Hello for the last time…
I think what Castel is trying to say in this paragraph on ‘the call to sociology’ is that as there is a new age, the age of technology and computers we need to find new ways of understanding people in society and how society works. Over the past 20 years there has been a massive change in what has happened with regards to technology. These days everyone has an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy SIII, 20-25 years ago not everyone would have had a mobile phone. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have helped change society and how the network affects us. As of 2013 there was a worldwide population of 7 Billion people, 1.15 Billion of whom are Facebook users and 200 Million of whom are twitter users. Websites like Facebook and Twitter help people and businesses expand. All the big companies in the world have Facebook and Twitter accounts. In 1931, Gugliemlmo Marconi, under the orders of His Holiness Pope Pius XI set up Radio Vaticana. It has stayed open till this day. It became a great way for the Vatican to spread its message to all 1.2 Billion Catholics worldwide. The Vatican also expanded by bringing in Facebook and Twitter accounts. Of course if it wasn’t for the age of technology we wouldn’t be able to communicate with one another the way we do today. However, there must be some negatives. Due to how far we’ve actually come, there are now computers that do jobs that ordinary people could not have done only 10 years ago. Castel believes that we should embrace the technological age and try to understand the sociology of the Network Society.
Peter
Blog entry #2 : New and Improved
Hello again,
Manuel Castells talks about ‘a new society’ in his article ‘Toward a Sociology of the Network Society’. He speaks about the new era that took the world by a storm in the 21st century. Society has advanced hugely due to new developments in technology and science. Castells believes that we need to have sociology as a science to aid people to grasp the meaning of change in our society. He shows the reader how society has been developed in this way through providing a plethora of examples to validate his points.
Information technology has caused the world to decrease in size. In its early stages, information technology was a powerful component of multi-dimensional social change. New forms of production and management have been introduced, as well as the advancement of communication media such as the internet and mobile phones. People and cultures all around the world are now interconnected in a way never seen before due to the invention of the internet. People are now able to communicate and express new ideas through various social media networks like Twitter and Facebook. It has increased the amount of social interaction in our everyday lives. It is of opinion that many people feel that the internet is a necessity in their lives and this is shows us why sociology is important.
Globalization is another aspect which defines 21st century society. Globalization means developing international influence or operating on an international scale. David Held, a respected analyst of globalization, believes that everyone should work as one unit for the betterment of all society. Internationalization has been present in the past but until the 21st century there had not been any developments in technology to handle the size of modern globalization.
The invention and rapid expansion of the internet, with over 2 billion users today, is the third dimension of this new society. People need information, not from academia but based on scientific endeavor. Without understanding the world around us, people will block out change and lose out on creativity and advances such as technology and science. People need to know what is going on in the world around them. Years ago, there was no means to acquire information on such a scale as we can today with search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This is why sociology is needed in our everyday lives.
Castells discusses how the sovereign nation state has been diminished due to the global networks of the economy, communication and information. Supranational institutions such as the European Union and NATO have demolished the power of sovereign nations and greatly reduced their ability to make their own decisions. Many nations now come together to make decisions that affect the world on a global scale. The world is now interconnected.
Lastly, in modern times the societal definition of family is being challenged. In the eyes of many people heterosexuality is no longer a corner stone of the family unit. Gay and lesbian social movements and woman’s insurgency is trying to redefine perceptions of the modern family. The decline of patriarchy is creating an institutional void according to Castells. He believes that people looking for their primary identity will tend to break up societies because of religion, nationality, ethnicity and locality. This in turn will break up societies based on negotiated instructions in favour of value founded communities.
Bye for now,
Aisling
Blog Entry #3 ‘we’re all connected’
In the section ‘The Network Society’ of Castells article first addresses that our society as a whole is made up of networks, emphasising the importance of the internet in this regard. Implying the internet is the network, to connect all networks together whether it is locally or globally. By breaking down the internet network as a variety of different computer networks, e.g “computerized information systems, mobile transmission units” we can see how our whole society can be broken down and sub-categorized. As a result of this, I can see how important a role the internet has in our society, especially in our social and economic worlds. Most major financial transactions occur via the internet, one example being major business transactions, these vast amounts of money are not delivered to an address, but an account number and the money is displayed on a screen, not cash. Almost being fictitious capital, but it is these internet and economic networks which are the foundation of western and most global societies, but networks have been present all through history says Castell, having the ability to be flexible adaptive but not been able to function on a large scale. However, this problem is said to have been solved by competition, time and technology, and all being illustrated again via the Internet. Allowing networks to be versatile and able to be reprogrammed to perform almost any task, showing how we have become a software society in our ever changing world.
Lastly, Castell says the common use of networks in our society is redefining our social structure, and I agree. Networks play a huge part in our world and will continue to do so, and from such developments as “micro electrics based information technologies”. These will continue to adapt and upgrade and it will be up to us a society to see how these network developments will effect and contribute to us as a society in the future.
Thanks a mill for reading,
Mark
Post# 4 Times are changing.
The study of social structure and networks have long been an area of study in sociology. However with changing times it is of course necessary to keep revising and updating previous theories of social structure. In this text Manuel Castells used two relevant illustrations to portray his ideas on currently evolving social processes in our society. One sourced from industrial sociology for those more interested in the business side of things, involving the way business is organised and another from urban sociology. Castells made a clear point showing how any business or product that has come into existence has done so through a long line of cooperating parties. These relationships of production and management are largely part of the social structure in an industrial sociological sense. For example, the researcher and designers create a product, the networkers work with businesses to get them to retail this product and the retailers then sell this product to willing consumers. Each position it a vital part of this products success and these social relationships of products can be seen as a source of a new social structure.
The second illustration of Castells’ focused on the urban structure of today’s society. He set forth to explain how improved communication technologies have transformed distance and space and the way people relate to them. Thus creating a new form of space in Castells’ opinion referred to as ‘the space of flows’. With current technology some places’ functional or symbolic meaning depends heavily on connections through information systems and the existence of highly developed technologies. One such place that could fit into such criteria I would imagine is Silicon Valley in California. Due to the internet the centre of a city no longer needs to be in the geographical centre but it can still be the centre of an urban structure. Silicon Valley is far from the centre of Los Angeles city but it is still deeply important and involved in social structures. I believe that Manuel Castells focused on some very interesting aspects of sociology. I agree that sociology needs to explore the above theories more thoroughly so they can fully understand and explain social structures in this age of constantly improving technologies and evolving social structures. Thanks again for your time.
Speak soon,
Saoirse O’Leary. 112325146
Blog entry #5 Do we really understand?
Following along with Manuel Castells paper “Toward a Sociology of The Network Society”, the topic of following, controlling and understanding sociology is brought up. More specifically, our author tackles the application of networks in sociology. While I read through the paper a particular section stood out to me, or rather, a particular section left me utterly confused. “Theorizing Social Structures as Interactive Information Networks”. Many of the previous papers I’ve read that have dealt with Sociology and Globalism typically narrow their sights on the consequences of our technological advancement and speeding enhancement of specific societies. I had trouble following the direction the author was taking in this section because he didn’t seem to be arguing about anything. After reading through his words again, I realized that this section was about interpreting and understanding the functionality of interconnections of our world, through networks.
He made a good point when he said that we are not only dealing with space and place, but space and flows. Our global economy isn’t only controlled by a few highly advanced and populated cities, but by many cities, places and people that form various networks, brining us together. These global cities spread across the world bring together their surrounding communities and homes by forming nodes that tie everyone together. This doesn’t end the distinction between locality and the vast expanse of the world; it connects them, brining opportunities to places that would never have them. Of course there are social structure and social network conflicts, due to the inherent speed bumps that follow change, but it is worth the networking expansion. The author made a great example when he related all of this to the human body. The bodies’ cells grow and evolve, seeking the most effective way of survival. Their vast connections allow the body to function to it’s fullest potential, while we our selves learn how to use the abilities that have been networked out. What I’ve gathered from reading this, is that even though our increasingly connected society brings along a wave of conflicts and problems, the continual growth of networks will out weigh the negative consequences, bringing our world together like never before.
Bye guys,
David
Blog Entry #6 …Time to say goodbye
So before we get into the important content, we would all like to say thank you for tuning in on a regular basis, for that constant re-clicking of the mouse which hovered over the refresh button to check for new posts but for now unfortunately all good things must come to an end. So on behalf of me and my fellow bloggers we would like to say a big thank you for checking in and we hope to be back in the future.
Thanks again,
Aoife, Aisling, Peter, Mark, Saoirse and David.
Now let’s get down to the real reason why you’re reading this.
I am here to conclude this week’s reading, Manuel Castells “Toward a Sociology of the Networked society”. In synopsis, this article introduces importance and simple understanding of how the changes brought on by our new and ever changing society should be monitored through sociology; the study of society, In the opening lines of his address Castells mention how “people around the world feel the winds of multi-dimensional social change with-out truly understanding [them]”. This is where sociology comes into play.
Throughout the course of the reading Castells talks of many aspects which help create our networked society. My fellow bloggers have written their own thoughts and opinions on some of the points which we found most interesting, but you already know that!
From my own understanding of Castells reading, we should start to properly understand the workings of sociology which supports our ever changing society on local, national and global levels. Changes occur on so many levels that sometimes we don’t necessarily allow ourselves to think “hey, what are the consequences of this?” or “did that impact society on more than one scale?” Understanding the rippling effect that occurs within change is in my own opinion is key in working towards a sociology of our networked society. We live in a jigsaw puzzle of a world fused and connected piece by piece but it is sociology which looks at these fusions; examines them and calculates their importance. Like Castells mentioned, we as people, or well the majority of us, have lost our way in this whirlwind of society. Our networked society relies on many different factors which all have an effect on our society; economic, physical and technological that we rarely appreciate the workings of backstage. The overall key focus of this reading is the incredible importance of sociology in studying and predicting changes and being prepared for whatever changes may come our way in future years. It also addresses how the synergy of these factors allow for the creation and stability of a interconnected world. As a final note, society can simply exist but without sociology would not survive or thrive, as without sociology society would have no meaning and no future.
We need to embrace our new multidimensional society and keep continuing to keep up with the sociology associated with our connected world in order for it to survive and transform for future generations.
That’s all folks!
Aoife
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