This is an autobiographical review of the published research that I did over five decades of my academic life, from 1965 to 2015. It highlights the common thread that brings together my intellectual ...project through a great diversity of topics: the quest for a grounded theory of power. The review presents the gradual emergence of this theory without disguising the difficulties and contradictions in its development. I consider power relationships to be the foundational relationships of society in all domains. Here, I show how my research used this approach to study urban structure and spatial dynamics; the uses and consequences of information technologies; the process of globalization; the formation of a new social structure, the network society; and the interaction between communication and power in a digital environment. Finally, I propose a network theory of power in the network society, the society we are in.
This article describes how the social context of professional journalism has changed in the twenty-first century and why this has strengthened the need to redefine the function of journalism in this ...new era. Pivotal questions for journalism are: How to stay relevant for the public? How to redefine the public service function? How to deal with the increased competition? How to deal with a negative focus in the news that might offer people disillusion instead of hopeful perspectives? These questions are addressed within technological, social-cultural and economic developments that have a huge impact on the information supply. In this context, constructive journalism emerge. As a movement, it is indebted to civic journalism but takes it to the next level. Constructive journalism reconsiders the goals and values of professional journalism and cherishes a form of journalism that is public-oriented, solution-oriented, future-oriented and action-oriented, trying to avoid a bias towards negativity in the news. The break-through of the twenty-first century network model implies that journalism needs to move into a new direction, fostering cooperation, transparency and constructiveness.
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Aim. An attempt is made to consider the processes of transformation of education in the network society from the perspective of the idea of the "New Education" on the basis of ...political science analysis.
Methodology. The paper principally deals with the analysis of socio-political aspects of modernization of education in the info-digital-network society on the basis of the methods of content analysis, discourse analysis, political analysis in the context of project approach.
Results. It is demonstrated that the implementation of the "New Education" idea will allow to reach a new level of development in the socio-humanitarian context. It is exactly the development of human beings, increasing their level of competence and knowledge in the info-digital-network society that becomes a decisive condition for social progress.
Research implications. The author succeeds in updating the issues of educational development at the present stage on the basis of the idea of transition to the "New Education" as one of the political projects demanded by the network society.
The essay argues that a proper ethical foundation for the political processes underlying liberal democracy is unattainable in a globalized society made possible through networked computers – and the ...transformed relationship with temporality that is generated by them. The essay brings together the computer ethics of Norbert Wiener and the temporal ethics of Hans Jonas to show that both original visions for a better world are unrealizable in the unanticipated context of what is termed ‘network time’. The essay argues further that to develop an ethical basis for liberal democracy, digital logic and its effects must be contrasted with that which they ceaselessly colonize and marginalize today: an irreducibly analogue world, with analogue politics, analogue technologies and analogue humans who conceived and developed liberal democracy as a cornerstone of the project of Enlightenment. Through contrast and critique, the essay reveals the difficulty for any ethico-political project within the digital and argues that the present post-modern relationship with computing, in which ‘market forces’ determine technological forms and applications, is socially destructive and must be brought under a new aegis of democratic and common responsibility.
This study examines how a specific digital space—the Reddit message board dedicated to a discussion of the murder case featured on the podcast Serial—affords its users the ability to transcend the ...spatiotemporal limitations of traditional journalistic and criminal justice practices in the collection, validation, and deliberation of evidence. The digital discourse on the Serial subReddit can be understood, using concepts derived from network society theory (Castells, 2005) as a form of deliberative digital democracy (Dahlberg, 2011) in which crowdsourced evidence bears the weight of establishing the “rational” nature of a constructive, public discourse about practices employed by democratic institutions. However, the same evidence serves to reveal the limits of this form of digital deliberation when it is used in the practice of “doxing”—the online, public posting of private information about private individuals (Davison, 2012). This tension reveals the complicated relationship between democracy, privacy, and emerging technologies.
Global production networks (GPNs) have become a key framework in conceptualizing linkages, power and structure in globalized production. However, this framework has been less successful in ...integrating the influence of digital information and ICTs in production, and this problematic in a world where relationships and power are increasingly mediated by digital information flows and resources. We thus look to adapt the GPN framework to allow more substantive analysis of ‘the digital’. Primarily, this is done through a theoretical analysis of the three core categories of the GPN framework – embeddedness, value and networks – to highlight how these categories can better integrate a more dynamic and contested conceptualization of the digital. Illustrations from research on the digitalization of tea sector GPNs in East Africa highlight how these theoretical advances provide new insights on the digital and its expanding role in economic production.
Using a literature approach and a sociology of religion perspective, this research discusses the concept and phenomenon of digital religion in modern society. It is concluded that digital religion is ...not just the phenomenon of online religious practice for spiritual purposes but rather the extension of traditional religion into a new culture due to the digitalisation of society. The networked nature of modern society has a significant impact on the way people shape their experience of religiosity. Dialogue about God takes place in new forms as a form of cyber-theology. The results of this study challenge further research to see the extent to which people build their faith when spiritual experiences change into digital forms.
La società pandemica Agostino Cera
Laboratorio dell'ISPF rivista elettronica di testi, saggi e strumenti,
12/2020, Letnik:
17, Številka:
19
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
These pages aim to emphasize the not occasional link among "network", "technology" and "pandemic" as potential characterization of the word "society" (that is, our society). In particular, I will try ...to clarify in what sense the network society, according to Manuel Castells' definition (1), inherently equates to a techno-society or Gestell-society, rather than a mere technological society (2). I will also try to clarify why its constitutive technological vocation could transform such a society into a pandemic society: an ideal incubator of pandemic phenomena. On this basis, the real face of the pandemic society proves to be that of a unary society: a social and epochal framework immunized against the difference, i.e. unable to tolerate any form of authentic otherness (3).
Online platforms provide a technological infrastructure allowing social actors to enact and utilize networks with a global reach. They play important roles as intermediaries and algorithm-based ...curators of social interaction. This paper addresses two knowledge gaps: First, while a growing number of empirical studies has deepened our insights into the social dynamics characterizing single platforms, little is known about the multiple ways in which users or user groups combine diverse online offers according to their preferences. Second, the empirical focus has mainly been on online interaction. However, in everyday practices, the online is always situated in offline practices. It is thus necessary to understand the complex interdependencies of online and offline spheres. This paper therefore aims to develop an ecological heuristic that positions the user(s) and their practices center stage in the analysis and to elucidate the on/offline opportunity spaces and the affordances and constraints they provide for user agency.
This article analyzes how a figuration of the teacher is made up within an ed-tech discourse and how it organizes how we think of teaching. It departs from an interview study with 25 'edupreneurs' ...selling hardware, software, and/or professional development regarding digital tools to Swedish schools. The analysis illuminates how the 'desired teacher' is similar to what is conceptualized as a Silicon Valley culture, privileging characteristics valued in the IT sector. Such a teacher coaches rather than lectures, is flexible, and ready to work whenever and wherever. S/he customizes his/her work to the individual student and his/her needs of knowledge, location, and timeframes, emphasizing that education is a personal business. 'Boring' parts of the work (grading and assessment) are believed to be taken over by technology. The teacher should be the one promising fun and creativity in order to educate dreamers for the future and workers in a knowledge economy. With help from Castells' theory of the network society, the study illuminates and discuss what this means for how we can think of school in terms of teacher authority, place and time. It also claims that a commercialized, neoliberal rationale is made possible in schools through the platforms.
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