by gtdonovan on March 5, 2010 at 2:23 pm · Filed under Castells, ecology, environmentalism, informationalism, methodology, nature, quotes
From The Power of Identity (The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Volume II), pp 112-113:
By environmentalism I refer to all forms of collective behavior that, in their discourse and in their practice, aim at correcting destructive forms of relationship between human action and its natural environment, in opposition to the prevailing structural and institutional logic. By ecology, in my sociological approach, I understand a set of beliefs, theories, and projects that consider humankind as a component of a broader ecosystem and wish to maintain the system’s balance in a dynamic, evolutionary perspective.
In my view, environmentalism is ecology in practice, and ecology is environmentalism in theory . . .
From The Power of Identity (The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Volume II), p 133:
The ecological approach to life, to the economy, and to the institutions of society emphasizes the holistic character of all forms of matter, and of all information processing. Thus, the more we know, the more we sense the possibilities of our technology, and the more we realize the gigantic, dangerous gap between our enhanced productive capacities, and our primitive, unconscious, and ultimately destructive social organization.
by gtdonovan on August 28, 2009 at 5:48 pm · Filed under Castells, CEM, commodification, Grinch, informationalism, News Corp, property
According to Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corp:
We intend to charge for our news websites. The Wall Street Journal‘s WSJ.com is the world’s most successful paid news site and we will be using our profitable experience there and the resulting unique skills throughout News Corp to increase our revenues from all our content.
And from Chase Carey, News Corp’s Vice-Chairman and COO:
We believe customers value quality journalism. We need to get paid for our product as it shifts to the digital world.
Whether it’s Diller, Iger, or Murdoch – there is one message here: People need to pay us even more for the privilege of being influenced by our digital content! But, isn’t their influence valuable enough? Rather than discussing how consumers should pay more for the privilege of being influenced by these corporations, we should be discussing the social, political, psychological, and economic costs of giving these corporations the kind of influence they have. We pay a price by allowing corporations like IAC, Disney, and News Corp to wield as much power as they do within our society – something Manuel Castells highlights nicely in his “Communication, power and counter-power in the network society” essay.
