Knowledge management according to Castells

Résumé du document

In this report you will find things that I learned about Manuel Castells. First I would like to introduce this author. I think it is important to know who he is. After that it should be easy to understand his thought about knowledge. Manuel Castells was born in Spain in 1942. At school, he started to do politics in integrate a student movement against Franco. When he was 20, he went to Paris to finish his degree and to flee government's repression. After his studies of sociology, he became a teacher in France. He stayed in France until 1979 and after to go in California, USA to become a research professor. During his life, he wrote nearly twenty books. In the beginning, he chose to speak and analyze urban sociology. At this moment, his political opinion was Marxist. These ideas held great importance during his life. At the end of 80's, Castells changed his mind and decided to work on the social transformations. In 1996, he published "the rise of the network society".

Extraits

[...] The beginning allowed connecting the entire world. This is the basis of the network society. Today, we can analyze the difference between both periods. Sms, blog, skype, P2P, RSS are called basically Web These means shows the new way to communicate. With that, you can share files, received pictures, call someone, everywhere, learn what you want and give your opinion. Castells shows that user and actor are now two notions which mix themselves. In addition this freedom to communicate creates a new way to live. [...]

[...] New markets places can be found. The society of information created the network logic and geopolitical ideas. The raw of this revolution is the knowledge of technology and the search to grow up. Moreover globalization ideas exclude some areas of the world. Africa is not enough developed to attract businesses. The best communication is done by gangsters and not by politics. The new world market use only North America, Asia Pacifica area and EU. About the economy, we can say that information age facilitate the world market and help the firm's profitability. [...]

[...] We can understand the position of Castells with this sentence. He wants to tell us that communication, information is a way to manage people. To manage this situation, in the westerns countries for example, journalist ethics was spread in newspaper office and some commissions were created. Even if we cannot mix all of ideas, the information revolution gave more freedom for everyone. Now each person can, if he wants, tell what he wants. With internet and mobiles, you can create a link with everybody. [...]

[...] The reason of this point is that the freedom of communication split people and bring closer them in the same time. People who have the same point of view stay together and the dialog is not possible. This revolution brings a new way of thinking. Net/individualism shows the fight with information between government and ideological movements. By meeting people online, movements like ecologist, religious or feminist win more power. These kinds of movements are more and more common online. With the technology, everyone can build a community. [...]

[...] These three points are, according to Castells, the three dimensions which allow defining a society. As the information age changed these three points, Castells maintains that society come in a new period. This is the revolution of information. He said also that in more of these dimensions, we can find a fourth: social dynamic. The four points represent constraints for governments. They have to manage these points to stabilize the society. Information is now in the center of global society. Globalization group together people with the same thought. [...]