Professor Manuel Castells will open up a broad panorama of issues tied to the development and use of the Internet, ranging from sociability to education, business, and politics.

Manuel Castells is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed in 1979. He has been professor of sociology at the Universities of Paris and Madrid, and has published over 17 books, including The City and the Grassroots (Blackwell, 1989).

Professor Castell's recent trilogy on the information age has been widely acclaimed. The Rise of the Network Society (1996), Volume I of his three volume work, entitled The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publications) has reinvigorated debate about the information society among both researchers and practitioners.

Professor Castells was appointed in 1995/96 to the European's Commissions's High Level Expert Group on the Information Society and is a member of the European Academy.

This lecture will be available on the @Annenberg web site.