000			01849pab a2200157 454500
008			180718b2000 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aCastells, Manuel
245			_aMaterials for an exploratory theory of the network society
260			_c2000
300			_ap.5-24
362			_aJan-Mar
520			_aThis article aims at proposing some elements for a grounded theory of the network society. The network society is the social structure characteristic of the Information Age, as tentatively identified by empirical, cross-cultural investigation. It permeates most societies in the world, in various cultural and institutional manifestations, as the industrial society characterized the social structure of both capitalism and statism for most of the twentieth century. Social structures are organized around relationships of production/consumption, power, and experience, whose spatio-temporal configurations constitute cultures. They are enacted, reproduced, and ultimately transformed by social actors, rooted in the social structure, yet freely engaging in conflictive social practices, with unpredictable outcomes. A fundamental feature of social structure in the Information Age is its reliance on networks as the key feature of social morphology. While networks are old forms of social organization, they are now empowered by new information/communication technologies, so that they become abale to cope at the same time with flexible decentralization, and with focused decision-making. The article examines the specific interaction between network morphology and relationships of production/consumption, power, experience, and culture, in the historical making of the emerging social structure at the turn of the Millennium. - Reproduced
650			_aSocial structure
773			_aBritish Journal of Sociology
909			_a50293
999			_c50293 _d50293