Comment on Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society (Castells)

summary:

In his article Comunication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society, Manuel Castells points how the rise of “mass self-communication” changed communication landscape enabling social movements that were before aside of main media. In fact, mass media and those “horizontal” movements, are converging.

We moved from a one-way message from one to many to a network society in which communication is global and horizontal. Although, there is to some point, a certain degree of “electronic autism”, that means people who are developing contents for themselves instead of doing it for an audience (like this blog, for example); even in this case, contents are able to be taken, read, and use by others. Traditional media are in a contradictory position when adopting horizontal content production approaches and this is due to some political and businesses struggles.

Main characteristics of new situation according to Castells:

- massive; potentially global

- self-generated; self-directed; self-selected (I would summarize it as customized)

One example of the shift towards mass-self communication in media businesses are their investments: Newscorp acquisition of Myspace.

To some in the traditional media business, these are the most stressful of times. But to us, these are great times. Technology is liberating us from old constraints, lowering key costs, easing access to new customers and markets, and multiplying the choices we can offer. (Murdoch, 2006)

We have seen other movements in the same direction and there seems to be an absortion of new networks by older media. Castells concludes that we are in the struggle fo humankind to free our minds.

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comment:

We are going to an asymetric rather than horizontal communication model, and it is due to differences in culture, time and priorities among individuals. Our profile when facing new technologies differ, and some people will tend to get more power than others (with the mentioned power balance change mentioned by Castells). This will shape society in a different kind of power relationships (not purely horizontal). Of course, horizontal in Castells, is more related to “potentially horizontal” than to really horizontal.