In Manuel Castell's "Why Networks Matter," he explains how the "information age" or "knowledge age" is really a misnomer. All societies have valued knowledge. The true aspect that separates us from other ages is our communication structure: we are the "network age."

Modern day control is held in networks, argues Castell. Even though the economic system has been consolidating, the successful businesses are those who make productive connections and form a reliable network. The power elite aren't really the power elite, as they solicit their power from their networks and often change their position on the power scale when connections are created, broken, or changed.

I definitely agree with most of his listed points. As the saying goes "its not what you know its who you know." I find it interesting how people always call this era the "information age" when we don't generally expect people to remember large amounts of information. Instead, we expect them to be able to retrieve the information when needed by using their set of networks (one of the reasons I feel modern standardized testing is archaic). Although I feel he disregards the existence of a power elite that I feel clearly exists (one that utilizes their closed networks). I think the general idea is correct, and hopefully we see this reflected more in our society such as our testing practices, education, job requirements, etc.