Castells – Communication Power

 Deals about:

• The structural determinants of social and political power in the global network society.
• The structural determinants of the process of mass communication under the organizational, cultural and technological conditions of our time.
• The cognitive processing of the signal presented by the communication system to the human mind as it relates tho politically relevant social practice. (CASTELLS, 2009, p. 8).

Power definition: “Power is the most fundamental process in society, since society is defined around values and institutions, and what is valued and institutionalized is defined by power relationships. Power is the relational capacity that enables a social actor to influence asymmetrically the decisions of other social actor(s) in way that favor the empowered actor’s will, interests, and values. Power is exercised by means of coercion (or the possibility of it) and/or by the construction of meaning on the basis of the discourses through which social actors guide their action. Power relationships are framed by domination, which is the power that is embedded in the institutions of society. The relational capacity of power is conditioned, bu not determined, by the structural capacity of domination”. (CASTELLS, 2009, p. 10).

“Relational capacity means that power is not an attribute but a relationship. (…) Asymmetrically means that while the influence in a relationship is always reciprocal, in power relationships there is always a greater degree of influence of one actor over other. (…) There is complementarity and reciprocal support between the two main mechanisms of power formation identified by theories of power: violence and discourse”. (CASTELLS, 2009, p. 11).

Frase inspiradora: “I fight my fights; I do no call upon others to do it for me, or even with me”. (CASTELLS, 2009, p. 9).

Link para resumo (em andamento): https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2VuFFwvsCFpVFEzWnE5Zm11WEE