Star Sailboat Drawing

Manuel Castells: mass self, crucial for social change

Israel Pulido Sandra Macedo Serna and Mayer

Dr. Manuel Castells gave the keynote Communication and power in the Auditorium Ricardo Flores Magon of the Faculty. It happened under a mild climate, where the student community is respectful and showed interest to the presentation of a character whose contributions in the field of social sciences have been essential to understand what is known today as the information age.

With a warm welcome from the doctors and Judit Bokser Alicia Ziccardi, holders of university curricula on the City, and the director of the Faculty, Fernando Castañeda Sabido, it was a small remembrance to the doctor's career Castells, listing the works that have recognized, and the contribution of his speeches on the countries and socially excluded people.

The conference focused on the communication-information formula which constitute the relations of power and counter. He stressed: "Where there is domination there is resistance." Understood as exchange and negotiations between different social actors. In such a way that are multiple power sources and their study makes the Social Sciences, in its opinion, the area of \u200b\u200bhuman knowledge more important and complex.

stressed the importance of the Gramscian hegemonic theory relates to the issue of power, it has been present in their research, adapting in different ways, but in his book Communication and power more deeply into the subject, considering its communicational aspect. Castells

proposed to overcome fear not individually but collectively, through networks, as opposed to the idea that "there is no possible way to live" set by the main nodes that permeate the social spheres and influence the minds of the isolated and homogenized, preventing effective participation in democracy. The formation of important nodes for the network results in a change of thinking that leads to action and social change it.

also established that if means the media as a space where relationships are built for power, there is also where rules are generated this: if there is no media policy. That is, the system operates under a form dichotomy: there is only appearing in the media.

contributed a key concept for understanding social interactions and current economic policies: the self-mass. Concept that is understood as the autonomous capacity to produce messages from and to society, without being mediated by the powers that be.

"The messenger suffers, the message live." Thus Castells referred to the risks on an issuer that transgresses the traditional codes and called into question or at risk of vertical power relations. However, the message can transcend, not be curtailed in their freedom to reproduce.

Manuel Castells concluded his presentation by inviting young people to take an active role for the integration of the popular and demanding respect for human rights that have so damaged the social fabric. Finally said: "Mexico will be saved by your company connected, not by their government."

PHOTOS MYRIAM COURT. Manuel Castells at UNAM