Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Kista - The Two Sides of the Network Society

2004; Netcom Association; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3406/netco.2004.1608

2431-210X

Ester Barinaga, Lena Ramfelt,

ICT Impact and Policies

The term “network society” is often discussed as the society of the future, with technological saturation, knowledge-based work, and network structure being its defining characteristics. The network society implies a world populated by engineers, global telecom companies, highly mobile workers, cultural diversity, spin-offs, high-tech clusters, and venture capital. Theoretical approaches and empirical studies of the network society focus mainly on this side of the network society. Yet, there is another side to it. One that is often forgotten by the literature. A side more rightfully recognized by low-skilled workers, job insecurity, and few possibilities to influence the society to come. In the paper, we attempt to offer a more balanced picture of the network society. We center our study in Kista, “Sweden’s Silicon Valley”. An analysis of the two local free newspapers shows that the social relationships of the network society are much more intricate than usually described. In our conclusions, we discuss the biased and simplistic conceptualizations of terms such as “network society”, “informational capitalism” or “new economy. ”