Manuel Castells receives Holberg prize

Manuel Castells, University Professor and Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at USC and the foremost cited communication scholar in the world, was recently awarded the 2012 Holberg International Memorial Prize, a Norwegian honor that "recognizes outstanding scholarly work in arts and humanities, social science, law and theology." I'm lagging behind much of the communication world in familiarizing myself with Castell's work. He first blipped on my radar at the ICA conference in Boston last May, where every panel I attended save one mentioned Castells. This weekend I started reading Philip Howard's Castells and the Media.

From the PRNewswire article:

Castells, who holds the Wallis Annenberg Chair of Communication Technology and Society at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, is the most cited communication scholar in the world, and was recognized by the Holberg Prize Academic Committee as "the leading sociologist of the city and new information and media technologies."

"His ideas and writings have shaped our understanding of the political dynamics of urban and global economies in the network society. He has illuminated the underlying power structures of the great technological revolutions of our time and their consequences," the prize committee said of Castells.