An introduction to theinformation age*Manuel Castells

In the last decade I was struck, as many havebeen, by a series of major historical eventsthat have transformed our world/our lives.

Just to mention the most important: the diffu-sion and deepening of the information tech-nology revolution, including geneticengineering; the collapse of the Soviet Union,with the consequent demise of the interna-tional Communist movement, and the end ofthe Cold War that had marked everything forthe last half a century; the restructuring of cap-italism; the process of globalization; emergenceof the Pacific as the most dynamic area of theglobal economy; the paradoxical combinationof a surge in nationalism and the crisis of thesovereign nation-state; the crisis of democraticpolitics, shaken by periodic scandals and a crisisof legitimacy; the rise of feminism and the crisisof patriarchalism; the widespread diffusion ofecological consciousness; the rise of commu-nalism as sources of resistance to globalization,taking in many contexts the form of religiousfundamentalism; last, but not least, the devel-opment of a global criminal economy that ishaving significant impacts in internationaleconomy, national politics, and local everydaylife.

I grew increasingly dissatisfied with theinterpretations and theories, certainly includingmy own, that the social sciences were using tomake sense of this new world. But I did not giveup the rationalist project of understanding allthis, in a coherent manner, that could be some-what empirically grounded and as much as pos-

* Introductory address to the Conference on 'Infor-mation and the City', organized by this journal andheld at the School of Geography, Oxford University,on 22 March 1996.

sible theoretically oriented. Thus, for the last 12years I undertook the task of researching andunderstanding this wide array of social trends,working in and on the United States, WesternEurope, Russia, Asian Pacific, and LatinAmerica. Along the way, I found plenty ofcompany, as researchers from all horizons areconverging in this collective endeavour.

My personal contribution to this under-standing is the book in three volumes that I havenow completed, The Information Age, with the firstvolume already published, and the two othersscheduled for publication in 1997. The firstvolume analyzes the new social structure, the net-work society. The second volume studies socialmovements and political processes, in the frame-work of and in interaction with the networksociety. The third volume attempts an interpreta-tion of macro-social processes, as a result of theinteraction between the power of networks andthe power of identity, focusing on themes such asthe collapse of the Soviet Union, the emergenceof the Pacific, or the ongoing process of globalsocial exclusion and polarization. It also proposesa general theoretical synthesis.

I will take this opportunity to share with youthe main lines of my argument, hoping that thiswill help a debate that I see emerging from alldirections in the whole world. I see coming a newwave of intellectual innovation in which, by theway, British researchers are at the forefront.

Trying to summarize a considerable amount ofmaterial within one hour, I will follow aschematic format. I will focus on identifying themain features of what I consider to be theemerging, dominant social structure, the networksociety, that I find characteristic of informationalcapitalism, as constituted throughout the world. Iwill not indulge in futurology: everything I say is

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based on what I have perceived, rightly orwrongly, already at work in our societies. I willorganize my lecture in one disclaimer, ninehypotheses, and one conclusion.

DisclaimerI shall focus on the structure/dynamics of the net-work society, not on its historical genesis, that ishow and why it came about, although in my bookI propose a few hints about it. For the record: inmy view, it resulted from the historical conver-gence of three independent processes, fromwhose interaction emerged the network society:• The Information Technology Revolution, con-

stituted as a paradigm in the 1970s.• The restructuring of capitalism and of statism

in the 1980s, aimed at superseding their con-tradictions, with sharply different outcomes.

• The cultural social movements of the 1960s,and their 1970s aftermath (particularly femi-nism and ecologism).The Information Technology Revolution DID

NOT create the network society. But withoutInformation Technology, the Network Societywould not exist.

Rather than providing an abstract categoriza-tion of what this Network Society is, let me sum-marize its main features and processes, beforeattempting a synthesis of its embedded logic inthe diversity of its cultural/institutional varia-tions. There is no implicit hierarchy in thesequence of presentation of these features. Theyall interact in, guess what, a network.

1. An informational economyIt is an economy in which sources of productivityand competitiveness for firms, regions, countries,depend, more than ever, on knowledge, informa-tion, and the technology of their processing,including the technology of management, andthe management of technology. This is not thesame as a service economy. There is informa-tional agriculture, informational manufacturing,and different types of informational services,while a large number of service activities, e.g. inthe developing world, are not informational at all.

The informational economy opens up anextraordinary potential for solving our problems,but, because of its dynamism and creativity, it ispotentially more exclusionary than the industrialeconomy if social controls do not check trieforces of unfettered market logic.

The informational economy ispotentially more exclusionarythan the industrial economy ifsocial controls do not check

the forces of unfetteredmarket logic.

2. A global economyThis is not the same as a world economy. Thathas existed, in the West, at least since the six-teenth century. The global economy is a newreality: it is an economy whose core, strategicallydominant activities have the potential of workingas a unit in real time on a planetary scale. This isso for financial and currency markets, advancedbusiness services, technological innovation, hightechnology manufacturing, media communica-tion.

Most economic activity in the world, andmost employment are not only national butregional or local. But, except for subsistenceeconomies, the fate of these activities, and of theirjobs, depend ultimately on the dynamics of theglobal economy, to which they are connectedthrough networks and markets. Indeed, if labortends to be local, capital is by and large globalized— not a small detail in a capitalist economy. Thisglobalization has developed as a fully fledgedsystem only in the last two decades, on the basisof information/communication technologies thatwere previously not available.

The global economy reaches out to the wholeplanet, but it is not planetary, it does not includethe whole planet. In fact, it excludes probably amajority of the population. It is characterized by

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an extremely uneven geography. It scans thewhole world, and links up valuable inputs, mar-kets, and individuals, while switching offunskilled labour and poor markets. For a signifi-cant part of people around the world, there is ashift, from the point of view of dominant sys-temic interests, from exploitation to structuralirrelevance.

I propose the notion of theemergence of a Fourth

World of exclusion, made upnot only of most of Africa,and rural Asia, and of Latin

American shanties, but also ofthe South Bronx, La

Courneuve, Kamagasaki, orTower Hamlets of this world.

A fourth world that ispredominantly populated by

women and children.

This is different from the traditional FirstWorld/Third World opposition, because theThird World has become increasingly diversi-fied, internally, and the First World has generatedsocial exclusion, albeit in lesser proportion, withinits own boundaries. Thus, I propose the notion ofthe emergence of a Fourth World of exclusion,made up not only of most of Africa, and ruralAsia, and of Latin American shanties, but also ofthe South Bronx, La Courneuve, Kamagasaki, orTower Hamlets of this world. A fourth worldthat, as I document extensively in volume three, ispredominantly populated by women andchildren.

3. The network enterpriseAt the heart of the connectivity of the globaleconomy and of the flexibility of informationalcapitalism, there is a new form of organization,characteristic of economic activity, but gradually

extending its logic to other domains and organi-zations: the network enterprise. This is not thesame as a network of enterprises. It is a networkmade either from firms or segments of firms, orfrom internal segmentation of firms. Multina-tional corporations, with their internal decentral-ization, and their links with a web of subsidiariesand suppliers throughout the world, are but oneof the forms of this network enterprise. Butothers include strategic alliances between corpo-rations, networks of small and medium busi-nesses (such as in Northern Italy or Hong Kong),and link-ups between corporations and networksof small businesses through subcontracting andoutsourcing.

So, the network enterprise is the specific set oflinkages between different firms or segments,organized ad hoc for a specific project, and dis-solving/reforming after the task is completed, e.g.IBM, Siemens, Toshiba. This ephemeral unit,The Project, around which a network of partnersis built, is the actual operating unit of oureconomy, the one that generates profits or losses,the one that received rewards or goes bust, and theone that hires and lays off, via its member orga-nizations.

With the exception, and animportant one, of WesternEurope, there is no major

surge of unemployment in theworld after two decades of

diffusion in informationtechnology.

4. The transformation of work andemployment: the fled-workersWork is at the heart of all historical transforma-tions. And there is no exception to this. But thecoming of the Information Age is full of mythsabout the fate of work and employment.

With the exception, and an important one, of

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Western Europe, there is no major surge of unem-ployment in the world after two decades of diffu-sion in information technology. Indeed, there ismuch higher unemployment in technologicallylaggard countries, regions, and sectors.

All evidence and analysis points to the variableimpact of technology on jobs depending on amuch broader set of factors, mainly firms' strate-gies and governments' policies. Indeed, the twomost technologically advanced economies, theUS and Japan, both display a low rate of unem-ployment. In the US in the last four years there isa net balance of 10 million new jobs, and theireducational content for these new jobs is signifi-cantly higher than that of the pre-existing socialstructure: many more information-intensive jobsthan hamburger flippers jobs have been created.Even manufacturing jobs are at an all time highon a global perspective: between 1970 and 1989,manufacturing jobs in the world increased by 72per cent, even if OECD countries, particularly theUS and the UK, have indeed de-industrialized.

There is certainly a major unemploymentproblem in the European Union, as a result of acombination of rigidities in the institutional envi-ronment, strategies of global redeployment byfirms and, more importantly, the restrictivemacroeconomic policies induced by an insaneobsession with fitting in the Maastricht criteriathat nobody, and particularly not Germany, willbe able to qualify for, in an incredible example ofcollective alienation in paying respect to gods ofeconomic orthodoxy that have taken existenceindependently from us.

There is indeed a serious unemploymentproblem in the inner cities of America, England,or France, among the uneducated and switchedoff populations, or in low technology countriesaround the world, particularly in the rural areas.

For the majority of people in America, forinstance, unemployment is not a problem. Andyet, there is tremendous anxiety and discontentabout work. There is a real base for this concern:

(a) There is the transformation of power rela-tionships between capital and labour in favour ofcapital,through the process of socio-economic

restructuring that took place in the 1980s, both i na conservative environment (Reagan, Thatcher),and, to a lesser but real extent, in a less conserva-tive environment (Spain, France). In this sense,new technologies allowed business to either auto-mate or offshore production or outsource supplie sor to subcontract to smaller firms or to obtain con-cessions from labor or all the above.

(b) The development of the network enterprisetranslates into downsizing, subcontracting, andnetworking of labour, inducing flexibility of bothbusiness and labour, and individualization ofcontractual arrangements between managementand labour. So, instead of layoffs what we oftenhave are layoffs followed by subcontracting of ser-vices on an ad hoc, consulting basis, for the timeand task to be performed, without job tenure andwithout social benefits provided by the firm.

The 'organization man' is out,the 'flexible woman' is in. Theindividualization of work, and

therefore of labour'sbargaining power, is the

major feature characterizingemployment in the network

society.

This is indeed the general trend, exemplifiedby the rapid growth in all countries of self-employment, temporary work, and part-time,particularly for women. In England, between 40and 45 per cent of the labour force seems to baalready in these categories, as opposed to fulltime, regularly salaried employment, and isgrowing. Some studies in Germany project that in2015, about 50 per cent of the labour force wouldbe out of stable employment. And in the mostdynamic region in the world, Silicon Valley, arecent study we have just completed shows thai:,in the midst of a job creation explosion, in the lastten years, between 50 per cent at least and 90 percent of new jobs, most of them highly paid, are of

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this kind of non-standard labour arrangements.The most significant change in work in the

information age is the reversal of the socializa-tion/salarization of labour that characterized theindustrial age. The 'organization man' is out, the'flexible woman' is in. The individualization ofwork, and therefore of labour's bargaining power,is the major feature characterizing employment inthe network society.

The Information Age doesnot have to be the age of

stepped-up inequality,polarization and socialexclusion. But for the

moment it is.

5. Social polarization and social exclusionThe processes of globalization, business net-working, and individualization of labour weakensocial organizations and institutions that repre-sented/protected workers in the information age,particularly labour unions and the welfare state.Accordingly, workers are increasingly left tothemselves in their differential relationship tomanagement, and to the market place.

Skills and education, in a constant redefinitionof these skills, become critical in valorizing ordevaluing people in their work. But even valuableworkers may fall down for reasons of health, age,gender discrimination, or lack of capacity toadapt to a given task or position.

As a result of these trends, most societies in theworld, and certainly OECD countries, with theUS and the UK at the top of the scale, presentpowerful trends towards increasing inequality,social polarization and social exclusion. There isincreasing accumulation of wealth at the top, andof poverty at the bottom.

In the US inequality has regressed to the pre-19205 period. In the limit, social exclusion createspockets of dereliction with various entry points,

but hardly any exits. It may be long-term unem-ployment, illness, functional illiteracy, illegalstatus, poverty, family disruption, psychologicalcrisis, homelessness, drugs, crime, incarceration,etc. Once in this underworld, processes of exclu-sion reinforce each other, requiring a heroic effortto pull out from what I call the black holes ofinformational capitalism, that often have a terri-torial expression. The proportion of people inthese black holes are staggering, and rapidlygrowing. In the US, it may reach above 10 percent of the population, if you consider that simplythe number of adults under the control of the jus-tice system in 1966 was 5.4 million, that is almost3 per cent of the population, while the proportionof people below the poverty line is 15 per cent.

The Information Age does not have to be theage of stepped-up inequality, polarization andsocial exclusion. But for the moment it is.

6. The culture of real virtualityShifting to the cultural realm, we see the emer-gence of a similar pattern of networking, flexi-bility, and ephemeral symbolic communication,in a culture organized around electronic media,including in this communication system the com-puter-mediated communication networks. Cul-tural expressions of all kinds are increasinglyenclosed in or shaped by this world of electronicmedia. But the new media system is not charac-terized by the one-way, undifferentiated messagesthrough a limited number of channels that con-stituted the world of mass media. And it is not aglobal village.

Media are extraordinarily diverse, and sendtargeted messages to specific segments of audi-ences and to specific moods of the audiences.They are increasingly inclusive, bridging from oneto another, from network TV to cable or satelliteTV, radio, VCR, musical video, walkman type ofdevices, connected throughout the globe, and yetdiversified by cultures, constituting a hypertextwith extraordinary inclusive capacity. Further-more, slowly but surely, this new media system ismoving towards interactivity, particularly if weinclude CMC networks, and their access to text,

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images, and sounds, that will eventually link upwith the current media system.

Instead of a global village we are movingtowards mass production of customized cottages.While there is oligopolistic concentration of mul-timedia groups around the world, there is at thesame time, market segmentation, and increasinginteraction by and among the individuals thatbreak up the uniformity of a mass audience.These processes induce the formation of what Icall the culture of real virtuality. It is so, and notvirtual reality, because when our symbolic envi-ronment is, by and large, structured in this inclu-sive, flexible, diversified hypertext, in which wenavigate every day, the virtuality of this text is infact our reality, the symbols from which we liveand communicate.

When our symbolicenvironment is, by and large,structured in this inclusive,

flexible, diversified hypertext,in which we navigate every

day, the virtuality of this textis in fact our reality.

7. PoliticsThis enclosure of communication in the space offlexible media does not only concern culture. Ithas a fundamental effect on politics. In all coun-tries, the media have become the essential space ofpolitics. Not all politics takes place through themedia, and imagemaking still needs to relate toreal issues and real conflicts. But without signifi-cant presence in the space of media, actors andideas are reduced to political marginality. Thispresence does not concern only, or even pri-marily, the moments of political campaigns, butthe day-to-day messages that people receive byand from the media.

I propose the following analysis:To an overwhelming extent people receive

their information, on the basis of which theyform their political opinion, and structuretheir behaviour, through the media, particu-larly television and radio.Media politics needs to simplify the mes-sage/proposals.The simplest message is an image. The sim-plest image is a person. Political competitionrevolves around personalization of politics.The most effective political weapons are neg-ative messages. The most effective negativemessage is character assassination of oppo-nents' personalities. The politics of scandal, inthe US, in Europe, in Japan, in Latin Americaetc. is the predominant form of politicalstruggle.

Those who survive in thisworld become politically

successful, for a while. Butwhat certainly does not

survive, after a few rounds ofthese tricks, is political

legitimacy, not to speak ofcitizens' hope.

Political marketing is the essential means towin political competition in democratic poli-tics. In the information age it involves mediaadvertising, telephone banks, targeted mailing,image making, image unmaking, image con-trol, presence in the media, staging of publicappearances etc. This makes it an excessivelyexpensive business, way beyond that of tradi-tional party politics, so that mechanisms ofpolitical financing are obsolete, and parties useaccess to power as a way to generate resourcesto stay in power or to prepare to return to it.This is the fundamental source of political cor-ruption, to which intermediaries add a littlepersonal twist. This is also at the source of sys-temic corruption, that feeds scandal politics.The use of scandal as a weapon leads to

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increased expense and activity in intelligence,damage control, and access to the media.Once a market is created, intermediariesappear to retrieve, obtain, or fabricate infor-mation, offering it to the highest bidder. Poli-tics becomes a horse race, and a soap operamotivated by greed, backstage manoeuvres,betrayals, and, often, sex and violence,becoming hardly distinguishable from TVscripts.Those who survive in this world become polit-ically successful, for a while. But what cer-tainly does not survive, after a few rounds ofthese tricks, is political legitimacy, not to speakof citizens' hope.

8. Timeless timeAs with all historical transformations, the emer-gence of a new social structure is necessarilylinked to the redefinition of the material founda-tions of life, time and space. Time and space arerelated, in society as in nature. Their meaning,and manifestations in social practice, evolvethroughout histories and across cultures, as Gid-dens, Thrift, Harvey, Adams, Lash, and Urry,among others, have shown.

I propose the hypothesis that the networksociety, as the dominant social structure emergingin the Information Age, is organized around newforms of time and space: timeless time, the spaceof flows. These are the dominant forms, and notthe forms in which most people live, but throughtheir domination, they affect everybody. Let meexplain, starting with time, then with somegreater detail on space, given the specific interestsof many in this conference.

In contrast to the rhythm of biological time ofmost of human existence, and to the dock timecharacterizing the industrial age, a new form oftime characterizes the dominant logic of the net-work society: timeless time. It is defined by theuse of new information/communication tech-nologies in a relentless effort to annihilate time, tocompress years in seconds, seconds in split sec-onds. Furthermore, the most fundamental aim isto eliminate sequencing of time, induding past,

present and future in the same hypertext, thuseliminating the 'succession of things' that,according to Leibniz, characterizes time, so thatwithout things and their sequential ordering thereis no longer time in sotiety. We live, as in therecurrent circuits of the computer networks in theencydopedia of historical experience, all ourtenses at the same time, being able to reorderthem in a composite created by our fantasy or ourinterests.

David Harvey has shown the rdentless ten-dency of capitalism to diminate barriers of time.But I think in the network soriety, that is indeeda capitalist soriety, but something else at thesame time, all dominant processes tend to be con-structed around timdess time. I find such a ten-dency in the whole realm of human activity. I findit certainly in the split second financial transac-tions of global financial markets, but I also find it,for instance, in instant wars, built around thenotion of a surgical strike that devastates theenemy in a few hours, or minutes, to avoid polit-ically unpopular, costly wars. Or in the blurring ofthe life cyde by new reproductive techniques,allowing people a wide range of options in the ageand conditions of parenting, even storing theirembryos to eventually produce babies later eitherby themsdves, or through surrogate mothers,even after their procreators are dead. I find it inthe twisting of working life by the variablechronology of labour trajectories and time sched-ules in increasingly diverse labour markets. And Ifind it in the vigorous effort to use medical tech-nology, induding genetic engineering, and com-puter-based medical care to exile death from life,to bring a substantial proportion of the popula-tion to a high level of life-expectancy, and to dif-fuse the belief that, after all, we are eternal, atleast for some time.

As with space, timeless time characterizesdominant functions and social groups, while mostpeople in the world are still submitted to biolog-ical time and to dock time. Thus, while instantwars characterize the technological powers, atro-cious, lingering wars go on and on for years,around the planet, in a slow-motion destruction

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process, quasi-ignored by the world until they arediscovered by some television programme.

I propose the notion that a fundamentalstruggle in our society is around the redefinitionof time, between its annihilation or desequencingby networks, on one hand, and, on the otherhand, the consciousness of glacial time, the slow-motion, inter-generational evolution of ourspecies in our cosmological environment, a con-cept suggested by Lash and Urry, and a battleundertaken, in my view, by the environmentalmovement.

A fundamental struggle in oursociety is around the

redefinition of time, betweenits annihilation or

desequencing by networks,on one hand, and, on the

other hand, theconsciousness of glacial time,

the slow-motion, inter-generational evolution of ourspecies in our cosmologicalenvironment and a battle

undertaken, in my view, bythe environmental

movement.

9. The Space of FlowsMany years ago (or at least it seems to me asmany) I proposed the concept of Space of Flowsto make sense of a body of empirical observation:dominant functions were increasingly operatingon the basis of exchanges between electronic cir-cuits linking up information systems in distantlocations. Financial markets, global media,advanced business services, technology, informa-tion. In addition, electronically-based, fast trans-portation systems reinforced this pattern of

distant interaction by following up with move-ments of people and goods. Furthermore, newlocation patterns for most activities follow asimultaneous logic of territorial concentra-tion/decentralization, reinstating the unity oftheir operation by electronic links, e.g. the analysisproposed in the 1980s on location patterns ofhigh tech manufacturing; or the networked artic-ulation of advanced services throughout theworld, under the system labeled as 'global city'.

Why keep the term of space under these con-ditions? Reasons: (1) These electronic circuits donot operate in the territorial vacuum. They link upterritorially based complexes of production, man-agement and information, even though themeaning and functions of these complexesdepend on their connection in these networks offlows. (2) These technological linkages are mate-rial, e.g. depend on specific telecommunica-tion/transportation facilities, and on the existenceand quality of information systems, in a highlyuneven geography. (3) The meaning of spaceevolves — as the meaning of time. Thus, insteadof indulging in futurological statements such asthe vanishing of space, and the end of cities, weshould be able to reconceptualize new forms ofspatial arrangements under the new technologicalparadigm.

Instead of indulging infuturological statements suchas the vanishing of space, andthe end of cities, we shouldbe able to reconceptualize

new forms of spatialarrangements under the new

technological paradigm.

To proceed with this conceptualization I buil don a long intellectual tradition, from Leibniz toHarold Innis, connecting space and time, aroundthe notion of space as coexistence of time. Thus,my definition: space is the material support of

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time-sharing social practices.*What happens when the time-sharing of prac-

tices (be it synchronous or asynchronous) doesnot imply contiguity? 'Things' still exist together,they share time, but the material arrangementsthat allow this coexistence are inter-territorial ortransterritorial: the space of flows is the materialorganization of time-sharing social practicesthat work through flows. What concretely thismaterial organization is depends on the goals andcharacteristics of the networks of flows, forinstance I can tell you what it is in the case of hightechnology manufacturing or in the case of globalnetworks of drug traffic. However, I did proposein my analysis some elements that appear tocharacterize the space of flows in all kinds of net-works: electronic circuits connection informa-tion systems; territorial nodes and hubs; locales ofsupport and social cohesion for dominant socialactors in the network (e.g. the system of VIPspaces throughout the world).

Dominant functions tend to articulate them-selves around the space of flows. But this is notthe only space The space of places continues tobe the predominant space of experience, ofeveryday life, and of social and political control.Places root culture and transmit history. (A placeis a locale whose form, function, and meaning,from the point of view of the social actor, are con-tained within the boundaries of physical conti-guity.)

In the network society, a fundamental form ofsocial domination is the prevalence of the logicof the space of flows over the space of places.The space of flows structures and shapes thespace of places, as when the differential fortunesof capital accumulation in global financial mar-kets reward or punish specific regions, or whentelecom systems link up CBDs to outlying sub-

* Leibniz: 'Space is something purely relative, like time;space being an order of coexistences as time is an orderof successions. For space denotes in terms of possi-bility and order of things that exist at the same time, inso far as they exist together. ... When we see severalthings together we perceive this order of things amongthemselves.'

urbs in new office development, bypassing/mar-ginalizing poor urban neighbourhoods. The dom-ination of the space of flows over the space ofplaces induces intra-metropolitan dualism as amost important form of social/territorial exclu-sion, that has become as significant as regionaluneven development. The simultaneous growthand decline of economies and societies within thesame metropolitan area is a most fundamentaltrend of territorial organization, and a key chal-lenge to urban management nowadays.

As information/communication networksdiffuse in society, and as

technology is appropriated bya variety of social actors,segments of the space offlows are penetrated byforces of resistance to

domination, and byexpressions of personal

experience.

But there is still something else in the new spa-tial dynamics. Beyond the opposition between thespace of flows and the space of places. As infor-mation/communication networks diffuse insociety, and as technology is appropriated by avariety of social actors, segments of the space offlows are penetrated by forces of resistance todomination, and by expressions of personal expe-rience. Examples:

(a) Social movements. Zapatistas and theInternet (but from the Lacandona forest). But alsoAmerican Militia.

(b) Local governments, key agents of citizenrepresentation in our society, linking up throughelectronic networks, particularly in Europe (seeresearch by Stephen Graham).

(c) Expressions of experience in the space offlows.

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Thus, we do witness an increasing penetration,and subversion, of the space of flows, originallyset up for the functions of power, by the power ofexperience, inducing a set of contradictory powerrelationships. Yes, it is still an elitist mean of com-munication, but it is changing rapidly. Theproblem is to integrate these observations in sometheory, but for this we still lack research, in spiteof some insightful elaborations, such as the oneby Sherry Turkle at MIT.

The new frontier of spatial research is in exam-ining the interaction between the space of flows,the space of places, function, meaning, domina-tion, and challenge to domination, in increasinglycomplex and contradictory patterns. Home-steading in this frontier is already taking place, asshown in the pioneering research by Graham andMarvin, or in the reflections of Bill Mitchell, butwe are clearly at the beginning of a new field ofstudy that should help us to understand and tochange the currently prevailing logic in the spaceof flows.

Conclusion: The Network SocietySo, what is the Network Society? It is a society

that is structured in its dominant functions andprocesses around networks. In its current mani-festation it is a capitalist society. Indeed, we livemore than ever in a capitalist world, and thus ananalysis in terms of capitalism is necessary andcomplementary to the theory of the networksociety. But this particular form of capitalism isvery different from industrial capitalism, as Ihave tried to show.

The Network Society is not produced by infor-mation technology. But without the informationtechnology revolution it could not be such a com-prehensive, pervasive social form, able to link up,or de-link, the entire realm of human activity.

So, is that all? Just a morphological transfor-mation? Well, historically, transformation ofsocial forms has always been fundamental, bothas expressions and sources of major socialprocesses, e.g. standardized mass production inthe large factory as characteristic of the so-calledfordism, as a major form of capitalist social orga-

nization; or the rational bureaucracy as the foun-dation of modern society, in the Weberian con-ception.

But this morphological transformation is evenmore significant because the network architectureis particularly dynamic, open-ended, flexible,potentially able to expand endlessly, without rup-ture, bypassing/disconnecting undesirable com-ponents following instructions of the networks'dominant nodes. Indeed, the February 1997Davos meeting titled the general programme ofits annual meeting 'Building the NetworkSociety'.

This networking logic is at the roots of majoreffects in our societies. Using it:• capital flows can bypass controls• workers are individualized, outsourced, sub-

contracted• communication becomes at the same time

global and customized• valuable people and territories are switched

on, devalued ones are switched off.The dynamics of networks push society

towards an endless escape from its own con-straints and controls, towards an endless supers-ession and reconstruction of its values andinstitutions, towards a meta-social, constantrearrangement of human institutions and organi-zations.

Networks transform power relationships.Power in the traditional sense still exists: capital-ists over workers, men over women, state appara-tuses still torture bodies and silence minds aroundthe world.

Yet, there is a higher order of power: thepower of flows in the networks prevails over theflows of power. Capitalists are dependent uponuncontrollable financial flows; many workers areat the same time investors (often unwillinglythrough their pension funds) in this whirlwind ofcapital; networkers are inter-related in the logic ofthe network enterprise, so that their jobs andincome depend on their positioning rather thanon their work. States are bypassed by global flowsof wealth, information, and crime. Thus, to sur-vive, they band together in multilateral ventures,

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such as the European Union. It follows the cre-ation of a web of political institutions: national,supranational, international, regional, and local,that becomes the new operating unit of the infor-mation age: the network state.

The challenges to socialdomination in the networksociety revolve around the

redefinition of cultural codes,proposing alternative meaningand changing the rules of the

game. This is why theaffirmation of IDENTITY is so

essential, because it fixesmeaning autonomously vis-a-vis the abstract, instrumental

logic of networks.

In this complexity, the communicationbetween networks and social actors dependsincreasingly on shared CULTURAL CODES. Ifwe accept certain values, certain categories thatframe the meaning of experience, then the net-works will process them efficiently, and willreturn to each one of us the outcome of their pro-cessing, according to the rules of domination anddistribution inscripted in the network.

Thus, the challenges to social domination inthe network society revolve around the redefini-tion of cultural codes, proposing alternativemeaning and changing the rules of the game. Thisis why the affirmation of IDENTITY is so essen-tial, because it fixes meaning autonomously vis-a-vis the abstract, instrumental logic of networks. Iam, thus I exist. In my empirical investigation Ihave found identity-based social movementsaimed at changing the cultural foundations ofsociety to be the essential sources of social changein the information age, albeit often in forms andwith goals that we do not usually associate withpositive social change. Some movements, that

appear to be the most fruitful and positive, areproactive, such as feminism and environmen-talism. Some are reactive, as in the communalresistances to globalization built around religion,nation, territory, or ethnicity. But in all cases theyaffirm the preeminence of experience over instru-mentality, of meaning over function, and, I woulddare to say, of use value of life over exchangevalue in the networks.

The implicit logic of theNetwork Society appears toend history, by enclosing it

into the circularity ofrecurrent patterns of flows.Yet, as with any other social

form, in fact it opens up anew realm of contradiction

and conflict.

The implicit logic of the Network Societyappears to end history, by enclosing it into the cir-cularity of recurrent patterns of flows. Yet, aswith any other social form, in fact it opens up anew realm of contradiction and conflict, aspeople around the world refuse to becomeshadows of global flows and project their dreams,and sometimes their nightmares, into the light ofnew history making.

Manuel Castells is Professor of Sociology andPlanning, and Chair of the Centre for WesternEuropean Studies at the University of California,Berkeley. He has published 17 books, includingThe City and the Grassroots and The Infor-mational City.

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