This weeks lecture was a little bit on the confusing side, but a lot of interesting concepts were introduced to me. Manuel Castells’ work was the main focus of the lecture. He wrote about the internet  and the connectivity it provides and will provide in the future in the 1990s and basically managed to predict how the world is today. The concept of network society was introduced and from what I understood it is the way we, the public, reinvent and innovate on already existing services and incorporate the use of online network. For example the Boris bikes in London, there are many stations around the city and an app that allows you to see if there are enough bikes or parking spaces at the destination you are going to to help you be connected with the whole scheme. However, network society only works when the network works (i.e. if there is a mechanical/ technical failure the whole thing cannot operate).

The next idea I was introduced to academically was the idea that all this connectivity completely rules out the relevance of time and space as an obstacle. Before the internet you had to plan a business trip to go across the globe to meet with business associates, that trip would take time and you would have travel across space to reach destination, but now all you need to do is open your laptop and call them on Skype. This is how the network society manages to eliminate the analogue concepts of time and space.