Communication+Power

Sorry, this is perhaps beefier than it needs to be. Basic ideas: Society since the 1950s/60s technical revolutions has become a "network society." Power has always been based on the ability to persuade as well as to coerce, but in this new type of society this is taking on a whole new meaning, as power over communication becomes even more important than power over the state or military. Throw in a little bit of capitalism bashing, worries about exploitation and exclusion, and tie the term "network" to anything that moves, and you've got the main idea.
 * =Title - Communication Power= ||  ||
 * =Author - Castells= ||  ||
 * =Date - 2009= ||  ||
 * =Summary By - Kate= ||  ||
 * =Summary=

Opening The opening of the book is an easy read about the author’s growing up under the Franco dictatorship and trying to be a revolutionary. He describes that he wasn’t effective because to get a message across receivers must be ready for it and must trust the messenger. But he still concludes that communication power is a fundamental form of power and that “the most fundamental form of power lies in the ability to shape the human mind… [since] coercion alone cannot stabilize domination” (3). The goal of the book will be to look at communication and power in the “global network society” which is based on digital networks of communication. Chapter 1: Power in the Network Society. i. What is power? Power is complex. Here are some of his ideas about it: - Power can be exercised by coercion or by construction of meaning which guides action (through violence or through disourse) - Domination is the power that is embedded in institutions - Power is relational – it is an attribute of a relationship, not a person. Thus sheer coercion isn’t power if it kills one of the members of the relationship, thereby nullifying its existence - Power is asymmetrical, but is also always reciprocal (think Foucault) - Like Parson’s he sees both “power over” and “power to.” Societies aren’t communities, and we wield power to get what we want when we don’t agree. This requires a “structuration” understanding of power than includes both the agents and structures of power. - “**Power is relational. Domination is institutional**” (15). - One key form of domination is the state. And states create discourses as well as using force to exercise their power. - But how the state enacts power depends on the relevant social structure – in the modern case, as they are shaped by the network society and globalization. ii. State power and the global age - Power exists in spatiotemporal contexts, but these are no longer framed by the nation state thanks to processes of globalization. - Yet the new network society does not have boundaries in the same way that old states did – these boundaries are fluid and contested. Yet as they become more stable in the long-term he expects them to define the new society. iii. Networks - “A network is a set of interconnected nodes” (19). Nodes gain importance by contributing to the network’s functions. - Networks in social life are communication structures, and these can either operate in cooperation of competition with one another. - Networks as such are not new, but are a fundamental pattern in social life. - Yet whereas social organization used to be primarily hierarchically organized, technology has allowed it to become based more on horizontal networks that prior to the invention of this technology would not have been considered efficient. - 3 features of networks: flexibility, scalability, and survivability. - **The new network society took hold with the microelectronics revolution in the 1950s and 1960s – the information age**. iv. The global network society. - The “network society is a society whose social structure is made around networks activated by microelectronics-based, digitally processed information and communication technologies” (24). - “social structures [are] the organizational arrangements of humans in relationships of production, consumption, reproduction, experience, and power expressed in meaningful communication coded by culture” (24). - “globalization is … the networking of these socially decisive global networks” (25). - Yet **the distinction between exclusion and inclusion in globalization is a “structural feature of the global network society”** (25). The structure is global, but most human experience is local, leading to a fragmented experience. This creates inequalities and unevenness in the global system - Key features of the network society: 1. What is value in the network society? § Value remains based on a capitalist system, but is now more complicated. § Profit making is protected by the state, which in turn is protected by both the military and its social legitimacy, which is moderated by the media. Thus all of these could be seen as being of supreme value. § This question in fact has no definite answer in the global network society 2. Work, labor, class, and gender: the network enterprise and the new social division of labor. § Labor is divided between generic labor (unskilled) and self-programming labor (skilled labor). § The division of labor is also gendered – women tend to be pushed into more flexible labor. Yet while this is because of patriarchal pressures for them to simultaneously raise families and has thus expanded patriarchal capitalism, it has also undermined patriarchy because of women’s new financial power. § The organization of production has also changed to become based on “network enterprise” § The new capitalism is based on innovation for growth. § Labor has become segmented between the generic labor, the self-programming labor, and excluded (those who can’t find work and aren’t part of consumption pattens 3. The space of flows and timeless time   § Space is “the material support of time-sharing social practices; that is, the construction of simultaneity” (34). The space of flows is “the technological and organizational possibility of practicing simultaneity without contingency”   § Time has historically been shaped by bureaucratic time (time on clocks) and summed up by the expression “time is money.” By contrast, in the global network society, “the relationship to time is defined by the use of information and communication technologies in a relentless effort to annihilate time by negating sequencing” (35).  4. Culture in the network society   § Culture is “the set of values and beliefs that inform, guide, and motivate people’s behavior” (36). § Even though society is being globalized, cultures still exist locally, but they are tied together by a network society. § Thus, **the new culture of the network society “is a culture of protocols of communication enabling communication between different cultures** on the basis not of shared values but of the sharing of the value of communication” (38). v. the network state How have states responded to the threat globalization has placed on their sovereignty and legitimacy? 1. By forming networks of states (EU, NATO, NAFTA, AU, ASEAN, etc) 2. Creating a network of international supranational institutions 3. Devolving power to localities States in the network era face organizational, technical, and political problems of governance. But also confront ideological and geopolitical barriers to their power. vi. Power in the networks 4 types of power 1. Networking power – the power to exclude/include 2. Network power - globalization 3. Networked power – this is a question of how networked power operates [not actually a new type of power], and he says that we can’t define power in its traditional sense in relation to the network society, because there is no one source of power, but only competing sources of power within each contending networks set of goals 4. And **network-making power** – this is the only important one. It consists of two elements; a. The power to constitute networkers (by “**programmers**”) – these people (or groups of people decide what a network is, what its goals should be, etc. b. The power to connect and ensure cooperation of different networks (by the “**switchers**”) – these people (or groups of people) link or de-link existing networks for new purposes. Because power is now controlled by numerous programmers and switchers, power is dispersed and this is a good thing. It becomes a problem when switchers or programmers become “crude expressions of single-purpose domination” (47) – for example when states control the media. vii. Power and counterpower in the network society Counterpower also operates by trying to be programmers and switchers. Thus, resistance to he power of given networks takes place through networks. viii. Conclusions “Power in the network society is communication power” (53). ||   || Are we not perhaps suffering from a bit of conceptual overstretch here? Networks are simultaneously: a new feature of modern digital technological communication; the way our brains work to process information; the way companies are reconfiguring themselves; the way time is being transformed; how globalization is taking place; the way international or transnational groups interact; and the very relations between states themselves. ||  || = = = = = = = = = = = =
 * =Discussion points=

= = = = = = = =

= =