Apontado pela The Economist como o primeiro e mais importante filósofo do ciberespaço, Manuel Castells analisa nesse livro a internet como espinha dorsal das sociedades contemporâneas e da nova economia mundial, desvendando sua lógica, suas imposições e a liberdade que ela nos dá. Evitando fazer prescrições e previsões, apresenta dados fartos e pesquisa detalhada para ajudar a compreender como a internet é o meio pelo qual nos tornamos habitantes de uma rede global.

I originally got this book for a science, technology, and society class I took in college. At the time, it was very up to date; now it is about 6 years old, but still a worthwhile read because it is one of the most research based books on the Internet and its interactions with society that I have read. Catells makes heavy use of studies and surveys done by himself and many others to try to cut through the hype that always surrounds musing on the Internet. I will highlight a few of the most interesting chapters.

Castells discusses e-business and the new economy. His claim is that the biggest impact of the Internet on the economy is not the .com's; it is normal business extending onto the online world and adopting networked models of interaction. For example, many networked businesses do not provide the technology behind the products they sell under their name. Castells gives the example of Cisco; Cisco itself was the main node in a network of companies that do the actual manufacturing and shipping of their hardware. Such arrangements bring up issues of liability and accountability. Is it Cisco's responsibility to make sure that the companies they work with operate according to the values and standards they want? In principle, yes, but how much can they really be held responsible given the difficulty of monitoring everything? (I am reminded of the recent pet food contamination.)

In the chapter on community, Castells discussed how studies have found that, despite popular intuition, internet participation does not, in general, decrease one's connections with those one knows in real life. In fact, technologies like email (and today blogs and photo sites, I would guess) tend to bring people closer together. Studies have also found that Internet users, on average, participate more in their local community than non-users. This may be because internet use tends to replace television watching (thus not decreasing time available for community participation) while providing a means to find out how to get more involved in the community.

Castells also makes some observations on the digital divide. Although studies show that there is a large disparity in Internet use between different economic groups and races (in the US) and between countries, these gaps were (in 2001) closing. Internet use by under represented groups was increasing at a higher rate than that of other groups. However, not all is rosy and hopeful. In under represented countries, the technological infrastructure needed for Internet access was not being built on public infrastructure because it was not modern enough. Instead, companies would build their own infrastructure. Corporate money going into infrastructure that could be shared with the public was considered likely to delay the propagation of the Internet in those countries.

Although a bit old now, this book is still a worthwhile read. I certainly got more out of it this time around than I did the first time (it was one of six classes; I was busy!).

EBB-4

"If you don't care about the networks, the networks will take care about you." This sentence from the books motivates Castells' work. Internet Galaxy examines various aspects of the network society and should be required reading for anyone living in this new millennium. ( )

Довольно общий и устаревший обзор развития интернета и его состояния на начало 2000-х годов, сделанный в качестве продолжения "Галактики Гутенберга" Маклюена. Имеет смысл читать скорее в качестве истории осмысления революционных изменений, которые принес с собой интернет, чем в качестве самостоятельной актуальной книги. Кастельс, как бы то ни было, серьезный социолог. ( )