Castells

Materials for an Exploratory theory of the network society

this is an incredible resource for definitions, especially related to society, organizations, and network

abstract excerpt
5
“Social structures are organized around relationships of production/consumption,
power, and experience, whose spatio–temporal con. gurations constitute
cultures. They are enacted, reproduced, and ultimately transformed by social
actors, rooted in the social structure, yet freely engaging in conﾏ ictive social practices,
with unpredictable outcomes. A fundamental feature of social structure in
the Information Age is its reliance on networks as the key feature of social morphology.
While networks are old forms of social organization, they are now
empowered by new information/communication technologies, so that they
become able to cope at the same time with ﾏ exible decentralization, and with
focused decision-making. The article examines the speci. c interaction between
network morphology and relationships of production/consumption, power,
experience, and culture, in the historical making of the emerging social structure
at the turn of the Millennium.”

DISS
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power, experience, production all defined

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“engineering. In this sense what is characteristic of the network society is not
the critical role of knowledge and information, because knowledge and
information were central in all societies. Thus, we should abandon the
notion of ‘Information Society’, which I have myself used some times, as
unspeci. c and misleading. What is new in our age is a new set of information
technologies. I contend they represent a greater change in the
history of technology than the technologies associated with the Industrial
Revolution, or with the previous Information Revolution (printing).
Furthermore, we are only at the beginning of this technological revolution,
as the Internet becomes a universal tool of interactive communication, as
we shift from computer-centred technologies to network-diffused technologies,
as we make progress in nanotechnology (and thus in the diffusion
capacity of information devices), and, even more importantly, as we
unleash the biology revolution, making possible for the . rst time, the
design and manipulation of living organisms, including human parts.”

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in network societies:
timeless time:annihilation of time
and space of flows: organizing “simultaneity of social practicies without geographical contiguity”

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE STRUCTURES, SOCIAL AND
GOVERNMENTAL, AND THE PROCESSES THOSE TECHNOLOGIES ENABLE. INFO HAS
ALWAYS BEEN PRESENT, BUT HOW WE ARE ABLE TO DEAL AND INTERACT WITH THEM
HAS CHANGED

I wonder how this could potentially impact the use of assemblages. Perhaps this change in
technologies enables a more rapid evolution or iteration in the assemblages so that they resemble
flow more closely.

The discussion about water in the Hoffman and Edge organization piece seem to make more sense.
Instead of limiting things to just have an assemblage that is constructed and falls apart, why not
accelerate our vision of it and conceive of it as a flow, a seepage of what is happening. The seeping
through proous rock also seems accurage, because there are always gaps in networks, and there is
never just open space where and when information take place. Perhaps, then it is the information
which enables us, or the technologies which enable us, to see thte information in new lights and to
enhance or create new relationships. By creating new relationships and assemblages out of the
information and the information practices, then new assemblgaes can be created.

This coulde tie into usability, because if we discover that something is not working, then new pieces
of information, new perspective,s, or new technologies could potentially be introudced in order to
clarify the situation.

22
Castells: there is little chance of social change within a network or a network of networks
- change can only come from being built around values or a network with a specific goal to create
change and/or challenge current codes & values

Other