The network society

Revised and expanded edition of the first volume of the acclaimed Information Age trilogy.

This volume seeks to clarify the economic and social dynamics of the new information age. Based on research conducted in the United States, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, The Network Society seeks to formulate a theory that accounts for the fundamental effects of information technology on the contemporary world.

Here, Manuel Castells examines the processes of globalization that marginalized and now threaten to render entire countries and peoples insignificant—excluded from information networks. He shows that, in advanced economies, production is now concentrated among an educated segment of the population aged between 25 and 40. He suggests that the result of this progressive trend may not be mass unemployment, but rather the extreme flexibilization of labor, the individualization of the workforce, and, consequently, a highly segmented social structure. Castells concludes by examining the effects and implications of technological transformation on media culture (“the culture of real virtuality”), urban life, global politics, and time.

Written by one of the greatest social scientists of our time, The Network Society is the first volume of the trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture , which also includes The Power of Identity and End of the Millennium .