Concepts, of Conflict

John J. Arquilla and David F. Ronfeldt

The information revolution is transforming warfare, contend the authors. No longer will massive, dug-in armies fight bloody attritional battles. Instead small, highly mobile forces, armed with real-time information from satellites and battlefield sensors, will strike with lightening speed in unexpected places. The winner: the side that can exploit information to disperse the fog of war yet enshroud an enemy in it.

Suppose war looked like this: Small numbers of light, highly mobile forces defeat and compel the surrender of large masses of heavily armed, dug-in enemy forces, with little loss of life on either side. Mobile forces can do this because they are well prepared, make room for maneuver, concentrate their firepower rapidly in unexpected places, and have superior command, control and information systems that are decentralized to allow tactical initiatives, yet provide central commanders with unparalleled intelligence and “top sight” for strategic purposes.

Our vision is inspired not so much by the U.S. victory in the Persian Gulf war as by the example of the Mongols of the 13th century. Their “hordes” were almost always outnumbered by their opponents; yet, they conquered and held for over a century the largest continental empire ever seen. The key to Mongol success was their absolute dominance of battlefield information. They struck when and where they deemed appropriate, and their “arrow riders” kept field commanders, often separated by hundreds of miles, in daily communication. Even the Great Khan, sometimes thousands of miles away, was aware of developments in the field within days of their occurrence.

Warfare in the Information Age

Throughout history, military doctrine, organization and strategy have continually undergone profound, technology-driven changes. Industrialization led to attrition warfare by massive armies in World War I. Mechanization led to maneuver predominated by tanks in World War II. The information revolution implies the rise of a mode of warfare in which neither mass nor mobility will decide outcomes; instead, the side that knows more, that can disperse the fog of war yet enshroud an adversary in it, will enjoy decisive advantages.

Sea changes are occurring in how information is collected, stored, processed, communicated and presented, and in how organizations are designed to take advantage of increased information. Information is becoming a strategic resource that may prove as valuable and influential in the postindustrial era as capital and labor have been in the industrial age.

The information revolution sets in motion forces that challenge the design of many institutions. It disrupts and erodes the hierarchies around which institutions are normally designed. It diffuses and redistributes power, often to the benefit of weaker, smaller actors. It crosses borders, redraws the boundaries of offices and responsibilities, and generally compels closed systems to open up.

The information revolution will cause shifts, both in how societies may come into conflict and how their armed forces may wage war. We offer a distinction between what we call netwar–societal-level conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communications–and cyberwar at the military level.

What Is Netwar?

Netwar refers to information-related conflict at a grand level between nations or societies. It means trying to disrupt or damage what a target population knows or thinks it knows about itself and the world around it. A netwar may focus on public or elite opinion, or both. It may involve diplomacy, propaganda and psychological campaigns, political and cultural subversion, deception of or interference with local media, infiltration of computer networks and databases, and efforts to promote dissident or opposition movements across computer networks.

Netwar represents a new entry on the spectrum of conflict that spans economic, political, and social, as well as military forms of “war.” In contrast to economic wars that target the production and distribution of goods, and political wars that aim at the leadership and institutions of a government, netwars would be distinguished by their targeting of information and communications.

Netwars will take various forms. Some may occur between the governments of rival nation-states. Other kinds of netwar may arise between governments and nonstate actors. For example, netwar may be waged by governments against illicit groups involved in terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or drug smuggling. Or it may be waged against the policies of specific governments by advocacy groups–involving, for example, environmental, human-rights or religious issues. The nonstate actors may or may not be associated with nations, and in some cases they may be organized into vast transnational coalitions.

Some netwars will involve military issues, such as nuclear proliferation, drug smuggling and antiterrorism, because of the potential threats they pose to international order and national security.

Netwars are not real wars, traditionally defined. But netwar might be developed into an instrument for trying, early on, to prevent a real war from arising. Deterrence in a chaotic world may become as much a function of one’s cyber posture and presence as of one’s force posture and presence.

What Is Cyberwar?

Cyberwar refers to conducting military operations according to information-related principles. It means disrupting or destroying information and communications systems. It means trying to know everything about an adversary while keeping the adversary from knowing much about oneself. It means turning the “balance of information and knowledge” in one’s favor, especially if the balance of forces is not. It means using knowledge so that less capital and labor may have to be expended.

This form of warfare may involve diverse technologies, notably for command and control, for intelligence collection, processing and distribution, for tactical communications, positioning, identifying friend-or-foe, and for “smart” weapons systems, to give but a few examples. It may also involve electronically blinding, jamming, deceiving, overloading and intruding into an adversary’s information and communications circuits.

Cyberwar has broad ramifications for military organization and doctrine. Moving to networked structures may require some decentralization of command and control. But decentralization is only part of the picture: The new technology may also provide greater “topsight,” a central understanding of the big picture that enhances the management of complexity. This pairing of decentralization with topsight brings the real gains.

Cyberwar may also imply developing new doctrines about the kinds of forces needed, where and how to deploy them, and how to strike the enemy. How and where to position what kinds of computers, sensors, networks and databases may become as important as the question once was for the deployment of bombers and their support functions.

As an innovation in warfare, cyberwar may be to the 21st century what blitzkrieg was to the 20th century. At a minimum, cyberwar represents an extension of the traditional importance of obtaining information in war: having superior command, control, communication and intelligence and trying to locate, read, surprise and deceive the enemy before he does the same to you.

Cyberwar may be to the 21st century what
blitzkrieg was to the 20th.

The postmodern battlefield may be fundamentally altered by the information technology revolution, at both the strategic and tactical levels. The increasing breadth and depth of this battlefield and the ever-improving accuracy and destructiveness of even conventional munitions have heightened the importance of information to the point at which dominance in this aspect alone may now yield consistent war-winning advantages to able practitioners.

Networks Versus Hierarchies

From a traditional standpoint, a military is an institution that fields armed forces. The form that all institutions normally take is the hierarchy, and militaries, in particular, depend heavily on hierarchy. Yet, the information revolution is bound to erode hierarchies and redraw the boundaries around which institutions and their offices are normally built.

Mongol attack, 1241. Absolute command of
battlefield information.

The Mongols, a classic example of an ancient force that fought according to cyberwar principles, were organized more like a network than a hierarchy. More recently, the combined forces of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, a relatively minor military power that defeated a great modern power, operated more like a network than an institution. In both cases, the defeated opponents of the Mongols and the Vietnamese were large institutions whose forces were designed to fight set-piece, attritional battles.

Currently, most adversaries that the United States and its allies face in the realm of low-intensity conflict–international terrorists, guerrilla insurgents, drug smuggling cartels, ethnic factions, and racial and tribal gangs–are all organized like networks.

The lesson: Institutions can be defeated by networks, and it may take networks to counter networks. The future may belong to whoever masters the network form.

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Excerpted from Cyber War Is Coming, by John J. Arquilla and David F. Ronfeldt, in Comparative Strategy, Vol. 12, pp. 141-165, 1993.

David Ronfeldt is a senior member of RAND’s international policy department. John Arquilla is a consultant.

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RAND Research Review Contents

RAND’s Home Page

Information and network society.

We can notice that the information has played an increasingly important role of our daily lives. 24-hour television and radio broadcast; ads are everywhere; newspapers and books in the air; Internet and mobile communications make information be able to get anytime and anywhere.

Our society is influenced by the medium; however, the penetration of information is so more than these. The information environment is not only surrounds us, but is increasingly becoming an integral part of our inherent.

Just look at popular fashion, we can notice that our society communication which contained rich information is quite different from the past. Sign and a symbol of social life has becoming indispensable.

Therefore, many writers announce that we entered the information society. Obviously，this approach is qualitative rather than quantitative. On the contrast, the information explosion makes the other writers feel that some symbols have been meaningless. Jean Baudrillard said: “Increasingly information, decreasingly significance.”

As the information environment has becoming diverse, which contribute to the cultural structure of the Internet age from cultural center turn to multiculture. The is a key feature of the difference between Information Society and Industrial Society, is that Information Society does not stay in  the field of industry, labor, science and technology research, but turn to the education, welfare, entertainment, communication and other widely spirit realm and social life fields, and make them expansion. In other words, it is being infiltrated our entire lives, our lives have been informationization.

According to the present phenomenon, the network do not just recruit the world, it creates a metaphorical world to guide people’s daily lives.

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Understanding of the information society

Our society is influenced by the medium. The information environment is not only surrounds us, but is increasingly becoming an integral part of our inherent.

Spatial concept of the information society is go hand in hand with information networks and their organizational capacity. Information has become an important strategic resource to organize the world economy. Meanwhile, the network provides the infrastructure for processing and transmission of information. There is an outstanding example is restructuring of the world’s financial system. A large amount of capital can be instant transfer in electronic form. It completely breaks the traditional geographical boundaries.

It has become possible to provide commercial and services worldwide because of the growing economic integration between countries and regions. All of these – the importance of strategic information, construction of IT infrastructure, growth of interchangeable information, and global integration, which have strengthened the core position of the information network and will link the whole world.

As a historical trend, the main functions and methods of the information age are composite around the network. The network constitutes a new social form of our society, which is source to dominate and change our society. A web-based social structure is highly dynamic, open system, and it is easier innovation without affecting its balance (Maunel Castells The Rise of the Network Society 1996).

This web-based social structure is highly dynamic and open social system. This network logic has continued to spread, it is necessary to change the operation and results of production, experience, power and process of culture. Furthermore, it can change the dynamic relationship in networks as well.

Emergence of network society, which means great changes of human experience, which means the tremendous changes in all areas of the production and life of human society. It is further accelerate of interpersonal interaction, people also becoming more independent due to reduced face to face contact. But at the same time, it is also make human beings imperceptibly lost identity of historical depth and special area, and drifting to the virtual digital cultures.