Castells identifies four ways that power operates in networks: 1) The power of actors and organizations included in core global networks over those not included, 2) The power resulting from standards required to coordinate social interaction in networks through rules of inclusion, 3) The power of social actors over others within specific networks, and 4) The power to program and switch between networks according to strategic alliances between dominant actors.

1. Power in Networks
Castells’s four ways that power operates in networks
Castells, M. ‘A network theory of power’
International Journal of Communications 5 (2011)

2. Networking
power
The power of the actors and
organisations included in the
networks that constitute the
core of the global network
society over human collectives
and individuals who are not
included in these global networks

3. Network Power
The power resulting from the standards
required to co-ordinate social interaction in
the networks. In this case, power is exercised
not by exclusion from the networks but by
the imposition of the rules of inclusion.

4. The power of social actors over
Networked other social actors in the
network. The forms and
Power processes of networked power
are specific to each network.

5. Network-
making
power
The power to program specific
networks according to the
interests and values of the
programmers, and the power to
switch different networks
following the strategic alliances
between the dominant actors of
various networks