Manuel Castells

26. August 2008 | From Tino Kressner | Category: Portraits

Manuel Castells, according to the magazine The Economist as "the first great philosopher of cyberspace" means. 2002 describes him the Internet magazine Telepolis as the "Voltaire of the Information Age."

The American sociologist is of Spanish origin until his visit to Silicon Valley in the early 90s with urban sociology (Urban Sociology and Social Movements). Impressed by the possibilities of the Internet, he creates with his trilogy about the information age with the most comprehensive attempt at a social theory about our society today. He describes the social transformations in a globalized world, triggered by the new networked communication technologies. With this sociological analysis of contemporary Castells describes today's global society with the Internet as a central communication medium. His theories describe a new form of society that deal with the concepts of information society, knowledge society and network society can be described.

Further to the information age

Biography of Dr. mult. hc Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells is on 9.2.1942 in Hellin, Spain was born and grew up in Valencia. He studied from 1958-62 Law and Economics at the University of Barcelona. As a student activist against the Franco dictatorship, he fled to Paris, where he taught at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1964 Masters and 1965 his diploma test. 1967 he earned his doctorate as a doctor of sociology and earned a doctorate in human sciences. With 24 years Castells was the youngest professor and taught methods of social research in Sorbonne. He has done research on the field of urban sociology. From 1970 to 1979 he taught urban sociology in Paris. 1972 he published his first book entitled "La Question Urbaine", which in ten languages worldwide and has been a classic. Castells thus is considered one of the founders of the New Urban Sociology.

1979 takes it to America and will be there until 2003, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, appointed. During this time he also serves as chairman of the Center for Western European Studies, is committee member of the Institute for International Studies and College of Environmental Design. Between 1983 and 1993 it will be added to the professor and director at Insititut for Sociology of New Technologies at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid appointed. Since 2001 he is Research Professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in Barcelona and since 2003 Professor of Communication at University of Southern California (USC). At the Annenberg School of Communication, he has the Department of Sociology and Communication Technology Group. When he was a visiting professor at 15 other European, U.S. and Latin American, Canadian and Asian universities, he gave lectures to over 300 academic institutions in some 40 countries.

Castells also worked as a policy adviser in the immediate vicinity such as the European High Level Expert Group on the Information Society, UNESCO, International Labor Office, United Nations Development Program, Center on Public Diplomacy, U.S. Agency for International Development, European Commission and the Government of Mexico , Chile, France, Ecuador, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, China and the Russian Federation.

He wrote 19 books, over 100 articles, was co-author of 22 other books, 42 times consultant for doctoral theses and academic advisors from 21 magazines. His most important contribution so far to sociology is the trilogy to the Information Age, which he from 1996 to 1998 wrote. In his latest book, he deals with how the wireless information and communication technology is changing society.

2005 will be drawn up by the European Commission to the founding member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council appointed. 2006 he is Visiting Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University.

Castells lives in Barcelona and is married to Emma Kiselyova. He has two children and three grandchildren. He speaks six languages.

Major Works

(Annual number corresponds to the first publication)

Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective. 2006
The Internet Galaxy. 2001
The Information Age, Bd.3, the turn of the millennium. 1998
The Information Age, Bd.2, The Power of Identity. 1997
The Information Age, Bd.1, The Network Society. 1996
The Informational City. 1989
The City and the Grass Roots, A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. 1983
La Question Urbaine. 1972