Informational/global in understanding of modern society by Manuel Castells

Abstract

The relevance of the topic considered in this article is predetermined by the acuteness and importance of everything that currently exists in the society and is related to both information processes and the information society. The article presents a critical analysis of the information society concept proposed by well-known Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells and also examines some critical arguments by Frank Webster. Controversial position of Castells with regard to information and technological determinism, his understanding of the information society, which comes from the separation of concepts informational/global economy and industrial economy, as well as attributes of a new type of society are considered. Specificities of post-Marxist basis of Castells’s theory and his controversial position on technological determinism are analyzed. It was highly appreciated that the author distinguished the main source of productivity as the impact of knowledge on the knowledge itself. The conclusion is made that the opinion of the sociologist both on the national state and the crisis that accompanies the state and the form of political democracy described by Castells can not be considered as an evidence of the emergence of a new type of society.