Industrialism and Informationalism Term Paper

Total Length: 597 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

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Being global and virtual in nature, the new system of capitalism is more multicultural and international than ever before, being wide open to economic exploitation from a playing field that has become level in the virtual environment. The result is a new, network society.

According to Castells, this is the result of three independent processes that began during the 1960s and 1970s, including the information technology revolution, the economic crisis and restructuring of capitalism and statism, and the rise of social movements such as those fighting for human rights and environmentalism. Whereas interdependence rose with the inception of capitalism, the new capitalism makes this phenomenon even more prominent; the sheer amount of expertise and information is so vast that it is now impossible to exist without the help and support of other human beings.

Castells identifies three key characteristics of informationalism: The first is the internal fragmentation of labor; the second is the social exclusion of those whose worker/consumer value has become obsolete, and thirdly the separation of global capital flow networks and the human experience of working life.

One can therefore hardly say that the Information Age has only benefits to offer even societies who directly profit from it. Indeed, these very societies are threatened by their increased connections with each other and with the world.

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Castells mentions global terrorism as another disadvantage of the rapid increase in information technology and the knowledge it is created to store. It is concomitantly becoming increasingly easier for global terrorists to connect to key networks and destroy or sabotage whatever they find. The author somewhat darkly hints that this is but the tip of a very large and very hidden iceberg in the future......

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"Industrialism And Informationalism", 17 February 2008, Accessed.21 May. 2025,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/industrialism-informationalism-manuel-castells-32156