Manuel Castells. Manuel Castells (Spanish: Manuel Castells Oliván; born 1942) is a Spanish sociologist especially associated with research on the information society, communication and globalization.
The 2000–09 research survey of the Social Sciences Citation Index ranks him as the world’s fifth most-cited social science scholar, and the foremost-cited communication scholar.[1] He was awarded the 2012 Holberg Prize,[2] for having "shaped our understanding of the political dynamics of urban and global economies in the network society. "[3] In 2013 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Sociology. Life[edit] UQ. NUQ.