Page 176 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

NETWORK SOCIETY

which existing social principles were ordered – were both fundamen-
tally redefined through the development of information technologies.
Manuel Castells (1996) named this newsocial landscape the ‘network
society’.
Networks are interconnected systems that exchange data selectively
and intentionally. They dissolve centralised power and institutionalised
hierarchy. Access to a network requires the ability to decipher, to
understand the technology and its rules. In the network society,
economic and political transactions are conducted by organisations
that are arranged as information networks. Globalised (and largely
digitised) markets shifts capital strategically around the world at a rapid
speed. Nation-states strive to become network states, influential
through their partnerships (the EU, the UN, trade agreements, etc.)
rather than their autonomy. Individuals group around identities of
religion, ethnicity and nation instead of central, institutional powers.
The Internet – a decentralised communications network – has become
a primary tool for community interaction.
Information technologies are at the centre of the network society.
Microelectronics, communication technologies and genetic engineer-
ing signify a shift to a newtechnological paradigm characterised by
connectivity and information. Whereas the technologies of the
industrial age were created to accelerate the manufacturing of material
goods, the technologies of the network society are used in the
production and distribution of knowledge and information. Bio-
technology and nanotechnology represent the extension of this
cycle. These technologies manipulate the organic, coordinating the
information of life at the molecular level.
Within the newparadigm, information technologies are used to
create increasing returns within the network. Bob Metcalf, pioneer of
the network technology that led to the development of the Internet,
realised that networks increase exponentially with each new addition.
Therefore, with telephone services, each new person with access to
the phone line would significantly increase the possible pairings
between all callers (Kelly, 1998).
However, the network is selective and strategic by nature. An
individual’s or a group’s place within a network will have
consequences for their ability to generate wealth and to communicate
effectively with others within the network. Individuals, localities and
nation-states are susceptible to exclusion from the network, to being
disenfranchised. For Castells, choosing or being forced to live outside
the network is associated with fundamentalism. Rejection of the

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