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Enter the Matrix

Posted by James Page at 4:06pm on Friday, 19th March 2004

- The structure of the network society is dictated by forms of communiciation - all communication between state and citizen must take place through the media network, but other forms of citizen-to-citizen comunication (mobile phones etc) allow bottom up communication and mobilisation which is beyond the control of the centre

- There is a crisis surrounding the nation state which is now typically more a hub for connecting networks than a site of power in itself - he pointed to the devolving of power both down to the local level and upwards to supra (international) bodies as evidence of the contemporary state being a bit of a shell

- Power is exercied in networks through two mechanisms: inclusion / exclusion, and dominance (one network over another)

- There are two types of powerful agents in the network society: 'programmers' who set and re-set the agenda that networks cluster around and work towards - once programmed a network is extremely efficient in spreading and achieving its goals; and 'switchers' who are gatekeepers for connections between different networks.


Comments

1
The only part of his talk that he hadn't been saying since the late 90s was the point made in your final bullet. And I found it a bit soft. Is the man still so stunned by networked computing that he has allowed this analogy (programmers/switchers) to dictate his analysis of how power works at a global level? Social theorists are allowed to be more difficult than that, but suddenly it seems that Steven Johnson's tail is wagging Manuel Castells's dog.
Posted by Will Davies  at 10:42am on Saturday, 20th March 2004
2
I thought Castell's comments about first time voters using SMS to organise protests in Spain were very interesting in terms of bypassing centralised media. However the 'switchers' / 'programmers' metaphor is hardly new. It sounds very similar to the nodal concept Gladwell uses in 'The Tipping Point'.
Posted by Ian Gardiner  at 8:28pm on Sunday, 21st March 2004
3
Web logging, or blogging, looks to be the fastest-growing hobby on the Internet. The way I see it, there are two kinds of blogs. Faux blogs can be set up by authors promoting books or newsletters, or they can be periodicals posing as blogs to get attention from other bloggers.
Posted by Stacy Stacy  at 5:54am on Tuesday, 23rd November 2004

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