The Rise of the Network Society

Rating:
Summary: An epic trilogy about the implications of the "New Economy"
Review: This book, along with Volume's 2 & 3 in the series is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the implications of the fundamental transformation that the globalization of the financial markets has wrought throughout the world. The trilogy argues that we are at the beginning of changes as explosive as those wrought by the industrial revolution. Castells roams the world as he documents economic, social and political changes and speculates about the future. The author worked on these books for 12 years and this represents his life work. I actually would rate the trilogy an 11. It is an epic undertaking.

Rating:
Summary: Network society: Informationalization and globalization
Review: This is the first volume of Manuel Castells¡¯ ¡®Informational Age¡¯. The trilogy of ¡®Informational Age¡¯ is the de facto classic in the sociology of information. This volume focuses mainly on the economic feature of the network society: informationalization and globalization; the transformation of the enterprise; the flexibility in labor market; interactive media; transformation of space (or, in Giddens¡¯ term, time-space distanciation).
You might ask ¡®what¡¯s the relevance to sociology?¡¯ Naturally, it¡¯s related to question, ¡®what¡¯s the substance of sociology of information?¡¯ Our day to day life can¡¯t clearly be distinguished from the economic affairs. Almost all the resources, whether they are material or human, appear as commodity or service which are tradable. Even the culture is organized on the market. Our identity and daily time table are deeply molded by our spot in the labor market. And that, the overall dynamics of social change comes from the economy. The epochal trends, such as globalization, informationalization, have been driven mainly by the economic needs. So the network society can¡¯t be grasped without the economics. But you should not conclude that the economics is the whole story. The market alone can¡¯t sustained even itself, not to say the whole society. The economy is embedded in the society. The economy and the society are intertwined with each other, but not determined by one another. So their relation could be called as the ¡®interaction¡¯. But when it comes to IT, the things are more complicated. IT can¡¯t act by in itself. IT is the resource to be mobilized by bodily actor. IT represents the epochal change in the environment. IT is not the variable in itself. Therefore we could say that the sociology of information is about the interaction between IT, economy and society. The argument of the field is like this: our activities are increasingly organized around networks. Networks have existed throughout the human history. But IT offers unprecedently elevated material basis. It allows the network pervasively to expand throughout the entire society and the globe. Over decades, we have observed sea change related to IT in economy, politics, and society. Those shifts are the object of the sociology of information.
Castells¡¯ trilogy is about that sea change. As I said above, the first volume focuses on economic features. But Castells¡¯ work has some peculiar cast. Castells¡¯ characterizing informational society as network society makes the globalization be coalesced with informationalization. For this reason, some commentators classify Castells as a theorist of globalization. In fact, this and the second volume of the trilogy could be read as great illustration of globalization. It seems that Castells assumes that informationalization could be distinguished from globalization only on the analytical rationale. So he characterizes informational age as the network society. The term could be applied to both trends.
Before closing the review, I should warn you that if you expect the firm theoretical founding, you should read first Castells¡¯ ¡®Information City¡¯, as I mentioned in the review of the author¡¯s another book, ¡®The Internet Galaxy¡¯. For example, Castells coined the term of ¡®the mode of development¡¯ to periodize the informational age. It¡¯s not a new mode of production like the capitalism, but a new mode of development which is different from industrialism or Fordism. But anywhere is the trilogy, you can¡¯t find such a theorizing. Without that kind of founding, the trilogy can¡¯t avoid being read as interesting but bulky sketching out the current affairs.