Communication and Culture in Manuel Castells: Explorations of the Period 1996-2009

Abstract

In this article we will get involved in the analysis of the main articulation formulas Manuel Castells proposes between the notions of communication and culture, during a period of his theoretical work spannning 1996-2009. The central purpose of this piece of work is the decoding of the main theoretical operations the Spanish sociologist carries out within this framework, as well as the general views insinuated through them. For this we will pay special attention to the tactics of appropriation that displays the Catalan sociologist in relation to the theoretical sources present in this space of intersection: Jean Baudrillard, Roland Barthes y Neil Postman. The present research, that only partially addresses the different aspects that constitute the cultural theory of the author, allow us to discover the adoption by Castells of a techno mediatic conception of communication and culture, that tend to subsume his general concept of culture, and largely is recreated in the shadow of an explicit and generalist discourse of the sociocultural communication