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* Manuel CASTELLS Communication Power Oxford University Press, 2009, 571 pages
by Jean-Dominique SÉVAL
From the emergence of a mass self-communication toward a communication theory of power
The latest book from Manuel Castells is an event coming eight years after his Internet Galaxy, even if he has regularly published as co-author on major themes such as The Information Society and the Welfare State (2002), The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (2004), The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy or Mobile Communication and Society (2006). We could almost say that Castells closes, with this latest book, a long circle passing by his famous The Information Age trilogy (2000), and finding also its inspiration at the heart of his personal history.
Actually, the author, in its opening, tells the story of the young 18 year-old, Manuel, entering the Resistance against the post Civil-War Spanish regime, and making the concrete experiment that if power is more than communication it relies on the control of communication and that mass communication is shaped and managed by power relationships. This is the subject matter of this book. Communication Power seeks to build on Castells previous theory dedicated...