The Network Society Today

Introduction

Manuel Castells’ The Information Age Trilogy has been one of the most influential works to understand the societal change in the wake of the digital revolution of the last decades. As Frank Webster (2002: 97) points out, it is one of ‘the most illuminating, imaginative and intellectually rigorous account of the major features and dynamics of the world today’. The theory of the network society developed in these books ‘open[ed] up new perspectives on a word reconstituting itself around a series of networks strung around the globe on the basis of advanced communication technologies’ (Stalder, 2006: 1). Indeed, the work of Manuel Castells has influenced a generation of scholars, shaped a research agenda and has had significant repercussions beyond academia (Bell, 2007).

However, 25 years after the publication of the Trilogy’s first volume (1996), many of the emerging processes theorised and analysed in the Trilogy have reached full maturity, if not evolved in unexpected ways. For instance, in socio-technological and economic terms, there has been developing new business models such as platform capitalism and the sharing economy or new socio-economic processes such as robotisation, artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things that are building an algorithmic-driven-society. Processes that have shaped new power geometries, new identities and activated new forms of socio-political contestation (e.g. populism, buen vivir, #meetoo, LGBTIQ+, black-lives-matters, Arab Spring, Indignados, gilet jaunes, alt-right, technopolitics, or youth for climate change, to name some) and new geopolitics and geographies of inequality and power (the rise of China as a global power, multipolarity, the emergence of the Global South or the uneven impact of environmental crises).

In parallel, during this time, several theoretical and epistemological trends have developed or consolidated in the social sciences that can be read as either influenced by or challenging the Trilogy position. Among others, the rise of network theories (e.g. Latour, 2005), digital economy approaches (Benkler, 2007; Schiller, 2014; Srnicek, 2016; Vercellone, 2007), the mobilities paradigm (Urry, 2007), the communication and power theory (Jansen, 2002), technopolitics (Smith & Prieto Martín, 2021) or post-colonialism (Spivak, 1999).

In sum, new developments have occurred globally, and new approaches have been deployed based on or against the Trilogy postulates. This Special Issue aims, on the one hand, to revisit and confront Manuel Castells’ pioneering work in the Trilogy with the current state of the network society and, on the other, to reflect on the ways to research about it. The papers included in this issue are a selection of the contributions to the Workshop The Network Society Today: (Revisiting) the Information Age Trilogy held online from November 2 to 30 of 2020. The workshop involved the discussion of full papers selected through a peer-review process of the abstracts received in response to an open call for papers. It gathered scholars from a wide range of disciplines within the Social Sciences and Communication – including Castells himself. Participants were established and emerging scholars who contributed with plural theoretically informed papers tackling rich empirical case studies across the world, spanning throughout America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Originally planned to be a conference celebrated in Barcelona, the workshop was conducted online as we struggled with lockdowns, the stress and the new routines that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. We relied on the free and open-source digital platform Decidim, a forum precisely inspired by the work of Manuel Castells (Barandiaran et al., 2018; see also Borge, Balcells and Padró-Solanet in this issue). On this online platform, authors, discussants and participants across the world engaged with the Trilogy. We discussed its contributions, legacies, shortcomings and new developments not envisioned at the time of its launch. The workshop goal was to develop a critical perspective on future trajectories of the Network Society and the Information Age. Indeed, at the core of the papers in this special issue, it is possible to identify three interrelated dimensions: new developments in the evolution or disruption of the Network Society, the articulation between network logics and other spatial forms, and the relation of the Network Society with recurrent topics in Castells’ work beyond the Information Age. In what follows, we introduce them through the specific lenses of a topic that relates to these three dimensions. First, on the articulation of the network society with the emergence of platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2016). Second, on the geographies of the network society (Jessop et al., 2008). And, third, on the relationship between networks and grassroots movements (Castells, 1983).

Networks in the Age of Platforms

Drawing on his pioneering work on the Informational City (Castells, 1992) and the emergence of Silicon Valley and analysis across the globe, the Trilogy’s first volume (1996) positions the foundations of the Information age by exploring the role of the technological, economic and structural labour dimensions of the rise of the network society. In this regard, one of the critical debates in the last decades has been Castells’ centrality of the network as liaising with agency and structure and in contrast to other forms of spatial organisation (e.g. scale or place). Central to it is the potential of horizontal and the decentralised nature of the internet and the information society. The two papers in the section reflect on agency and digital platforms with regards to the network society theorised by Castells.

First of all, Andrea Miconi critically explores the role of structure and agency in a society organised through network structures. The author identifies some discontinuities. The first part of Castells’ theory mainly deals with structure and the pre-eminence of social morphology over social action, whereas the second is based on agency and the role played by grassroots movements. The author concludes that despite Castells realised that the web structuring properties explain contemporary society at the macro level, he did not at the micro level as he did not recognise how social practices can be over-determined by the affordances of existing digital environments. Secondly, Francesca Comunello and Simone Mulargia analyse to what extent the platform society–based on highly centralised platforms such as Facebook – can be explained as part of the network society logics. The authors consider that networks are not an outdated heuristic tool and argue that their scale-free property also applies to the platform ecosystem.

The Geographies of the Network Society

The Information Age Trilogy ends with the (geo-)politics of the network society and informational capitalism, the included and excluded from this society, and winners and loser countries and areas. The third volume (1998) provides a macro perspective, which is the perspective of the first paper in this section. In contrast, the second paper interrogates other scales of the Network Society and opens towards a meso-level analysis that is not found in Castells’ work.

First, just when liberal democracies are in crisis (Castells 2018), Felix Stalder relies on Castells’ analysis of the breakdown of Soviet statism (Castells, 1998) to provide a framework able to identify systemic blockages in the current crisis of liberal democracy. Two of these challenges are social inequality and ecological (un-)sustainability, which create contradictions, at least at the macro level. In what appears to be a pessimistic evaluation, Stalder concludes that ‘contrary to when Castells analysed the breakdown of Soviet statism, no new paradigm has yet emerged that could replace informationalism and the political system unable to reform itself beyond it’. Second, Loredana Ivan critically explores what holds between the global and the body to develop a meso-level perspective. The paper links the theoretical framework of the Network Society with three meso-level theories in the interpersonal communication field to explain online behaviour in interactions. Again, a pessimistic perspective appears when the author highlights the constant pressure to build virtual-based relationships.

The Network and the Grassroots

In the Trilogy’s second volume (1997), Castells investigated the socio-cultural aspects of the network society, and in particular, the new emerging social movements and their role in transforming society. A recurrent topic in Castells’ works from the City and the Grassroots (Castells, 1983) to Networks of Outrage and Hope (Castells, 2012) through Communication Power (Castells, 2009), the contemporary relationship between the network society and grassroots movements is discussed in this section. The contributions explore grassroots protests in South Korea; the use of mobile communication in mediating the movement of ideas, people and resources in a rural area of South Africa; and evaluate the open-source ‘Decidim’ platform (which is inspired by the Spanish 15M movement).

First, Ji Hyeon Kim and Jun Hu analyse the politics of live video streaming in Seoul. They focus on the grassroots movements that developed in both public squares and online in 2016–17: the candlelight movement and its opposed Taegukgi movement. The authors expand the three identities Castells suggests (legitimising, resistant and project identity – Castells, 1997) and propose what they call a ‘polemical identity’ that appears to be rooted in opposed ideologies and on the confrontation and polarisation digital platforms foster. Second, Lorenzo Dalvit reflects on the space of flows concept (Castells, 1996) in analysing digital communications in Dwesa, a low income, rural area of South Africa. Mobile communication plays a crucial, while nuanced, role in shaping the flows of ideas, people, information, and resources (Cartier et al., 2005) between Dwesa and urban areas such as Cape Town. Moving beyond idyllic techno-optimistic approaches, the author identifies key tensions, such as rising prices of land properties. Finally, Rosa Borge, Joan Balcells and Albert Padró-Solanet explore the democratic innovation introduced by an open-source participatory platform, Decidim. Designed and managed by 15M movement activists, it has been implemented in several cities in Catalonia and Spain since its first launch in 2016. The authors complement Castells’ work as he has deeply analysed the protest movements inspired by the Arab Spring and particularly the 15 Movement, but he has not examined their institutionalisation. Results show the disruptions that Decidim introduces in local public administrations due to their potential for autonomous citizen participation and deliberation.