Manuel Castells: Power and counter-power in the digital society

Kino International, Karl-Marx-Allee 33, 10178 Berlin

How is power constituted in the digital society? Who is powerful – and how can power be countered and contested? The advent of digitally networked technologies has long been thought to foster democratisation and emancipation, to empower people that have previously been marginalised and neglected. Today, we know that the story is more complex: only a few companies dominate the internet ecosystem, democratic uprisings like the much-cited “Arab Spring” have faced severe repressions.