Information Society

From the standpoint of social interrelations, M. Castells states: "...what happens is that the Internet is capable of developing weak ties to create weak ties, but is not capable of creating strong ties, on average, and is great to continue and reinforce the strong ties that exist from physical relationship".

Castells is a professor of urban geography at Berkley. He has written a number of books and articles about geography, the city, and the information society, including a three-volume analysis of contemporary capitalism, titled The Information Age. Garnham (2004, p. 165) refers to this as “the most sophisticated version” of the theory of the information society.

Castells' analysis involves economic, social, political, and cultural factors. I will focus on the economic, with a brief introduction to his analysis of space and the changing role of the nation state, and follow with an outline of some critiques of his work. Regrettably, this leaves much unmentioned, such as his theory of timeless time, of the social divides in modern cities and societies, or his examination of specific cases of social action in the context of what he calls the information city.

While this may be so, it is also true that these interrelationships have become deeply, at least with respect to shape. By this I mean that the time is devoted to the physical interaction in everyday life has been reduced considerably, largely because of the proliferation of such methods of communication.
No need to go far to find someone who changed their interrelations and patterns of consumption even for the simple fact of having an internet connection of some quality. A server is one of them.

 
This does not mean that the availability of communications networks and information are harmful to regional development and human, simply want to draw attention to other things that we should take care not to become a society of zombies.

The Network Society

Castells claims that we are passing from the industrial age into the information age. This historical change is brought about by the advent of new information technologies – particularly those for communication and biological technologies. Society remains capitalist, but basis of the technological means by which it acts has changed from energy to information. This information is of central importance in determining economic productivity. Communications technologies allow for the annihilation of space and for globalization; the potential for rapid and asynchronous communication also changes the relationship to time. And, while he explains that networks are not a new form of social organization, they have become a “key feature of social morphology”. This is because communication technologies, such as the Internet, allow for decentralization of operations and focusing of control, increasing the effectiveness of networks relative to hierarchical structures. Of business he writes, “[t]he main shift can be characterized as the shift from vertical bureaucracies to the horizontal corporation”.

According to Castells, power now rests in networks: “the logic of the network is more powerful than the powers of the network” (quoted in Weber, 2002, p. 104). Some networks, such as that of financial capital, are global in scale. Networks also exist within and between businesses, where the organizational unit has shifted from being capability-oriented (e.g. accounting, human resources, etc.) to being project-oriented. Resources – including employees, consultants, and other businesses – are brought together to work on a particular project, then dispersed and reallocated when the task is complete. The ability of an actor in the network – be it a company, individual, government, or other organization – to participate in the network is determined by the degree to which the node can contribute to the goals of the network. This new environment requires skilled flexible workers: the organization man gives way to the flexible woman. This leads to a binary process of inclusion and exclusion from the network. The people at the bottom are those who, with nothing to offer the network, are excluded.