The Annual Review of Sociology
Online ISSN : 1884-0086
Print ISSN : 0919-4363
ISSN-L : 0919-4363
Network as meta-perspective
The potential of network concept advanced by Manuel Castells
Daisuke TANAKA
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2008 Volume 2008 Issue 21 Pages 13-24

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Abstract
This paper's purpose is to examine the potential of the network concept advanced by Manuel Castells. Various commentators have already criticized the network concept of Castells for its ambiguity. But the ambiguity of his concept, especially its abstract and formal character, has important implications. Network as a social form can be distinguished from other forms (hierarchy, market, and community), but, on the other this form's logic can also connote those forms as well. In other words network as logic can be located in a metaperspective as it operates on other social forms and as it generates alternative forms. A network can be expected to have a great potential to produce "timeless time" and "space of flow". And this high reflexivity of the network reveals the network society as an open system.
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© 2008 The Kantoh Sociological Society
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