Manuel Castells
For the first time, entire planet in a capitalistsystem
Global economy based on ‘core activities’:finance, tech, communication, networks ofproducers of goods and services
Global economy is informational: coreactivities rely on knowledge & information
“A network is a set of interrelated units thatdepend on each other for the performance oftheir common task”
A new economic actor: the network enterprise
◦Constituted around the business project
◦Flexible & adaptable
◦Adjusts to demand, technology, process & product
◦Needs high-speed transportation and communication
◦Emergence of flexible work: temp, freelance, etc.
Firms must manage contradiction betweenvalue of labor and transient workers
Workers need to acquire and updatespecialized knowledge
Labor unions’ changing role from firm-basedrepresentation to political representation
Individualization of work and its sustainability
4 changes in education:
Quantity:
◦Explosion in number of computers
◦Disparities in student/computer ratios andeffectiveness
◦1996: 98% of all schools had a computer
◦2009: 97% of PS classrooms had a computer
◦Internet access: 64% 93%
Quality:
◦Positive effects overall
◦But: influence of context (school, teacher training,family influence…)
Organization: the knowledge-creating school
◦Teaching & learning based on creating skills
◦Technology may extend student autonomy and freeup teachers’ time for research
◦Schools intra- and interconnected to shareknowledge
Purpose:
Schools must teach the use of technology to helpstudents find information, and…
“…generate specific knowledge in an endlessprocess of redefinition of skills, depending on thetasks to be performed and the context of theperformance.”
Internet diffusion:
◦1998: 100-130 million users worldwide
◦2011: 2.1 billion
Deep implications for social movements
Difficulty of censoring information
Internet as extension of existingcommunities, which are increasingly based onaffinity rather than space.
Increasing income polarization
Extreme poverty
Social exclusion
Widespread increase of inequality in countriesand worldwide
Current framing of ICT’s within capitalism amajor factor in rising inequality
Flexibility & global reach
Education, information, science & technologycritical but uneven
Networked/individualized economy increasespeople’s isolation
Widespread feminization of poverty
Gender & racial discrimination, digital divide
Crisis of the welfare state
Space of places and space of flows:
“there is, at the same time, spatialconcentration and decentralization ofactivities and human settlements.”
Global city as composite of bits of urbancenters where flows are enabled
Timeless time:
◦Electronic circuits allow for light-speedcommunication, compression of time
◦De-sequencing: clock time was more ordered.Timeless time breaks predictable patterns (incareers, biological cycles, etc.) and allows forendless recombining.
“There is a dramatic gap between ourtechnological over-development and oursocial underdevelopment”
“After conquering the power of life or deathover our own species, we may well follow ourdeath wish”
Examples of developments analyzed byCastells – how have things changed since1999?
How do Castells’ timeless time and space offlows inform educators’ and technologists’practices?
What to make of the knowledge-creatingschool? Is it a desirable/likely direction?
